Nury Martinez
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Nury Martinez (born July 9, 1973) is a Mexican-American politician who served as a member of the
Los Angeles City Council The Los Angeles City Council is the legislative body of the Los Angeles, City of Los Angeles in California. The council is composed of 15 members elected from single-member districts for four-year terms. The President of the Los Angeles City Counc ...
for the 6th district from 2013 until her resignation in 2022. A member of the
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...
, Martinez became
president of the Los Angeles City Council The President of the Los Angeles City Council is the presiding officer of the Los Angeles City Council. The president presides over meetings of the council and assignments to City Council committees and handles parliamentary duties like ruling mot ...
in December 2019, after serving as the council's president pro tempore. Martinez was the first
Latina Latina or Latinas most often refers to: * Latinas, a demographic group in the United States * Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America. *Latin Americans Latina and Latinas may also refer ...
to become council president. She was a member of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education from 2009 to 2013. On October 10, 2022, Martinez stepped down from her post as council president following the release of an audio recording where she disparaged fellow council members and their children and used racist language. She remained a member of the city council, but announced that she would be taking a paid leave of absence. On October 12, facing loud protests and demands to step down from community members and politicians including president Joe Biden, she resigned her seat on the council.


Early life and education

Born and raised in the
San Fernando Valley The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, California. Located to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it contains a large portion of the City of Los Angeles, as well as unincorporated ar ...
, Martinez graduated from
San Fernando High School San Fernando High School (SFHS) is a high school of the Los Angeles Unified School District. It is located in the Pacoima neighborhood of Los Angeles, in the northeastern San Fernando Valley, California. It is near and also serves the City of Sa ...
in 1991 and from
California State University, Northridge California State University, Northridge (CSUN or Cal State Northridge) is a public university in the Northridge neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. With a total enrollment of 38,551 students (as of Fall 2021), it has the second largest un ...
in 1996. Early in her career, she ran a support group for women living with AIDS at the Northeast Valley Health Corp. and worked as a special assistant to then-State Senator
Alex Padilla Alejandro Padilla ( ; born March 22, 1973) is an American politician serving as the junior United States senator from California since 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, Padilla served as the 30th secretary of state of California from 2015 ...
.


Career

Martinez served as the Executive Director of the
environmental justice Environmental justice is a social movement to address the unfair exposure of poor and marginalized communities to harms from hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses.Schlosberg, David. (2007) ''Defining Environmental Justic ...
organization Pacoima Beautiful and was elected to the City of San Fernando City Council in 2003 and 2007, where she also served as Mayor. In 2009, she was elected as a member of the Board of Education of the
Los Angeles Unified School District Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is a public school district in Los Angeles, California, United States. It is the largest public school system in California in terms of number of students and the 2nd largest public school district in ...
, representing Board District 6.


Los Angeles City Council

Martinez was elected to the Los Angeles City Council in a special election on July 23, 2013, to succeed
Tony Cárdenas Antonio Cárdenas ( ; born March 31, 1963) is an American politician who has served as the United States representative for California's 29th congressional district since January 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, Cárdenas was previously a ...
, who vacated his seat once elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for California's 29th congressional district. Martinez defeated former Assemblywoman
Cindy Montañez Cindy Montañez (born January 19, 1974) is a former Democratic Assemblywoman from California's 39th State Assembly district serving for four years, from 2002 until 2006. Family Montañez was raised in the city of San Fernando, California al ...
in that election and again in a 2015 rematch when she won her first full term. Martinez was the only woman serving on the City Council for four years, until the election of Councilwoman
Monica Rodriguez Monica Rodriguez is an American politician in California. She currently serves as a Los Angeles City Council member, and represents the 7th district. The district is located in the San Fernando Valley, and includes the neighborhoods of Pacoima, ...
in July 2017 and was the first Latina member in a quarter century.


