The Brief

Before her political career ended in disgrace, former L.A. city council president Nury Martinez was known as a tough-talking champion for the working poor and immigrant families. But after audio recordings were leaked in October 2022 that included her and other Latino leaders making racist and disparaging remarks, she became the poster child for anti-Blackness and colorism in some Latino communities.

About Episode 2 — The Rise and Fall

Episode 2 of the LAist Studios podcast Imperfect Paradise: Nury & the Secret Tapes explores Martinez’s background and her political career, and delves into the tensions roiling the L.A. city council in the months leading up to the secretly-recorded meeting.

In this episode, LAist Studios host Antonia Cereijido details how Martinez’s upbringing shaped her politics and leadership style.

Why you should listen

The tapes exposed problems that have long plagued L.A. politics. A year after the scandal, issues persist over anti-Black racism and colorism within the Latino/Latinx community, Democratic Party divisions, and the struggle to define Latino political power.

Growing up 

Martinez grew up in the northeast San Fernando Valley, the child of immigrant parents from Zacatecas, Mexico. Her mother was a seamstress and her father was a dishwasher. When she was 5, her family purchased a home in Pacoima from one of the last white families on the block — by the late 1970s, the area was becoming a landing pad for Mexican immigrants. Martinez’s parents were undocumented, and her father was deported several times.

A flower shop on Van Nuys Blvd in Pacoima, the neighorhood of L.A. where Nury Martinez grew up.

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While other Latino politicians of her era were galvanized by the 1994 passage of Proposition 187 — which would deny a broad range of social services to undocumented immigrants — and the subsequent vilification of migrants from Latin America by then-Governor Pete Wilson, that was not Martinez’s experience. Her political ambitions weren’t sparked on the streets, but rather at home.

Martinez’s interest in politics began in the fifth grade, when her class was doing a mock presidential election. She asked her father to explain the difference between the Republican and Democratic parties. According to Martinez, he responded, “The best way I can describe it to you is that Republicans tend to be rich, and Democrats tend to be poor. And I said, 'so Dad, I declare that we're gonna be Democrats'.”

After many years of being a seamstress, Martinez’s mother had finally gotten a job on an assembly line at the Price Pfister plant in Pacoima, manufacturing shower heads and faucets. It was a union job with good wages and benefits. After the passage of NAFTA in 1992, the company announced it was outsourcing.

“I remember walking into my mom and dad's bedroom, and my mom was sitting at the edge of her bed crying. I am like, ‘What happened? Mom?’ And she couldn't even get the words out of her mouth,” Martinez recalled. “The company had said that they were gonna shut down and they were gonna move to Mexico.”

At this point, Martinez’s mother, and other employees of Price Pfister, began to organize to keep the company in Pacoima. Martinez said she began to notice how few of the elected officials they contacted were Latino and how even fewer were women. This, she later said, was her political awakening. Her interest in politics sprang from a desire to help working class people like her parents.

"My politics come from a lived experience. That's it," Martinez said. "I know what it feels like to be poor."

Running for office and developing her style 

Martinez first ran for public office in 2003, when she campaigned to be on the San Fernando City Council. Then, she served on the L.A. Unified School District board. Finally, in 2013, she ran for a seat on the L.A. City Council and won. She was the second-ever elected Latina city councilmember in Los Angeles, the first in 20 years. When Martinez was sworn in, she wasn't just the only woman on the council. The mayor, the city attorney and the controller were all men.

Former L.A. city council president Nury Martinez with belongings from her council office, now stored in boxes in the living room of her home.

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Martinez quickly developed a reputation for being a blunt, brash communicator. In 2018, when dockless scooters were first introduced to L.A., she flatly reminded her fellow council members that her largely working-class constituents did not care about them.

“I don't have any dockless bicycles or scooters or any of that fancy stuff you guys got in your districts,” Martinez told the transportation committee. “We're just simply trying to cross the street without getting killed, just to put it all in perspective.”

Mike Trujillo, a veteran Democratic strategist who grew up in Martinez’s part of the San Fernando Valley, said voters felt she reflected them.

“She spoke like she was raised in Pacoima,” he said. “A little bit Valley, a little bit street. I think she's proud of that, and she should be. She got elected.”

