"Nury Martinez, We Have An Email To Show You" by Daniel Guss
@TheGussReport - A few years ago, this column warned that Nury Martinez was neither ready nor willing to front the L.A. City Council with fresh ideas or honest leadership.
This column also repeatedly warned against her questionable recent decision to appoint her predecessor and former colleague Herb Wesson to oversee Council District 10 until the federal corruption charges against suspended Councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas are resolved one way or the other.
On Tuesday, L.A. City Council is expected to discuss that nomination.
(Herb Wesson, Nury Martinez)
As Council President, identifying a CD10 caretaker is Martinez’s absolute right. But it is the other Councilmembers’ obligation to protect City employees from harassment and danger. Also obligated to do that are City Attorney Mike Feuer and City Controller Ron Galperin.
There’s an incestuous bunch if ever there was one.
They all desperately need one another’s endorsement to stay on the public dole, i.e. in office or another elected office. Feuer is running for Mayor despite an FBI raid of his office and a State Bar of California investigation. Galperin now running for State Controller after ditching his County Supervisor campaign once Bob Hertzberg decided to go for it. And half of City Council is vying for re-election for another four years.
Consequently, this column will publish inside information pointing out, among other things, that Herb Wesson knowingly enabled or ignored disgraced Councilmember Jose Huizar’s abuse of City employees.
For starters…..
Vanessa Rodriguez, Wesson’s then long-time media relations staffer, forwarded this detailed complaint from a female City employee about Huizar’s sexual harassment and other official misconduct to a private G-mail account that is believed to have been accessed by or had its content subsequently forwarded to Wesson and his then-chief of staff Deron Williams.
Using private email is how public officials learn what’s going on without it being forever linked to their public email accounts, except for the fact that Rodriguez forwarded it from her City email account.
Part of the federal government’s corruption case against Huizar is that Chinese land developers may have provided a massive sum of money that Huizar needed in order to settle sexual harassment charges leveled against him and the City. In exchange, Huizar was allegedly expected to get the developers’ skyscraper projects approved and advanced for a vote at the full City Council because he chaired City Council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee.
Herb Wesson appointed Jose Huizar to chair that committee, and nothing advanced from it without Huizar’s, and therefore Wesson’s, approval which, the federal government alleges, comes with a price.
That raises two glaring questions:
Why didn’t Wesson, long aware of Huizar’s sexual harassment, stop Huizar and protect City employees?
What, if anything, does Huizar have on Wesson that caused him to ignore these allegations and, in fact, bend over backward to get Huizar re-elected?
Time will tell, as will other documents.
In case you missed it, zero in on the phrase “all his shady deals.”
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(Daniel Guss, MBA, was runner-up for the 2020 Los Angeles Press Club journalism award for Best Online Political Commentary and runner-up in 2021 in the Activist Journalism category. He has contributed to Mayor Sam, CityWatchLA, KFI AM-640, iHeartMedia, 790-KABC, Cumulus Media, KCRW, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal, Pasadena Star News, Los Angeles Downtown News, and The Los Angeles Times in its Sports, Opinion and Entertainment Sections and Sunday Magazine among other publishers.)