COVID-19 response

As City Council President during the COVID-19 pandemic, Martinez used her role to allocate hundreds of millions of dollars in federal CARES Act funding as part of her Families First agenda, supporting impacted Angelenos with rent, child care, and utility bills, as well as assistance to small businesses to stay afloat. In July 2020, she launched the Emergency Renters Assistance Program, which provided $103 million in subsidies of up to $2,000 per household for renters who could demonstrate how they were impacted by COVID-19 and who earned less than 80% of the area median income. She also allocated $50 million to provide two weeks pay to those who were infected and could not work, $40 million for a regional COVID-19 Relief and Recovery Fund to provide grants to small businesses, which included specific allocations for micro-entrepreneurs like street vendors and for victims of domestic violence, and $30 million to assist low-income families access child care, which included $10 million to establish 50 Alternative Learning Centers at city parks, and $20 million to help child care facilities stay open and offer vouchers to families. In October 2020, she announced a $50 million program to provide one-time grants of $500 to help Angelenos who lost work because of the pandemic pay their utility bills over the holidays.


Minimum wage

Along with Councilmembers
Curren Price Curren De Mille Price, Jr. (born December 16, 1950, in Los Angeles, California) is an American politician of the Democratic Party, currently serving as a Los Angeles city council member for District 9. Price was a California State Senator, repre ...
and
Mike Bonin Michael Bonin (born March 19, 1967) is an American politician, who served as a member of the Los Angeles City Council for the 11th district from 2013 to 2022. A progressive member of the Democratic Party, he was previously a reporter and a cou ...
, Martinez passed a law in 2014 boosting the minimum wage to $15.37 for employees at large hotels in Los Angeles. The following year, Martinez was one of six Councilmembers that led the successful push to raise the minimum wage from $9 to $15 for all workers in Los Angeles, to be gradually phased in over five years.


Human trafficking

Martinez had focused on domestic violence and
human trafficking Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others. This may encompass providing a spouse in the context of forced marriage, or the extrac ...
in her district and throughout the city. In 2014, Martinez passed an ordinance that temporarily prohibited strip clubs, massage parlors and other types of adult businesses from getting city permits along four streets in her district to crack down on prostitution. In 2015, the Councilwoman led the creation of the Valley Bureau Human Trafficking Task Force, which targets the criminal enterprise behind prostitution and the "johns" that support this activity, as well as provides services to those who are sexually exploited. Within three years, the model had been expanded to a second task force in South Los Angeles. In 2017, Martinez designated the first city-sponsored shelters for victims of human trafficking to be included in an expansion of the city's shelters for domestic violence victims. In 2019, Martinez supported a successful law authored by California State Senator Henry Stern, which clarified that local governments could adopt local ordinances to prevent slavery or human trafficking and allow for certain businesses and entities to post notices about resources available to victims of slavery and human trafficking.


Homelessness

In 2020, Councilwoman Martinez opened a temporary trailer shelter in
Van Nuys Van Nuys () is a neighborhood in the central San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, California. Home to Van Nuys Airport and the Valley Municipal Building, it is the most populous neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley. History In 1909, t ...
as part of Mayor
Eric Garcetti Eric Michael Garcetti (born February 4, 1971) is an American politician who served as the 42nd mayor of Los Angeles from 2013 until 2022. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he was first elected in the 2013 Los An ...
's "A Bridge Home" shelter program that provides shelter and services to homeless individuals before being placed in permanent housing. She also launched a program called Kids First to provide tutoring and other support services to homeless students living in three motels in her district, with particular support to address the challenges of distance learning caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.


Immigration

Councilwoman Martinez had also been an advocate for the undocumented community in the San Fernando Valley. In January 2020, she placed a ban on migrant centers within Los Angeles city limits after a children's migrant center was proposed in the community of Arleta in her district. While President Trump was in office, Martinez called on the City of Los Angeles to sue the Trump Administration over its decision to implement a "public charge" rule, which would restrict public benefits such as medical care and housing for undocumented immigrants, as well as challenge the Trump Administration's policies related to detaining immigrant children and separating them from their families at U.S. borders.