Martinez used her brashness to her advantage on the city council, helping her whip votes behind the scenes for then-council President Herb Wesson. But it became a liability once she became council president in January 2020.

Nithya Raman, one of the more progressive council members who often found herself at odds with Martinez, thought Martinez was using her power as gatekeeper of the city council’s agenda to punish people she disagreed with.

“Things that I thought would be a no-brainer would take weeks, even months to get put on the agenda,” Raman said. “We had so many examples where even the most basic things would take a long time to get put through the council. And we couldn't always find any reason for why those delays would happen.”

Martinez’s bid for the council presidency had also put her at odds with former allies Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Mike Bonin — divisions that would deepen during the pandemic.

Divisions emerge during the pandemic 

We interviewed multiple current and former L.A. city council members for this podcast, and they all agreed that being on the council during the COVID-19 pandemic was incredibly difficult. Instead of debating about housekeeping issues like paving streets and picking up trash, council members were debating how to help keep people from contracting a deadly virus and losing their homes. Deep divisions began to emerge between the progressive and moderate wings of the body about issues like whether to cancel rent, and protesters took to the streets.

Many Los Angeles city council meetings were held remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this Dec. 15, 2020 meeting, new city councilmembers from even-numbered districts took the oath of office. Top row, L-R: John Lee, Nithya Raman, Mark Ridley-Thomas; middle, L-R: Paul Krekorian, Kevin De León, Gil Cedillo; bottom, L-R: Nury Martinez

“They descended on my home at six o'clock in the morning,” Martinez recalled. “And they were relentless. My cell phone number was posted on Twitter. So I had thousands and thousands of voicemail messages calling me every name in the book, threatening me, because I wouldn't cancel rent.”

The growing homelessness crisis in L.A. was another point of tension. In the fall of 2021, Martinez and the other moderates on the council voted in favor of maintaining a ban on homeless encampments near schools, parks, daycares and libraries.

The way she saw it, her district and other poor districts (mostly made up of Latino immigrant families) were bearing the brunt of the homelessness crisis. But for the more progressive council members, the ban on homeless encampments effectively criminalized homelessness, and it was another example of the city cracking down on the most vulnerable.

"I had conversations with Nury and I said, 'You know, if we do this [encampment ban] a bunch of Black people are gonna get arrested. We all know that. Even LAPD will tell you that that's what's gonna happen. We just went through that with the war on drugs. Why would we do it again?'" Harris-Dawson recalled.

But for Martinez, the safety and quality of life of her working class constituents was most important.

"The homeowners in my district would work really hard to have that little home," she says in the episode. "People in Sun Valley are housekeepers, hotel workers, janitors, construction workers, they're the people who we rely on for the city to move forward. They don't deserve clean streets or a clean neighborhood? Are we being serious?"

Deteriorating relationships

Over the next two years, relations on the council deteriorated, and Martinez found herself more and more frustrated and isolated.

Being council president, Martinez said, “made me a harder person because I had to defend myself. I developed a wall because no matter how you looked at things, um, no matter the politics of the council, somebody always wanted my job.”

Then, in the summer of 2021, two people walked onto Martinez’s property, spray painted her driveway and vandalized her car, dumping what looked like acid onto it. The political disagreements on the council suddenly felt very personal to Martinez.

“Can you imagine if that thing would've blown up?” Martinez said. “But I heard very little outcry when that happened to me. It almost felt that the two-and-a-half years of being council president and all these protests and all this criticism just became normal. I just needed to take it. Nobody cared. It didn't matter.”

By the fall of 2021, the tension on the L.A. city council reached a boiling point — just as the council launched into the once-in-a-decade process of redistricting, or drawing new council district boundaries based on new census data. For incumbents like Martinez, this process is live or die. You can lose huge numbers of voters who support you, or you can gain them.

Redistricting is the reason Martinez, council members Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo, and labor leader Ron Herrera were meeting that day in October 2021 when they were secretly recorded. They didn’t like the maps that were proposed for Cedillo’s district, voicing concerns that his constituency would be diluted and he would lose his seat.

