The LA City Council Controversy: Why It Should Matter to Every Community
The local level is where civic engagement matters most but if you aren’t paying attention your tax dollars can be used against you to render you and your community powerless.
“Long before Nury Martinez, Kevin de Leon, and Gil Cedillo said what they said in words, they and many of their colleagues, some sitting here today, said it through actions.” Charles Shoe, ACCE organizer at the October 11, 2022, LA City Council Meeting
Last week a bomb was dropped in Los Angeles, California. A recording from a secret October 2021 meeting was leaked to the public involving conversations with LA City Council Members Nuri Martinez, Kevin de Leon, and Gil Cedillo along with Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera about map redistricting for the City of Los Angeles. Nury Martinez and Ron Herrera have both stepped down from their positions, and when you have the President of the United States saying you should resign it is likely only a matter of time before Kevin de Leon and Gil Cedillo step down as well even as they continue to resist calls to step down.
There has been lots of commentary about Nury Martinez's statements about a fellow city council member’s adopted Black son and the indigenous immigrants from the Mexican state of Oaxaca living in Koreatown. While those comments were repulsive and deplorable that was only three minutes of a nearly hour and 20-minute conversation. Don't lose sight of the forest for the trees. There was something much larger at play during the course of this secretly recorded conversation. The vast majority of the conversation was about fortifying power for their personal benefit with a particular focus on getting African-Americans and their allies out of their seats, redesigning districts that “chop up” renter voting blocs, and creating districts that are divided by races, ethnicities, and classes that they believed would help them stay in power.
Some pundits and people love to say that racism does not exist anymore in America but this conversation was racism at its core. The conversation between these four powerful Angelenos was about racial gerrymandering, an illegal tactic where voting districts are reconfigured in a way that packs voters of a particular race or ethnicity into a limited number of districts to dilute their voting power. This was not a conversation about service, being better public servants, or improving the lives of their constituents whom they labeled as “poor Latinos.” This was a conversation about consolidating power which feeds into "the Great Replacement Theory" fears that have been perpetuated against Latinos as their population continues to grow across the United States. Racism in the Americas was originally a political-economic construct created by powerful Europeans who desired to obtain land, resources, and unpaid labor from African and Indigenous American tribes that they deemed insignificant and in the way. Eventually, through laws and pseudo-science, the entire globe bought into this view of skin color as the definition of human worth. Soon racism, prejudice, and discrimination became social norms. This conversation was just the 21st-century version of original racism.
“Behavior Never Lies.” Winston Churchill
If three city council members in a city as diverse as Los Angeles publicly showed a face of unity but behind closed doors schemed and plotted on how they could shut others out who looked and thought differently from them, can you imagine how many other elected representatives have made similar remarks while wearing a public mask of unity and togetherness? Don’t be fooled, these conversations about dividing up power for personal gain rather than community advancement are more commonplace than you think. Experience has taught me that there is always a meeting after the meeting where those in power can shape and change outcomes before the next group or public meeting. These four, unfortunately, violated the 11th commandment: don’t get caught.
Municipal political machines were commonplace throughout the 20th Century in America where powerful political bosses only put people into positions of influence and power that were of similar ethnicities and skin color, along with a few of the other “good ones” who pledged loyalty to the political boss. Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago had a political machine so strong that even Martin Luther King, Jr. couldn’t use his organization’s organizing tactics to break through and bring about substantive changes to end de facto housing segregation and slums in Chicago. Mayor Daley said all the right things and even agreed to take certain actions to improve African American housing conditions but those verbal and written words did not transform into behaviors that brought about meaningful change.
As the second largest city in the country, LA politics have been fiery for decades, but during the pandemic and the George Floyd murder, the battle for Los Angeles has elevated to another level. Angelenos have been complaining for years that the actions of the city council were not representative of the real needs of their communities and many of the policies being implemented were racist, anti-Black, and classist. The ones who have been paying attention didn’t need to hear the audio to know that something was up because they saw it nearly every week through the policies and actions that members of the LA City Council supported or did not support, all while they continued to say the right things. Unfortunately, when it comes to politics, it appears that it is better to look good than to do good. But when actions do not follow words there can be no trust and discord will continue to fester in our communities.
