The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to censure councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León, as well as former councilmember Nury Martinez, for racist and incendiary comments made on a leaked recording.
LAPD launches criminal probe of racist tape leak that threw Los Angeles politics into turmoil. It’s a reversal from what the department said last week.The dramatic events were another sign of how the year-old audio, which captured the three council members and a high-level labor leader in a conversation featuring divisive and derogatory remarks, has upended City Hall.
“This censure isn’t just about the offensive words that they used, and it isn’t just about their attempt to take power from a protected class,” said Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who represents part of the west San Fernando Valley. “It is also about their abdication of their duty as council members to represent all of their constituents.”
Since Martinez stepped down, her district — which includes Van Nuys, Arleta, Panorama City and Sun Valley — has had a nonvoting caretaker. The rules of the City Council allow the subject of the request for censure “to make an opening and a closing statement, to call witnesses on his or her behalf and to question his or her accusers.”
“The public and the neighborhood councils need to listen to those recordings as to who actually said what,” she added.