The Huntington Park City Council seized an opportunity this week to push through an appointment to replace ousted Councilmember Esmeralda Castillo, whose residency and legal right to her council seat is the subject of an ongoing courtroom battle.
That decision now is likely to draw yet another lawsuit and could set a strange precedent in California politics.
A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge explicitly barred the city from making any such appointment earlier this month, but an appellate court temporarily lifted that order April 21 while it reviews the lower court ruling.
That same day, the City Council scheduled an emergency meeting and began contacting the 29 applicants who had expressed interest before the legal battle stalled the process. Following two hours of presentations on Wednesday, April 23, the City Council — without asking any questions of the applicants — voted 3-1 to elevate Nancy Martiz, a civil services commissioner, to fill the seat until the June 2026 election. The winner of that election would then finish the remainder of the term set to expire in March 2028.
“I believe that Ms. Martiz is the voice, the poise, the stability, the professionalism that this council and this city needs at this time,” Mayor Arturo Flores said during the selection.
Councilmember Karina Macias cast the lone dissenting vote, saying she did not feel comfortable making an appointment because a judge had warned the city against rushing forward earlier that day.
Though Huntington Park was no longer barred from making the appointment, there is a now question of whether it violated state law while doing so. California requires city councils to either appoint a replacement within 60 days of a vacancy or to call a special election. For weeks, the city in public announcements, court filings and its own minutes repeatedly set the deadline to make that appointment as April 21.
That’s because the city contended, until recently at least, that Castillo’s seat became vacant automatically on Feb. 18 after the City Council received a report indicating that she no longer lived in the city. The city’s investigation, largely conducted by a Huntington Park Police Department supervisor, used surveillance and a tracking device attached to Castillo’s car to conclude that she “consistently stopped overnight” at her parents’ home in South Gate from Jan. 3, 2025, to Feb. 3, 2025.
Castillo, who maintains that she lives in Huntington Park but acknowledges she frequently stays over to help her parents, was notified her seat was considered vacant at the Feb. 18 meeting and could be seen gathering her belongings before leaving the dais.
The city published a press release the next day announcing a “vacancy on the city council.”
In court, the city’s attorneys consistently argued that if the judge did not allow council members to make an appointment by April 21, the city would be forced to pay upwards of $500,000 for a special election. Now, the city says the deadline is later than it originally believed.
“On February 24, 2025, the Huntington Park City Council, by majority vote, adopted a resolution declaring the council seat held by Esmeralda Castillo vacant and selecting the option to fill the unscheduled vacancy by appointment,” a statement from the city reads. “In accordance with state law, the City Council had 60 days from the date of the vacancy declaration to make an appointment. That deadline was set to expire on April 25, 2025.”
The appointment of Martiz “ensures continued representation and uninterrupted governance for the residents of Huntington Park,” according to the statement.
A staff report and meeting minutes for that Feb. 24 meeting also listed April 21 as the deadline.
“Since the vacancy was effective February 18, 2025, and if the City Council opts to fill the vacancy by appointment, it must be made by April 21, 2025,” wrote City Manager Ricardo Reyes in the staff report.
Albert Robles, an attorney representing Castillo, intends to challenge the appointment in court within the next week in hopes that a judge will overturn it.
“The city had until midnight Monday to make an appointment, they did not,” Robles said. “The law is very clear.”
A reversal is critical to Castillo’s case because California law handles this type of dispute differently depending on whether the elected office is empty or occupied. If no one is in the seat, then Castillo’s current lawsuit challenging her removal can continue. But once it is filled, she must seek permission from the California Attorney General’s Office to file what is called a “quo warranto” lawsuit arguing that she is the true office holder.
It can take months before that approval is granted and, once it is, it simply allows Castillo to file a new complaint in court, potentially pushing any decision out for a year or more, Robles said.
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If it stands, Robles argues a council majority could simply remove any elected official and appoint a replacement that same day, forcing the ousted council member to pursue a quo warrant lawsuit to have the decision reversed, he said. Even if the original office holder succeeds, he or she is not able to represent their constituents during that time and the law does not prescribe any punishments for potential misuse, he said.
“No one in the more than 100-year history of California thought somebody would be so brazen to remove a council member and appoint someone else so quickly,” Robles said.
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