“Smiling faces, smiling faces, sometimes they don’t tell the truth. Smiling faces, smiling faces tell lies and I got proof.” The Undisputed Truth
You may be reading this wondering “I don’t live in Los Angeles, so what does all this have to do with me?” This issue is much larger than LA. Allow me to use myself as an example. While serving as a civil rights attorney for the State of South Carolina, I developed a program to bring racial groups together across the 46 counties after the Dylan Roof shooting at Mother Emmanuel AME in Charleston, SC. When I presented the program to leadership no one raised an objection. When it was time to implement the program, every stall tactic in the book was used to prevent the program from getting off the ground. Political will often falters when real money and resources are needed to solve real problems.
During my time as a public servant at the municipal level, there was a human rights commissioner who resigned and attempted to stir-up trouble on the way out. The reported reason for their resignation was that the Commission focused too much on “Black American issues.” This was something that they never stated publicly, always putting on a happy face in the public eye until the moment of their resignation. If addressing issues such as cultural competency training for all city employees, improving resident access to housing options, creating grant programs for organizations that upskill residents, and creating incentives for employees to live in the city to grow the tax base are strictly “Black American issues,” I did not get the memo.
I overheard a conversation once by an influential AAPI activist who told other activists in her community that they shouldn’t strive to be like or associate with the African American community because “they’re loud.” Community activists of all races including African Americans always encouraged me to meet with the person who made this remark believing we would make a good team and I always politely declined. Upright police officers often told me how my efforts to improve community-police relations made me persona non grata to the police chief and his predominantly European American leadership unit. While I appreciated the heads-up and reminders, I didn’t really need them because the truth was always revealed on the faces of the police department management team anytime I engaged with them outside of the presence of our boss, the city manager.
Those are some examples to demonstrate that Councilmembers Martinez, de Leon, and Cedillo are not alone. There are multitudes of people out there who wear masks of unity and inclusivity all the while secretly stirring dissension and plotting against racial groups, and others who want to bring people together. We need to understand that race and race politics are always at play in a country that has never rectified and remedied its racial past and continues to overtly and covertly play into our personal biases and fears about race in order to control us. Hell, even Russia knows that we haven’t remedied our racial issues and has used our racial fears and biases against us in their attempt to sway the outcome of a presidential election. The foreshadowing of King’s words that “we must learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools” keeps getting louder and louder.
“There’s a difference between us: You think the people of this country exist to provide you with position. I think your position exists to provide those people with freedom.” William Wallace, Braveheart
I am a firm believer that change starts at the local level. Martin Luther King, Jr. did not start on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, he started at a Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama leading a bus boycott for 382 days. Typically, when the President announces funding for new initiatives, that funding is sent down to the local levels of government for the local politicians in our cities, counties, and schools to decide how those millions of funding dollars will be spent and who receives the money. All politics are local and if your local politicians are having secret meetings to figure out how to divvy up money to people who only support and look like them then segments of the community suffer which stunts the overall growth of entire cities, towns, and counties. In a society, the progress of communities is intrinsically tied together, especially at the local level. Consequently, when politicians prioritize power for their personal benefit nothing changes and our communities remain stagnant. Our local representatives should be utilizing our tax dollars to uplift our communities rather than being in the pockets of developers and utilizing their time to consolidate power for selfish gains.
Councilmember Kevin de Leon said during that secret meeting, “I don't wanna work that hard…let's slide and glide at the surface, you know, lightweight and then give the perception that we do things.” In that same meeting, they all spoke about how the change in the law “made everybody rich” giving city council members a pay increase from $25,000 to now $200,000. Paid elected representatives bragging about being rich and skating by. Every person must understand this: elected representatives are temporary hired help. As public servants they work for us, we the people, and not the other way around. They are our employees, our servants and if we are not paying attention to what’s happening in our communities, they can skirt on by living off our tax dollars while not doing a damn thing to support those they swore to represent.
