L.A. Council Could Pick Nithya Raman's Replacement Without a Vote

Neighborhood groups are pushing for a special election for the 4th District seat, but the council won't decide until next year.

A homeowners group in Encino voted unanimously Wednesday to ask the Los Angeles City Council to let voters choose who replaces Nithya Raman. "We won't accept an anointment," Rob Glushon, president of the Encino Property Owners Assn., told the Los Angeles Times, which reported Thursday that neighborhood leaders across her district are getting ready for a fight.

Raman becomes mayor Dec. 14 and leaves behind the 4th District seat, which stretches from Silver Lake to the west San Fernando Valley. The 14 council members she leaves behind will decide how to fill it, and Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson told the Times that won't happen until next year. "We haven't ruled anything out," he said.

The City Charter gives them both options. Under Section 409, council members can either hand the seat to someone they choose or pass an ordinance calling a special election. While that election is pending, the council "may appoint a person to hold the office temporarily."

The city clerk's spokesperson, Josué Marcus, spelled out the practical menu, according to the Times. If there's an election, the council can install a nonvoting caretaker or an interim member who votes until the results are final. If there isn't, it can appoint a voting member who serves out Raman's term, which ends in December 2028.

That last path is what's lighting up Anastasia Mann's phone. The president of the Hollywood Hills West Neighborhood Council told the Times that people from all over the district have been calling her about it. "It's not like we have six months left in her term," she said. "We have half of the term left."

The council has gone both ways recently. That's how Heather Hutt arrived in 2022: council members gave the onetime aide to state lawmakers Mark Ridley-Thomas's vote while he battled a federal corruption case. The next year, after his conviction forced him from office, they reappointed her for the rest of his term. Hutt won the South L.A. seat on her own in 2024. When Nury Martinez resigned in 2022, the chief legislative analyst's office ran her district as a nonvoting caretaker until voters elected Imelda Padilla the following year.

The argument is older than both cases. In January 2001 the council put off appointing a temporary replacement for Jackie Goldberg, who had left for the state Assembly. More than 100 residents of the 13th District then waved tea bags at a council meeting, according to the ACLU of Southern California, which sued that month. It cited the same Section 409 and argued that council members from other districts couldn't speak for the 13th, which is close to the Encino group's case now.

On the current council, Katy Yaroslavsky wants a special election as soon as possible and opposes appointing a candidate for the seat before one is held, her spokesperson Leo Daube said. Traci Park said in a statement that whether it's an appointment, an election or both, residents should have a say, and she urged Harris-Dawson to meet with district leaders first.

Raman hasn't said which route she prefers. Her spokesperson, Stella Stahl, said her office has been briefed on the options and that Raman wants a thoughtful process that puts residents first. On the district's east end, Debra Matlock of the Los Feliz Improvement Assn. also wants an election, with a Raman staffer serving as caretaker for the six to nine months in between.

At least two people are already lined up. Jimmy Biblarz is prepared to run for the 4th District seat if a special election is called, the Times reported. He's been a senior adviser and campaign counsel on Raman's mayoral campaign and is planning her inauguration for now. Ethan Weaver, a deputy city attorney whom Raman beat in 2024, told the Times he'd also jump in if there's an election. Both bids depend on one decision Harris-Dawson says the council won't make until after its winter recess, which starts Dec. 15: whether there'll be a race at all.

Source: Los Angeles Times, retrieved November 12, 2026. Other sources: codelibrary.amlegal.com, aclu.org.