Nury Martinez

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Nury Martinez
CPMartinez.jpg
President of the Los Angeles City Council
Assumed office
January 5, 2020
Preceded byHerb Wesson
Member of the Los Angeles City Council
from the 6th district
Assumed office
August 9, 2013
Preceded byTony Cardenas
Member of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education
from the 6th district
In office
July 1, 2009 – June 30, 2013
Preceded byJulie Korenstein
Succeeded byMónica Ratliff
Personal details
Born (1973-07-09) July 9, 1973 (age 48)
San Fernando Valley, California, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
EducationCalifornia State University, Northridge (BA)
WebsiteOfficial website

Nury Martinez (born July 9, 1973) is an American politician, currently serving as a Los Angeles City Councilmember for the 6th district. A member of the Democratic Party, Martinez was unanimously chosen to become President of the Los Angeles City Council in December 2019, after serving as the Council's president pro tempore.[1]

Martinez is the first Latina to become Council President.[1] She previously served as a member of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education from 2009 to 2013.

Education and early career[]

Born and raised in the San Fernando Valley, Martinez graduated from San Fernando High School in 1992 and from California State University, Northridge in 1996.[2] Early in her career, she ran a support group for women living with AIDS at the Northeast Valley Health Corp.[3] and worked as a special assistant to then-State Senator Alex Padilla.[4]

She served as the Executive Director of the environmental justice organization Pacoima Beautiful and was elected to the City of San Fernando City Council in 2003 and 2007, where she also served as Mayor.[5] In 2009, she was elected as a member of the Board of Education of the Los Angeles Unified School District, 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,[6] 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 in that election[7] and again in a 2015 rematch when she won her first full term.[8] Martinez was the only woman serving on the City Council for four years, until the election of Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez in July 2017 and was the first Latina member in a quarter century.[9]

COVID-19 response[]

As City Council President during the COVID-19 pandemic, Martinez has 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.[10]

She also allocated $50 million to provide two weeks pay to those who were infected and could not work,[11] $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,[12] 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.[13][14]

Minimum wage[]

Along with Councilmembers Curren Price and Mike Bonin, Martinez passed a law in 2014 boosting the minimum wage to $15.37 for employees at large hotels in Los Angeles.[15][16] 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.[17][18]

Human trafficking[]

Martinez has focused on domestic violence and human trafficking 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.[19]

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.[20]

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.[21] In 2019, Martinez supported a successful law authored by California State Senator Henry Stern,[22] 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.[23]

Homelessness[]

In 2020, Councilwoman Martinez opened a temporary trailer shelter in Van Nuys as part of Mayor Eric Garcetti's "A Bridge Home" shelter program that provides shelter and services to homeless individuals before being placed in permanent housing.[24] 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.[25]

Immigration[]

Councilwoman Martinez has 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. [26]

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.[27]

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.[28][29]

In early 2019, she joined several of her colleagues to introduce a local Green New Deal for the City of Los Angeles.[30]

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.[31]

The Councilwoman employs 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.[32]

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.[33] 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.[34]

References[]