Local elections and politics matter. If you don’t believe me, check out the latter part of the secret conversation where Gil Cedillo is talking about not adding headache neighborhoods to his district. Those headache neighborhoods consisted of European Americans—who are statistically more likely to participate in local elections—and activist Latino populations who “dream of a Chicano Mecca”. Mr. Cedillo said those were not his people and desired a district comprised of poor Latinos who “go home and go to work” that are likely too busy with their day-to-day lives to pay attention to what’s happening at the municipal level. These council members did not care about Latinos as a whole but only those Latinos who serve their ultimate goal of getting and keeping power from themselves and their allies. Cedillo stated during the conversation that “the politics are as important as the population” when he was discussing the headache neighborhoods that were partially compromised of “24/7” Latino activists. There is no true democracy when people are redrawing district lines to silence voices and consolidate power.
When we look at the data we can better understand why Mr. Cedillo and the others wanted their districts to consist of poor working Latinos that are too busy to pay attention to local politics. Mr. Cedillo’s district, LA District 1, has a population of 246,867 people but the turnout in the June 2022 city council election was 29,888 voters. Only 12 percent of the people in a district larger than many U.S. cities voted. There were certainly more eligible voters than the nearly 30 thousand who showed up at the polls. (Mr. Cedillo despite his efforts to tip redistricting in his favor, lost to Eunisses Hernandez, a Latina public policy activist, who will take the District 1 seat on December 11, 2022). The low voter turnout in LA District 1 is not an anomaly, local elections have very low voter turnout despite it affecting us more on a daily basis than any other form of government. As I was once told by a local politician, if only a small portion of the population shows up to vote in local elections, politicians do not have to appeal to the masses, they only need to appease their base and ensure they are happy. We will never get a fair shake by standing on the sidelines, ignoring what’s happening on the local political field. All of us must get involved.
“So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so. For tyrants are active and ardent and will devote themselves to the name of any number of gods, religious or otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.” Voltaire
Relationships in our country are becoming more and more polarized along racial, political, and ideological lines, as demonstrated by this leaked audio. But fortunately, as noted by Martinez, de Leon, and Cedillo, there are still some “purists” out there; true believers who believe in doing the right thing because it is right. These so-called purists do not have the opinion held by the secret meeting attendees that appointed board or commission members must take direction and do what that appointing councilperson wants solely because they appointed them to their seat. Would all the purists who do not believe that politics and wealth building are a zero-sum game where all who look different from you are deemed a threat to your livelihood and prosperity please stand up? To all the true believers who sincerely desire to live up to the words “all men are created equal” and want to “live in a nation where [our children] will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” it is time to get involved. Politics is going to affect us our entire lives; therefore, voting every two to four years is not enough. Voting is the floor, not the ceiling. We must be civically engaged with what is happening in our communities. Civic engagement is not something we can afford to ignore at a time when it appears that our social fabric is coming apart. As Pericles said, “just because you do not take an interest in politics, does not mean politics won’t take an interest in you.”
For the true believers out there, here are some offensive and defensive strategies you can use to combat racism and racist power grabs in your local community so communities of all colors can have the opportunity to thrive and grow:
A. Offense
Get to Know Your Locally Elected Representatives. Elected representatives are instruments who are supposed to govern in order to get us what we desire but how can they serve you if they don’t know you? It is imperative to build relationships and to understand where your local district representatives stand. Build relationships with your mayor, at-large city council, county council, and school board members as well. Unlike most state and federal representatives, your local representatives are your neighbors who work year-round on issues that impact your community.
Join & Donate to Organizations That are Doing the Work. Community transformation cannot be done by any one person alone. You must be organized against organized power structures. When you do not have financial, legal, or political power, all you have left is people power. Being a part of local activist organizations can help amplify your voice. Learn more about local organizations that are already addressing the issues most important to you. If those organizations are effective, join them, but before you donate a ton of money, reach out to the leadership team to understand their agenda, strategy, and successes they have had in executing their agenda.
