Selection Committee Fails to Approve Santa Clarita Councilmember Jason Gibbs for Metro Board
Santa Clarita City Councilmember Jason Gibbs is not joining the Metro board. Today, representatives of cities throughout L.A. County failed to ratify Gibbs, the board candidate elected by cities in the North County and Valley subregion. Today’s vote sends the selection process back to the subregion.
The 13-member Metro board includes five L.A. County representatives, four L.A. City representatives, and five other city elected officials, each representing a different L.A. County subregion.
With Glendale Councilmember Ara Najarian retiring, the Metro board has a vacancy for a representative of the cities of North L.A. County and the San Fernando Valley. This relatively suburban subregion includes the cities of Agoura Hills, Burbank, Calabasas, Glendale, Hidden Hills, La Cañada Flintridge, Lancaster, Malibu, Palmdale, San Fernando, Santa Clarita, and Westlake Village. City representatives (generally mayors) cast population-weighted votes for Metro board appointments via an obscure governmental body called the L.A. County City Selection Committee.
In early July, the Valley/North subregion met to elect their Metro representative. The July City Selection Committee meeting narrowly approved appointing Jason Gibbs to Metro.
That subregion decision was the first step in a two-step process.
Gibbs is a law-and-order strengthen-the-border Republican. He is facing a November run-off election for U.S. Congress, against incumbent Democrat George Whitesides. At the earlier subregion meeting, Gibbs stated that his role at Metro would include supporting freeways. He downplayed Metro’s roles in providing transit, and facilitating walking and bicycling.
Todays meeting was the second step in the appointment process. City representatives from all of L.A. County (88 cities) met to vote on ratifying the subregion’s appointment.
Today’s meeting heard more than a dozen public comments against confirming Gibbs for the Metro board. Westside livability advocate Jacob Wasserman asserted that “a vote for Gibbs is a vote for Trump [and] ICE.”
Several city representatives – from Glendale Mayor Ardy Kassakhian to City of San Fernando Mayor Victoria Garcia to Santa Clarita City Councilmember
Marsha McLean – expressed support for Gibbs.
Gibbs statement today was decidedly multi-modal. He spoke of his support for Santa Clarita’s “over 115 miles of active bike lanes and shared lanes that get people off the road.” (Semantic nitpick: Santa Clarita has an excellent network of 80+ miles of off-street bike/walk paths – plus dozens of miles of on-street bike lanes.) Gibbs noted that he presided over the the opening of the Vista Canyon Metrolink Station, bus hub, and transit-oriented housing. He elaborated on his support for freeway projects, “[freeway] maintenance and safety improvements are not optional; they are critical lifelines.” Further, Gibbs emphasized that, for the North/Valley subregion, “we have freeways that have serious safety issues. The bottlenecking that occurs on the 14… is extremely dangerous.”
Ultimately city representatives throughout L.A. county declined to support Gibbs appointment to Metro.
30 cities’ representatives abstained from voting. 13 cities opposed Gibbs. 11 cities supported Gibbs: Bellflower, Calabasas, Glendale, Hidden Hills, Lakewood, Malibu, Palos Verdes Estates, San Fernando, Santa Clarita, Sierra Madre, and Westlake Village.
The appointment is not decided on the total number of cities, because cities cast population-weighted votes. Populous cities’ votes can count for several dozen, and many small cities casting a single vote [see full city by city breakdown as of 2019]. With 11 cities supporting Gibbs, he received roughly 70 population-weighted votes out of more than 500 overall possible votes.
The exact math is difficult to calculate precisely, but a rough breakdown follows. The full 88 L.A. County cities votes total roughly 520. At least half of those votes (city officials representing at least half of the total L.A. County population) need to be present for quorum. Today about 30 cities were absent from the meeting, so the overall votes present totaled roughly 250-300 (a little over half of 520). To get onto the Metro board, Gibbs would have needed a majority of the votes present – around 130-150 votes – twice as many as he received.
Today’s failure to ratify appears unprecedented. For at least 20 years, possibly much longer, the full county vote has always approved the subregion’s Metro board appointee. The last somewhat-close call was in 2012 when 710 Freeway tunnel proponents opposed Najarian’s reappointment, but failed to rally enough votes.
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