LOS ANGELES — The regularly scheduled Los Angeles City Council meetings did not happen last week as reverberations of racist remarks in a leaked recorded conversation continued to shake Angelenos to their core.
Former LA City Council President Nury Martinez, who was heard on those recordings along with Council members Kevin de León, Gil Cedillo, and former head of the LA County Federation of Labor, Ron Herrera, officially resigned as the representative of District 6 on Wednesday.
In a statement to her constituents, she said, “It’s hard to say goodbye, but please know that I was in this fight for you.”
But that is not how things felt too many in the community as news of the conversation came out last week. The people of LA felt betrayed and hurt, wondering why they had faith in a council where so many members have left in disgrace.
The city council is also trying to find some path forward.
“Inside the Issues” host Alex Cohen spoke with Eunisses Hernandez about the scandal. Hernandez was elected earlier this year to replace Gil Cedillo on the council, representing District 1. She will be sworn in come December.
“This feels like a moment where a lot of that work has been erased and we have to go back and make amends,” she said. “I feel, as a Latina woman, a huge sense of responsibility to try to move us forward.”
Activists disrupted city council meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday, calling for the resignation of all city council members involved. They argued no meetings should take place until that happened.
Hernandez agreed.
“There’s a lot of practical work that still needs to be done in LA, but if it’s going to be done with this lens, with the lens of not holding folks accountable, then we can’t move forward because we’re going to continue to leave communities behind,” she said.
Some of the conversation in the recording focused on LA’s redistricting process that took place last year and how the district’s borders should be redrawn.
“It wasn’t just a conversation around holding political power for Latinos. It was holding political power for these three individuals,” said Hernandez. “I thought that their analysis in that conversation was very immature.”
Hernandez says she is heartbroken by the conversation that took place between the four leaders, but is looking forward to going into city hall and changing how the community has access to it.
“A lot of these structures and mechanisms to engage in government have been shut down. So, part of what we’re going to do is open that up so that it’s not just us in City Hall, but communities with us.”
Let “Inside the Issues” know your thoughts and watch Monday through Friday at 8 and 11 p.m. on Spectrum News 1.
