Meeting_Body
REGULAR BOARD MEETING
JULY 23, 2026
Preamble
Motion by:
DIRECTORS HAHN, RICHARDSON, AND SANDOVAL
Metro Board Member Composition and Appointment Structure: Establishing Designated Rider Seat and Small City Seat
With the passage of Measure G in 2024, Los Angeles County voters approved significant reforms to County governance, including expanding the Board of Supervisors from five to nine members in 2032 and establishing an elected County Chief Executive Officer in 2028. As one of the most significant governance reforms in generations, Measure G also presents an opportunity to consider how the Board of Directors of the nation’s second-largest transit agency can evolve to better reflect and represent the communities it serves.
In February 2026, the Board established the Ad Hoc Board Composition Committee and, through Motion 33.1, directed that any recommendations be informed by comparative, historical, and demographic context and grounded in robust community outreach - guided by principles of geographic equity, balanced representation, and jurisdictional inclusion. Over four months, Metro conducted presentations to 25 stakeholder organizations, nine hybrid listening sessions, a countywide virtual town hall, and 13 pop-up transit intercepts, generating more than 1,300 engagement touchpoints and nearly 900 survey responses.
The single most consistent finding across every listening session, survey, and transit intercept, from South Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley to the Gateway Cities and North County, was that Metro's Board should include members who understand the day-to-day experience of riding the system. Metro serves one of the most diverse populations in the nation, and its governance structure should reflect the communities that depend on, and are impacted by, the agency's services and investments.
The concept of reserving a board seat for a transit rider is not unprecedented. As documented in staff's benchmarking analysis, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) includes a dedicated voting board seat for a rider representative, ensuring that the perspective of transit users is directly represented in board decisions. A dedicated rider representative would bring the lived experiences of daily transit users into Board deliberations, strengthen accountability, and help advance policies that better serve riders across Los Angeles County, especially the communities most dependent on public transportation. While the staff-recommended "Alternative A (Flexible Appointments)" permits appointing authorities to select riders, it does not guarantee that a single rider will ever be seated; a dedicated seat does.
As Metro considers opportunities to strengthen its Board composition and ensure that all communities served by the agency have a meaningful voice in decision-making, this moment also presents an opportunity to address a longstanding challenge in city representation. The City Selection Committee’s population-based voting structure appropriately recognizes differences in population among jurisdictions. At the same time, the structure can create challenges for smaller cities, which may have fewer weighted votes and face greater difficulty securing sector representation when competing with larger jurisdictions. Ensuring that smaller cities have a meaningful voice is important because they are integral parts of the region’s transportation network and represent communities that rely on effective and equitable transit solutions.
The Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency (LACAHSA) addressed a similar challenge by establishing a Board seat designated for smaller cities, providing a potential model for ensuring balanced representation across jurisdictions of varying sizes. Metro should evaluate whether a similar approach could be applied to its governance structure and recommend an appropriate eligibility threshold for a small-cities representative seat based on population, representation, and governance considerations. A review of Los Angeles County’s incorporated cities and existing representation structures can help inform a practical, equitable, and administratively feasible standard for participation.
Subject
SUBJECT: METRO BOARD MEMBER COMPOSITION AND APPOINTMENT STRUCTURE: ESTABLISHING DESIGNATED RIDER SEAT AND SMALL CITY SEAT MOTION
Heading
RECOMMENDATION
Title
APPROVE Motion by Hahn, Richardson, and Sandoval that the Board directs the Chief Executive Officer to:
A. ESTABLISH a minimum of one (1) additional voting seat(s) on the Metro Board of Directors for a regular transit rider.
1. Coordinate with Metro’s community advisory councils, community-based organizations, and other stakeholder groups to develop a transparent, inclusive, and accessible process for selecting the regular transit rider representative.
2. Report back on recommendations for implementation of the selected model, including eligibility criteria, a definition of “regular transit rider,” appointment procedures, term length, and any necessary statutory or governance changes.
3. Include recommendations that include a framework to ensure the selected transit rider representative has access to appropriate technical resources, training, staff support, and other tools necessary to meaningfully and equitably participate in Board deliberations and decision-making.
B. ESTABLISH one (1) additional voting seat on the Metro Board of Directors to represent small cities.
1. The additional seat shall rotate among each of the City Selection Committee sectors.
2. Metro staff shall recommend a maximum population eligibility threshold within a range of 50,000 to 70,000 residents, with no minimum population eligibility threshold, subject to approval by the Metro Board of Directors.
3. Metro staff shall report back with recommendations regarding the appropriate population threshold, as well as the implementation structure for the small-cities seat, the rotation schedule among the City Selection Committee sectors, nomination and appointment process, term length, and any necessary statutory, legislative, or governance changes required for implementation.