Present Strategies & Plans on How to Address Community Issues. We need to get it out of our heads that our elected representatives have all the answers. Elected officials are not superhumans with special political powers, they are human beings winging it just like the rest of us. And as human beings that are winging it, they are in search and in need of recommendations on how to address community challenges and how the millions in federal, state, and local funding earmarked to address those challenges should be spent. We need to present strategies, plans, and recommendations from our organizations and neighborhoods that we believe can address these issues. By building relationships and being organized we can become the voices that our elected representatives need when they are seeking ideas.
Demand an Independent Redistricting Commission for Electoral District Maps. The clandestine meeting between the LA council members was designed to put all the persons they viewed as their political enemies or obstacles in weakened political positions so that those council members could fortify their power. As the saying goes, “if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.” Unchecked power will typically look out for itself; therefore, it is important to demand independent redistricting commissions comprised of community members to recommend the new voting district lines after the 2020 Census population results. In an effort to reduce corruption, the voting public should be drawing the voting lines, not the elected representatives who may have selfish intentions. Be sure that the Commission is truly independent and not merely an advisory committee to the city council.
Demand Community Impact or Racial Equity Assessments of New Policies. When new laws are created, they can have an adverse impact or unintended consequences on underrepresented and historically excluded communities. Community impact or racial equity assessments can be utilized to identify and mitigate those effects. Several cities around the country have begun to implement them as a tool to reduce and eliminate disparate impacts on vulnerable stakeholder populations. If your community is not currently utilizing these tools to detect potential adverse impacts of new policies develop alternatives to circumvent those impacts on vulnerable communities, consider presenting this idea as a check on political biases and corruption that can creep into decision-making at the expense of certain communities.
B. Defense
File a Title VI Complaint. If you believe that actions are taking place by elected and appointed public officials that are racially discriminatory you can file a Title VI Civil Rights complaint with the US Department of Justice (DOJ). Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits entities that receive any federal dollars from discriminating based on race, color, or national origin. During the summer of 2020, many local cities implemented policies that limited the right to protest and express their concerns on racial matters, these may be considered Title VI violations if the policies and practices are still being enforced.
File a Voting Rights Act Complaint. Redistricting and racial gerrymandering to limit the power of groups because of their racial identity is illegal. If the redistricting maps have been drawn up and approved after the 2020 Census and you believe the maps were redistricted in a way that limits the voice and voting power of certain racial and ethnic groups, you can file both a Title VI complaint and a general complaint with the DOJ to investigate your concerns. You can also file redistricting complaints with your state attorney general’s office.
Politics is a process that decides who is going to get what benefits out of life. To collectively get what we need at such a pivotal moment in the history of the country, we must realize that unless we are civically engaged there will be people in high places who may secretly work against our collective interests. If we focus on superficial words rather than paying attention to actions, our communities can fall into decay while certain people and their associates flourish at our expense.
Transforming our communities will not happen overnight; it’s going to take a lot of work and each of us has a role to play if we desire to live in communities where everyone has the opportunity to thrive. But the conciliation and unity we claim to desire as Americans will never come to fruition if we do not get involved and leave the governing of our communities solely in the hands of our elected representatives. If we want lasting change we must be in the rooms and chambers where change happens. Each of us must do the work necessary in our corners of the nation if we are going to collectively change the nation. Let us work to build relationships with our local representatives and establish agendas that work for our communities all while keeping a watchful eye on our representatives’ deeds rather than their words.
“I know the one thing we did right was the day we started to fight. Keep your eyes on the prize, on hold.” Pete Seeger
Song of the Week: Get Involved by George Soule
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Joshua V. Barr is an Emmy and national award-winning, transformational leader, civil rights attorney, community engagement expert, and policy change strategist that has trained people in all 50 states and 5 continents. In 2020, he debuted his Emmy award-winning documentary, Breaking Bread, Building Bridges, where nearly 40 strangers were matched up together based on their differences to have dinners over the course of a few months. Joshua now serves as the Chief Strategist and President of his own organization, Raising The Barr, where he collaborates with and consults government entities, not-for-profits, and other organizations that are committed to transforming their cultures and improving socioeconomic outcomes for their community stakeholders.