Sonoma County elected officials of color join calls for Los Angeles council resignations

A Sonoma County coalition of elected city officials, who are all people of color, have joined the growing list of local, state and national political leaders condemning “the hateful speech” captured in a leaked recording of four Los Angeles leaders that has politically rocked the Southern California city.

In a statement released Wednesday, members of Sonoma County’s Black, Indigenous, Peoples of Color City Elected Officials, called for the “immediate resignation” of LA Council members Gil Cedillo and Kevin De León.

“They are not deserving of a post as elected officials since constituents are to be respected regardless of their race, heritage, sexual orientation, or financial standing in life,” the group said in its statement.

The two other people on the recording, former LA Council President Nury Martinez and former Los Angeles Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera, had already resigned as of Wednesday afternoon.

“At a time when hate speech and hate crimes are at an all-time high nationally, against communities of color, such speech is not only painful and angering, but also serves to harm the solidarity that has been built over years of shared struggle amongst our Black, Brown, Indigenous and Asian brothers and sisters,” the coalition’s statement read.

The group’s members include: Windsor Vice Mayor Esther Lemus; Healdsburg Mayor Osvaldo “Ozzy” Jiménez; Santa Rosa Vice Mayor Natalie Rogers and Council member Eddie Alvarez; Rohnert Park Mayor Jackie Elward; and Council member Samantha Rodríguez, as well as Sonoma Mayor Jack Ding and Council member Madolyn Agrimonti.

Sylvia Lemus, the sister of Windsor’s vice mayor, who was recently appointed to the Cotati City Council, also is part of the coalition.

BiPOC coalition statement - Sonoma County Oct 12.pdf

“We are appalled at the egregious and highly offensive anti-Black, anti-indigenous, anti-LGBTQ and anti-Asian (Koreatown) comments, which are not only dehumanizing, but also unbecoming for elected officials from the most diverse city in California,” the group’s statement added.

In the leaked recording, which was first reported Sunday by the Los Angeles Times after it had been posted on Reddit, Martinez, who was the first Latina elected to the LA Council presidency, is heard making racist comments and other coarse remarks during an hourlong talk with Cedillo, De León and Herrera.

Recorded in October 2021, their conversation centered on protecting Latino political power during the redrawing of council district boundaries, known as redistricting, the Times reported. The overall discussion was about frustrations with redistricting maps produced by a city commission.

Martinez said in the recorded conversation that white council member Mike Bonin handled his young Black son as if he were an “accessory” and said of his son “Parece changuito,” or “he’s like a monkey,” according to the Times report. She also referred to Bonin as a “little bitch.”

At another point on the hourlong recording, Martinez called indigenous immigrants from the Mexican state of Oaxaca ugly, and made crass remarks about Jews and Armenians.

She has since apologized and on Wednesday, after numerous calls for her resignation, including from President Biden, announced she would step down.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Cedillo, whose term ends in January, and De León, a former state Assembly member and senator, who ran an unsuccessful bid in 2018 to unseat U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-San Francisco, remained LA Council members.

“We are all members of the California League of Cities,” said local coalition member Marta Cruz, a Cloverdale City Council member and former mayor. “People of color in Sonoma County are finally having a presence in the political arena, and it is very hard for those of us who are working here to have a person speak in such a manner.

“It is a national conversation that we need to have,” Cruz added. “Whether it’s Biden or anybody else who is respectful to others he needs to be part of the conversation. We are supposed to be a melting pot, but it hasn’t been a melting pot. We need to recognize that everyone is an immigrant here except the Native Americans.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

You can reach Staff Writer Kathleen Coates at kathleen.coates@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5209.