Race to Watch: Inglewood mayor

While the ballots are still being counted, it does appear that the Englewood mayoral race won't be decided until March and a runoff election. That's right. Brooke is here with more on that. Good morning. Yeah, it's one of those things, you know, obviously the mayor of L.A., right, that race has taken on a big, so much of the attention, right, so much national attention. But who becomes the mayor or who continues to be the mayor of Englewood? That's really important. A lot of our entertainment is there. Englewood's an important city to our area. And right now, that is right exactly what you said. Councilwoman Gloria Gray is a little bit ahead of longtime incumbent Mayor James Butts. These are the latest results. Gray is sitting at 32.5%. Butts is at 28.9%. Again, votes are still being counted. If neither candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, there will be a runoff election. That's, of course, if no other candidate jumps ahead. As again, the votes are still being counted. Right now, community organizer and attorney Fredricia Dixon is in third place with 17.21% of the vote. Butts was sworn in as Englewood mayor back in 2011, and he has been reelected. He's been elected every cycle since. He was crucial to bringing the NFL back to Southern California as well as the NBA back to Englewood. He previously served as Santa Monica Police Chief. Gloria Gray was sworn in as an Englewood City Council member in 2023. Fun fact, who swore her in? Do you remember who did that? Was it Maxine Waters? I don't know. No, it was actually Karen Bass. Oh. They are longtime friends. She's a retired health care administrator and previously served as chairwoman of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, becoming the first black American in that role in nearly 100 years. A runoff would take place likely in March. But there are also two other important races in Los Angeles still too close to call. They are the races for L.A.'s 3rd and 9th council districts. Businessman Team Gaspar holds a slim lead over Barry Worth Girvin in the 3rd district. Gasper and Worth Girvin are seeking to represent the district that includes Tarzana, Woodland Hills, Canoga Park, Reseda, and Winnetka. Longtime council member Bob Blumenfield is termed out. And in Council District 9, which stretches from downtown L.A. to south L.A., Estuardo Mazariegos and Jose Ugarte are vying to succeed Curran Price, who is also termed out. The winner will be the first Latino to represent the district since 1962. We are expecting a new drop of election results between 9 and 10 this morning. Of course, in that district, it has historically been a black council member. But the demographics of that district have changed over the years. And there was still a black council member still being their council member. But the district is now like some 60, more than 60% Latino. Right. It's happening a lot to all these traditionally black neighborhoods, you know, Inglewood is another one of them, and Compton, as an example, majority now Hispanic, so yeah. The Inglewood race is interesting because with the Olympics coming up, it's going to be a really high-profile position there. They're going to be the face of the Olympics, essentially, in Inglewood. And also when we think about what SoFi Stadium has done to our area, what bringing into a dome there to our area. James Buss was a big part of that. The mayor of Inglewood has a really important role in our entire area. Yeah. A lot of residents there also wonder if... If they have received some of the benefits of what's what's happened in all the development. And so if I see it, that's kind of what some of there's also that big battle over millions and millions of dollars between the owner of SoFi and the city right now over tax revenue and who it belongs to, who owes to pay it back. There's a lot going on in Englewood, so I'm glad we're continuing to talk about this. We'll find out probably in March. I know. We'll see.