Protestors demonstrate outside L.A. City Hall calling for the resignations of councilmembers Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo and Council President Nury Martinez in the wake of a leaked audio recording on October 12, 2022 in Los Angeles.

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And the months of tensions, of deepening divisions and growing distrust, the stress of people throwing acid on her car and protesting outside her house — Martinez says she brought all of that into the room, that it set the stage for their conversation.

“I've thought about that particular day, God, a thousand times, if not more,” Martinez said. “I was so frustrated. It's so angry and so alone and so abandoned by everyone, particularly other members.”

But there is a difference between being frustrated, and saying insensitive, racist things.

In the next episode of Imperfect Paradise: Nury & The Secret Tapes, which will be released on Wednesday, Oct. 11, we press Martinez to respond to the worst things she said on the secretly recorded tapes.

Listen to the latest episode

It's now available from LAist Studios. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts! Or listen to the episode here:

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Before the L.A. City Council tape scandal, Nury Martinez, the former council president, was known as a champion of working class immigrants. After, she became the poster child of anti-Blackness and colorism in the Latino community. Host Antonia Cereijido examines how Martinez's upbringing influenced her politics and the divisions that emerged within the council under her leadership, leading up to the secretly-recorded conversation.

Nury & The Secret Tapes: Part 2

Before the L.A. City Council tape scandal, Nury Martinez, the former council president, was known as a champion of working class immigrants. After, she became the poster child of anti-Blackness and colorism in the Latino community. Host Antonia Cereijido examines how Martinez's upbringing influenced her politics and the divisions that emerged within the council under her leadership, leading up to the secretly-recorded conversation.

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It's a sunny, warm Wednesday on deck so make sure you stay hydrated and apply that SPF.

Daytime highs at the beaches are going to stay in the low to mid 70s, and reach 85 to 95 degrees in the valleys. Similar conditions are expected for the Inland Empire.

For communities in the Santa Monica Mountains, temperatures will stay in the mid 80s.

And in Coachella Valley, temperatures will once again be in the triple digits, with highs of up to 108 degrees.

The Phillips 66 oil refinery in the South Bay is shutting down, and nearby communities want a say in what comes next. But some residents worry they’re already being left out.  

Carson officials had called for creating a task force that would include community members to provide recommendations during the redevelopment process, but the effort has stalled.

City officials say they’re in direct conversation with Phillips 66 and are hosting community town halls for residents.

The background

Phillips 66 announced its intention to close its L.A. refinery in 2024, citing an aging facility and increasingly strict state regulations. The refinery spans more than 650 acres and has two main complexes, one in the L.A. neighborhood of Wilmington and one in Carson. They’re connected via a 5-mile pipeline. The company processed its final barrel of crude oil late last year.

Soon after Phillips 66 announced its intent to close, the Carson City Council passed a yearlong moratorium on proposals to develop the site and amended the general plan to give the council authority to approve the final plans for redeveloping the portion of the property within city limits.

What Carson leaders said 

When the moratorium expired last year, and in anticipation of the company submitting a project proposal, Carson Mayor Lula Davis-Holmes directed staff to put together a task force — including residents, City Council members and other stakeholders — to help inform the cleanup and redevelopment of some 223 acres of the company’s land within Carson city limits.

“ I know that my residents are real concerned about what they would like to see on that site versus them being told after the fact,” Mayor Pro Tem Cedric L. Hicks Sr. said at a council meeting last September, when he also expressed support for establishing a task force.

Task force effort stalls

Nearly nine months later, a task force has not been created.

In a statement to LAist, Carson spokesperson Margie Revilla-Garcia said the task force hasn’t yet been established “as staff is still discussing its structure internally.”

“At this time, no timeline has been established for the creation of the task force,” Revilla-Garcia wrote in an email.

Councilwoman Arleen Rojas, whose district includes the refinery, said a task force is premature — cleanup should be the priority.

“We have the community that’s been giving us ideas on what they want there, but we really need to clean it up,” she said.

Rojas said the council established an ad hoc committee that regularly meets with Phillips 66 about the cleanup. Meanwhile, she said the city has hosted and will hold more town hall meetings to educate residents about the cleanup process, which is likely to take years.

