FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
December 2, 2022

CONTACT 
​Kacey Bonner kbonner@chromacollaborative.com 310-402-3013

Coalition calls for further action to advance racial justice in LA and echoes call for Kevin De León, Gil Cedillo to resign 

LOS ANGELES –  The Los Angeles City Council voted today to approve an ordinance that will prohibit new oil and gas extraction activities and phase out existing oil drilling citywide, a victory driven by a decade of advocacy by and for frontline communities. The ordinance developed by the Department of City Planning and the City Attorney’s office designates existing extraction activities a nonconforming land use in all zones of the city. The City’s Board of Public Works is also voting today to approve contracts to launch a citywide amortization study, an economic analysis which may justify shortening L.A. City’s default 20-year phase-out period for existing oil wells. 

This ordinance will amend decades of racist land use decisions that concentrated oil drilling in Black and Brown communities. The vote comes at a time when the City Council continues to face growing community demands for accountability and a change in culture after a recording surfaced in October of Kevin de León, Gil Cedillo, former Council President Nury Martinez and others making racist remarks and exploiting the City’s redistricting process to disempower already disenfranchised Black Angelenos. 

STAND-L.A. has echoed the calls of Black and Indigenous-led organizations and movements that there be no “business as usual” as long as Cedillo and de León remain on the City Council, and for Cedillo and de León to resign.

In response to City Council’s vote to phase out drilling at this time, STAND-L.A. issued the following statement:

“The future of Los Angeles is one that will be free from fossil fuel extraction – and that is thanks to the hard work and persistence of frontline communities who fought for over a decade to make this happen. This win – the result of years of community-organizing, coalition building and multi-racial solidarity – signals that Black, Latinx and other communities of color currently living near polluting oil wells and derricks in South L.A. and Wilmington will eventually breathe easier. It is proof that people power can push elected officials to prioritize public health over polluters’ profits. Finally, this ordinance is a major opportunity to transform flawed land use and planning systems in our City, which have been historically polluted by systemic racism, into ones that actually serve and benefit all communities. 

Yet, we cannot ignore that this vote comes as our City Council members are not doing enough to address the demands of Black and Indigenous communities in the wake of the leaked racist conversation between Councilmembers De Leon, Cedillo and Martinez and Ron Herrera. Our commitment to multi-racial solidarity and uprooting systemic racism in the long term demands that we continue supporting the call from our movement partners for no business as usual at the LA City Council and the resignations of Gil Cedillo and Kevin De León. That is why we will not be speaking inside Council chambers today and will not be joining council members to celebrate this victory later today.  

We urge the City Council to go beyond acknowledging and condemning the disgraced council members’ racist remarks and power-grabbing scheme, and take greater action to address the policies that disproportionately harm Black and Indigenous communities. Our City and this Council must own up to the anti-Blackness that created policies that allowed oil drilling in neighborhoods in the first place and that fostered an environment where such a horrific example of racism and corruption could occur between council members.

This ordinance is a victory for frontline communities, for environmental justice, for cleaner air and our climate, and for the entire City’s health. However, it is also clear that this single ordinance will not fix the systemic racism that is embedded into our City’s laws. It was community power that pushed the ordinance into existence, and it is community power that will oust Kevin de León and create a City that embodies the principles of environmental and racial justice. We must ensure racial justice and equity are not just buzzwords, but real values that are consistently acted on and voted for through concrete, bold policies.  

We have a lot of work to do, and today’s victory speaks to the power we have to create change. To the frontline communities and allies who persisted for the right to clean air, healthy neighborhoods and justice, we say: Today is yours. Today, you have won.”