Environmental justice

As the former Executive Director of Pacoima Beautiful, Martinez began working on a policy that she ultimately helped pass on the City Council in 2016 called the Clean Up, Green Up Initiative, which designated "green zones" in Pacoima, Sun Valley, Wilmington and Boyle Heights, some of Los Angeles's most polluted communities. The initiative consisted of special land-use restrictions, the creation of a citywide office to support environmental compliance, and citywide protections for new developments near freeways. In early 2019, she joined several of her colleagues to introduce a local Green New Deal for the City of Los Angeles. In August 2020, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power revealed that there had been methane gas leaks at the Valley Generating Station in Martinez's district for over a year. Martinez subsequently called for the plant to be shut down, which was formalized by a vote of the City Council in November 2020 directing the department to develop a timeline for the plant's closure. The Councilwoman employed two dedicated staffers to pick up trash and deal with illegal dumping in her district to supplement service provided by the city's Sanitation Department.


Fraud accusation

In 2015, Martinez's reelection campaign was accused of submitting fraudulent donor information in order to receive $65,360 in taxpayer-matched funds. In 2019, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office ended its investigation into Martinez's 2015 campaign, citing insufficient evidence to pursue a fraud case.


Racist comments and resignation

On October 9, 2022, an audio recording of a conversation involving Martinez, fellow council members
Gil Cedillo Gilbert Anthony Cedillo (born March 25, 1954) is an American politician, who served as a member of the Los Angeles City Council for the 1st district from 2013 to 2022. A member of the Democratic Party, Cedillo was previously a member of both the ...
and
Kevin de León Kevin Alexander Leon (born December 10, 1966), known professionally as Kevin de León and colloquially as KDL, is an American politician serving as the Los Angeles City Council member for district 14 since 2020. A member of the Democratic Party, ...
and
Los Angeles County Federation of Labor The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor was started in 1885. Originally, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor was split into five individual unions of bakers, cigar makers, printers, tailors, and carpenters. Now they represent over 300 unio ...
President
Ron Herrera Ron Herrera is an American labor leader, who served as the President of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor (colloquially called the "Fed") until his resignation on October 10, 2022, following racist comments made regarding black & indigen ...
regarding redistricting was leaked anonymously onto
Reddit Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...
. In the meeting, Martinez stated, "Fuck that guy ... He's with the blacks", referring to District Attorney
George Gascón George Gascón (born March 12, 1954) is an American attorney and former police officer who is the district attorney of Los Angeles County. A member of the Democratic Party and a former Republican, Gascón served as the district attorney of San ...
. Martinez also insulted fellow council member Mike Bonin's black adopted child, saying "They're raising him like a little white kid ... I was like, 'This kid needs a beatdown. Let me take him around the corner, I'll bring him right back.' " Martinez also called the child a "
changuito Changuito (born José Luis Quintana on January 18, 1948) is a Cuban percussionist. Biography Quintana was born in 1948 in Casablanca, Cuba.Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'', a racial slur for a black person meaning "little monkey" or "little ape" in
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
. In the course of the discussion on redistricting, she commented, "I see a lot of little short dark people there" in reference to
Koreatown A Koreatown (Korean: 코리아타운), also known as a Little Korea or Little Seoul, is a Korean-dominated ethnic enclave within a city or metropolitan area outside the Korean Peninsula. History Koreatowns as an East Asian ethnic enclave have ...
. "Oaxacan Koreans. Not even like Kevin. Little ones," Cedillo replied. She then continued, "I was like, I don't know what village they came from, how they got here, but whatever." She can also be heard to remark, "tan feos" or "they're so ugly" in Spanish. The three council members discussed how to appoint a new council member who would work in their interests, and also agreed to
gerrymander In representative democracies, gerrymandering (, originally ) is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent to create undue advantage for a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency. The m ...
