Mike Antonovich is a legend in Los Angeles County politics, and though he retired in late 2016 he’s still extremely popular and beloved by the people he served for nearly four decades as a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. When he retired, his longtime Chief of Staff, Kathryn Barger, ran for the seat and won, but Antonovich has stayed involved in the community — and is sickened by what he sees happening in his beloved county, largely the result of Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer having unfettered power.

Antonovich heard about the exclusive story we broke on The John Phillips Show Tuesday, “Study CDC Relied Upon for School Mask Mandates Was Authored by LA County Public Health Director’s Daughter – Who’s Also Not an MD,” and appeared on Phillips’ show Friday to react. Ferrer held her weekly press conference Thursday and was confronted by the press but was unapologetic, saying, “The public knows what they need to know.”

Phillips got right to the point with Antonovich, asking if Ferrer should resign, and Antonovich quickly replied:

She should resign, and she should be fired if she doesn’t resign.

Elaborating a bit, Antonovich called out Ferrer’s lack of specialized knowledge and her deception as two reasons to get rid of her.

Barbara is a sociologist. She’s not a public health director. She’s getting $500,000 a year to not give full disclosure to the public, her…employer, because her daughters gives a report that mandates masks that have ruined a lot of our students, having to wear them or not go to school.

Antonovich’s successor says she didn’t know that Kaitlin Barnes was Ferrer’s daughter until RedState’s story dropped on Tuesday. When asked what he would do if he were still serving, Antonovich said he would call her before the Board:

I would move with a motion to have her dismissed for not describing to the public or the board of supervisors or the entire health department that she was using a non-medical physician to give her information which would have a mask mandate…throughout the system.

She deceived, and there is no excuse….But right now, they’re all asleep. It’s like Rip van Winkle, and they’re all asleep.

Phillips noted that Antonovich still has relationships with many of the rank and file scientists at the Department of Public Health, who worked with an actual physician before Ferrer was foisted upon the county. As described in a May 2020 open letter those employees wrote to the Board of Supervisors, exclusively printed at RedState, Ferrer has terrorized those who actually want to use science to drive good public health policy, and it’s had effects. Antonovich said:

The morale is in the toilet. You have incompetents running a department…who are unqualified. It’s like giving a person who can’t drive a car, a car to drive.

Antonovich had strong words for all of the current members of the Board of Supervisors.

The Board needs to bring these people to account by removing them, because they don’t have tenure. A department head does not have tenure. He or she can be removed. Here there was a complete deceiving the public about the conflict with her daughter. It’s like a — reminds me of Pelosi not knowing that her husband was putting a million dollars in some business with chips.

He then called for the Board to replace Ferrer with an actual doctor.

There’s a problem with integrity and ethics in the political arena today and we ought to start now with getting rid of Barbara and bringing in an eminent public health doctor to be the head of the public health department.

Amen, Amen, and Amen! He wasn’t finished.

We need a complete makeover in the County of Los Angeles This is not the Board of Supervisors that my other four colleagues that I served with of all different political persuasions are today. We were able in the past to have differences but still move forward and make good policy decisions. Today we have no good policy decisions, and they’re not working together.

Antonovich numerous criticisms of the current board, including that three of them have not had open offices during the entire pandemic, leaving millions of constituents with no way to get assistance, but it can all be summed up with the following:

This is a disturbing and dangerous policy. They’re asleep. They’re followers. They’re not leaders.

The next Board of Supervisors meeting is Tuesday. It should be an interesting one. Will they listen to any of the advice given by this man who has been in their shoes, and who actually put the constituents first?

Listen to the entire segment here. It’s a good one.