  1. ^ a b "Nury Martinez chosen as first Latina president of the L.A. City Council". Los Angeles Times. 2019-12-03. Retrieved 2019-12-29.
  2. ^ "CSUN Alumna Nury Martinez Takes Her Seat at the Table | CSUN Today".
  3. ^ "Outreach planned for gay Latinos". Los Angeles Daily News. Los Angeles Daily News. Retrieved 27 May 2006.
  4. ^ "Martinez, Ruelas, Veres retain seats". Los Angeles Daily News. Los Angeles Daily News. Retrieved 7 March 2007.
  5. ^ "Full Biography for Nury Martinez". www.smartvoter.org.
  6. ^ "Los Angeles City Elections". Retrieved July 30, 2013.
  7. ^ "Nury Martinez wins Los Angeles City Council 6th District seat". KABC-TV. July 24, 2013.
  8. ^ Smith, Dakota. "Election 2015: Incumbent Nury Martinez wins re-election in Council District 6 race". Los Angeles Daily News. Los Angeles Daily News. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
  9. ^ "Nury Martinez wins Los Angeles City Council 6th District seat". KABC-TV. July 24, 2013.
  10. ^ Chang, Alisa. "Los Angeles Launches $103 Million Program to Offer Relief to Renters". NPR. KQED. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
  11. ^ City News Service. "LA City Council Commits $50 Million to Aid Workers Afflicted by COVID-19". KNBC4. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
  12. ^ City News Service. "LA City Council approves $30M for free child care, programs at parks amid COVID-19". ABC7. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
  13. ^ LADWP. "LADWP and LA City Council President Nury Martinez Announce $50 Million In Emergency Relief for Low-Income Households Impacted by COVID-19". LADWP. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
  14. ^ Sentinel News Service. "LADWP and LA City Council President Nury Martinez Announce $50 Million In Emergency Relief for Low-Income Households Impacted by COVID-19". Los Angeles Sentinel. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
  15. ^ Rainey, James. "L.A. Council to consider hiking minimum wage to $15.37 at big hotels". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  16. ^ Alpert Reyes, Emily; Zahniser, David. "L.A. City Council approves minimum-wage hike for hotel workers". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 24 September 2014.
  17. ^ Alpert Reyes, Emily; Zahniser, David. "L.A. lawmakers lay out path to $15.25 minimum wage by 2019". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 7 October 2014.
  18. ^ Jamison, Peter; Zahniser, David; Walton, Alice. "Los Angeles' minimum wage on track to go up to $15 by 2020". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 19 May 2015.
  19. ^ Alpert Reyes, Emily. "L.A. Council seeks to curb new adult businesses in parts of Valley". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 13 May 2014.
  20. ^ "Councilwoman Martinez Recognizes Three-Year Anniversary of the LAPD Operations-Valley Bureau Human Trafficking Task Force". Los Angeles Sentinel. Sentinel News Service. Retrieved 25 October 2018.
  21. ^ Chou, Elizabeth. "A new LA program would provide shelter to victims of human trafficking". Los Angeles Daily News. Los Angeles Daily News. Retrieved 24 October 2017.
  22. ^ Chavez, Alejandro. "Councilmember Nury Martinez and Journey Out Unite City and County for Human Trafficking Awareness Campaign". San Fernando Sun. San Fernando Sun. Retrieved 12 March 2020.
  23. ^ "SB-630 Human trafficking". Legislate CA. California Legislature. Retrieved 12 March 2020.
  24. ^ Chou, Elizabeth. "Van Nuys shelters bring more 'bridge' beds to San Fernando Valley". Los Angeles Daily News. Retrieved 10 August 2020.
  25. ^ Chou, Elizabeth. "Amid pandemic, education comes first for families sheltered at LA-area motels". Los Angeles Daily News. Retrieved 24 August 2020.
  26. ^ "LA City Council Passes Ban On Private Migrant Detention Centers". CBS Los Angeles. CBS. Retrieved 12 March 2020.
  27. ^ "L.A. city councilwoman wants to sue Trump administration over 'unconstitutional' immigration policies". Los Angeles Daily News. Los Angeles Daily News. Retrieved 3 September 2019.
  28. ^ Barboza, Tony. "L.A. City Council adopts rules to ease health hazards in polluted neighborhoods". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 13 April 2016.
  29. ^ Olney, Warren. "Clean Up Green Up: Why Now?". KCRW. Retrieved 14 April 2016.
  30. ^ City News Service. "City Council Committee Looks to Develop Green New Deal for LA". KNBC4. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
  31. ^ "L.A. Council Votes to Request Timeline on Closure of Valley Generating Station". mynewsLA.com. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
  32. ^ Chou, Elizabeth. "An east San Fernando Valley councilwoman wants to send a message about the messes in her district". Los Angeles Daily News. Retrieved 19 September 2019.
  33. ^ Zahniser, David (January 21, 2016). "Federal investigators focus on small campaign donations to L.A. Councilwoman Nury Martinez". Los Angeles Times.
  34. ^ Stimson, Brie (September 21, 2019). "Probe of Los Angeles Democrat's campaign donations ends over 'insufficient' evidence". Fox News.

External links[]

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Preceded by President of the Los Angeles City Council
2020–present 		Incumbent
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