Nithya Raman Nithya V. Raman is an American urban planner, activist, and politician serving as the Los Angeles City Councilmember for the 4th District since 2020. Raman, a member of the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists of America, defeated incum ...
's district in order to suppress those who had voted for her.
Heather Hutt Heather J. Hutt (born April 5, 1959) is an American politician who is currently serving as a councilmember representing the 10th District of Los Angeles since September 2, 2022. She was previously a candidate for California's 54th State Assembly ...
, a former California State Director for then-Senator
Kamala Harris Kamala Devi Harris ( ; born October 20, 1964) is an American politician and attorney who is the 49th vice president of the United States. She is the first female vice president and the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history, as well ...
was suggested. On August 26, 2022, Martinez introduced a motion to appoint Hutt as a council member, which was seconded by four other members. The motion was opposed by
Marqueece Harris-Dawson Marqueece Harris-Dawson (born November 7, 1970) is an American politician, who currently represents Los Angeles City Council District 8, the 8th district of the Los Angeles City Council since 2015. Early life and education Harris-Dawson was bor ...
and
Mike Bonin Michael Bonin (born March 19, 1967) is an American politician, who served as a member of the Los Angeles City Council for the 11th district from 2013 to 2022. A progressive member of the Democratic Party, he was previously a reporter and a cou ...
, who instead proposed instructing the City Attorney to find eligibility requirements for appointments. On August 30, the vote to instate Hutt as a councilmember fell one vote short, with five voting for and five voting against; it was refereed to the Rules, Elections and Intergovernmental Relations Committee for further discussion. The Committee cleared her for reconsideration by the Council the next day, and Hutt was confirmed by the Council in the next meeting and sworn in on September 2, 2022. In addition, in the same leaked audio clips posted to Reddit in which former Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez made racist remarks about black people and Oaxacans, she also made crude remarks about Jewish people and Armenians. Martinez can be heard saying the “judíos” — which means Jews in Spanish — “cut their deal with South L.A.” Martinez was responding to former Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera, who had concluded, “I’m sure Katz and his crew have an agenda,” referring to former state Assemblymember Richard Katz. “They are gonna screw everybody else,” Martinez said in the recording. Martinez later provided a statement in the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'' apologizing, "In a moment of intense frustration and anger, I let the situation get the best of me. I hold myself accountable for these comments. For that I am sorry." Bonin's family replied in a tweet condemning the racist comments and demanding Martinez's resignation. On October 10, Martinez stepped down as president through a released statement that apologized to Bonin and others, saying, "Therefore, effective immediately I am resigning as President of the Los Angeles City Council," though she did not also resign from her seat on the city council. One day later, Martinez announced she would be taking a leave of absence. In a statement, she said, "At this moment, I need to take a leave of absence and take some time to have an honest and heartfelt conversation with my family, my constituents, and community leaders. I am so sorry to the residents of Council District 6, my colleagues, and the City of Los Angeles." Martinez could only have been forced to leave office via a voter-led
recall Recall may refer to: * Recall (bugle call), a signal to stop * Recall (information retrieval), a statistical measure * ''ReCALL'' (journal), an academic journal about computer-assisted language learning * Recall (memory) * ''Recall'' (Overwatch ...
, as rules for removal by other city council members would not apply in this situation. On October 11, 2022, numerous calls for the three councilpersons to step down, which included that of President Joe Biden, as well as a contentious City Council meeting with a heated public comment session combined to put additional pressure on Martinez. She resigned her Council seat the following day.


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* , - , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Martinez, Nury 1973 births 21st-century American politicians 21st-century American women politicians Hispanic and Latino American politicians Hispanic and Latino American women in politics California Democrats Living people Presidents of the Los Angeles City Council San Fernando High School alumni School board members in California Women city councillors in California American politicians of Mexican descent