Gateway Cities Elect Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson To Metro Board
Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson will join the Metro board of directors, likely by early July. This morning the subregion’s representatives met and unanimously elected Richardson. One additional approval, generally expected to rubber-stamp the subregion’s choice, is required before Richardson joins the 13-member board.
Richardson will fill a vacancy that opened when current Gateway Cities Metro representative Fernando Dutra lost his Whittier City Council reelection campaign in April. Latino Democrat voters made national news by sweeping three conservative-leaning incumbents off of the city’s five-member council.
The Gateway Cities subregion selects their Metro representative via a vote of a somewhat obscure body called the Los Angeles County City Selection Committee Southeast Long Beach Corridor Sector. The committee consists of twenty-six city representatives, each of whom casts a population-weighted vote. Long Beach City represents nearly a third of area’s population.
This morning the subregion City Selection Committee met and unanimously voted for Richardson. This vote still must be approved by the full L.A. County City Selection Committee, which is expected to meet in late June or early July. The full county committee committee is expected to approve both Richardson and a replacement for Glendale City Councilmember/Mayor Ara Najarian, who is retiring.
In 2022, Rex Richardson became the first Black mayor of Long Beach. Prior to that he served on the City Council where he represented the city’s 9th Council District, which is a predominantly Black and Latino working class area of North Long Beach. Richardson is a Democrat with a background in labor organizing. He has a strong record of championing housing and economic development.
Long Beach has long been among the top half-dozen most bike/walk/transit-friendly cities in L.A. County. Richardson has championed multimodal transportation investments, including the Artesia Great Boulevard Project.
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