In yesterday’s Whittier City Council elections, challenger Aida Susie Macedo unseated incumbent Fernando Dutra. Current (preliminary) counts show Macedo with 67% of votes, and Dutra with 27%. Dutra has conceded to Macedo.
The Whittier council races, though officially non-partisan, made national headlines as three Democrat-endorsed challengers unseated three Republican-endorsed incumbents.
Since 2021, Dutra has served on the Metro Board as the subregion representative for the South Bay. He is currently the Board Chair. However, his membership requires him to hold elected office per state law. When Macedo is sworn in on April 28, Dutra will no longer be eligible to be a member of the board.
Who Will Be the Board Chair?
Dutra will likely remain on the board to chair the April 23 regular board meeting. However, it’s not clear who will be chair in May and June. Officially Dutra’s departure shifts chair to First Vice Chair Jaqueline Dupont-Walker, an appointee of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. The chairpersonship is already scheduled to rotate to Dupont-Walker (or Bass) on July 1.
Alternately another subregion representative (such as Glendale City Councilmember Ara Najarian, who has chaired in the past) could step in for two months.
Long-term Impact to the Board
The Metro Board Chair is not a powerful position; it is mostly ceremonial and with control over agenda setting. There is potential for a significant power shift when Dutra’s replacement is seated on the Metro Board.
Metro Gateway Cities subregion – click to enlarge
The 13-member Metro board includes five County Supervisors, four L.A. City representatives, and four subregion representatives. Dutra represents the Gateway Cities subregion: Southeast L.A. County.
In a somewhat obscure process, Dutra’s replacement will be elected by a body known as the Los Angeles County City Selection Committee. In electing their Metro representative the Gateway Cities cast votes weighted by population. Long Beach, by far the most populous city in the subregion has 48 votes of 173 total – over a quarter of all votes. Other relatively large cities include Bellflower (8 votes), Compton (10), Downey (11) Lakewood (8), Norwalk (11), and Whittier (9). Many cities with few residents – Commerce, Signal Hill, Vernon – get just one vote.
Gateway Cities population-based vote totals – via City Selection Committee rules
At some point in the next month, the county will convene a Gateway Cities City Section Committee meeting. The time and date should be posted at this county webpage.
While Dutra has championed the Eastside Metro E Line light rail extension (which will extend to Whittier), he has been an enthusiastic supporter of many Metro freeway expansion projects. Whittier tends to be one of more suburban cities in the diverse Gateway Cities. His replacement could represent a more urban constituency, perhaps from Long Beach or the Southeast L.A. County Cities (SELA).