From reporter Rebecca Kimitch:

El Monte Mayor Ernie Gutierrez seems to have won a minor victory against the city council this week when City Attorney Clark Moseley determined the council can’t remove him from an MTA board.

Council members have voted Gutierrez off three other regional boards and commissions, including the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments, saying his arrest in November is “detrimental” to the city’s reputation.

They were also considering Gutierrez’s removal from MTA’s San Gabriel Valley Service Sector Governance Council. However, Moseley concluded that post is up to the MTA, not the council.

Gutierrez was arrested in November on suspicion of domestic violence, but he was released that same day after prosecutors determined no clear evidence proved he was not defending himself.

The mayor defended his innocense and accused council members of playing politics in anticipation of the mayoral elections in November.

“For the council to think they are the judge, the jury, and the executioners, they are living in the 1860s, 1870s… they would lynch people without a judge, jury and trial,” he told me.