In April, Phillips 66 submitted its initial plan to turn the site into warehouses and industrial buildings. (The company submitted a proposal for its Wilmington site in August 2025 to the city of L.A.)

What’s next

Some Carson residents worry that without a designated task force, their concerns could go unheard as Phillips 66 carries out a largely unprecedented cleanup and redevelopment effort.

Jonathan, a Carson resident who grew up with a window view of the nearby Valero oil refinery, said most of his neighbors know little about the Phillips 66 closure. (LAist is not publishing his surname because he fears for family members who are in the U.S. without documentation.) He learned about the creation of a task force via the environmental justice advocacy group Asian Pacific Environmental Network, or APEN.

That group had pushed for a task force that would be included in cleanup conversations, not only redevelopment efforts.

He added that a task force could allow residents to have some say in rectifying longstanding health and pollution concerns from the area’s refineries.

“We get pollution stains on our walls inside because the air is just that dirty,” he said. “In some ways it's a lot like living next to a giant bomb that you don't really know the timer.”

He hopes a task force could help influence the current proposal, which is fully industrial.

“ Living in the shadow of a refinery makes you yearn for way more green spaces,” he said.

Recommendations on how to spend $3.7 million recovered from the Andrew Do corruption scheme will be left to his successor — and long-ago boss-turned-foe — Supervisor Janet Nguyen, under a plan advanced Tuesday by Orange County supervisors. The money is expected to be devoted to benefitting his former constituents, with exact spending plans to be proposed later.

The supervisors moved forward with a proposal by Nguyen to transfer the recovered dollars into her district’s discretionary funds, which she makes recommendations on how to spend. In doing so, they opted not to pursue a notion floated by Supervisor Don Wagner to spend the funds outside the district — an idea that faced intense pushback from dozens of public commenters at Tuesday’s meeting.

“ These funds were recovered in connection with the Andrew Do corruption matter,” Nguyen said. The money, she added, “should be returned back to the benefit of the 1st District community that were deprived of the intended services and public benefits.”

Nguyen said a variety of community needs could be addressed with the dollars, including helping people affected by multi-day mass evacuations over a recent explosion risk at a Garden Grove industrial facility.

As LAist reported when uncovering the corruption scheme, Do used the district discretionary process to allocate millions of dollars in the scheme without it ever appearing on public agendas. Under a state law passed in response to the Do scandal, spending of those funds in O.C. now must go to a public vote of the full board and be posted in an online spending log.

Supervisors have not yet decided how much of the recovered funds will go to communities such as Santa Ana that were in Do’s district during the first year-and-a-half of the four-year scheme, before the map changed due to redistricting. That question will be decided when the board votes on Nguyen’s spending recommendations.

Residents want the money to stay in the district

The supervisors’ move came after more than 50 residents of Do’s former district spoke to the board during public comments — all urging that the funds be spent in the district it was originally intended for. Wagner previously said he wanted a discussion on where to spend it because there are so many needs “across the county.”

“ This is shameful that you're even considering that this money not return to our district,” said Anne Calvo, a senior in Seal Beach’s Leisure World community.

“Please return the funds that are due to our district that were stolen from us,” said Calvo, who was appointed by Nguyen to the county’s Older Adults Advisory Commission.

“Please don't steal these funds twice,” said Huntington Beach resident Lori Sueki.

Vietnamese-language media covers a packed audience during public comments about the fate of $3.7 million recovered from the Andrew Do corruption scheme, during the OC Board of Supervisors’ public meeting on Tuesday, June 9, 2026.

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Nguyen said it was the most number of speakers she could recall speaking on one topic at a supervisors’ meeting in the year and half since she re-joined the board.

In the days leading up to the discussion, Nguyen put out email blasts calling on constituents to send letters and speak up for devoting the funds to the district.

Several elected officials in local cities were among those calling on the board to spend the money in the district.

“ Other districts vying for the 1st District's funds, which are rightfully the 1st District's, is crazy,” said Butch Twining, an elected city councilman for Huntington Beach.

“Your respective districts have already received 100% of your funding,” Twining said.  ”The money is for our kids, our seniors, our veterans, to aid in providing help to our homeless and underserved communities, our public safety.”

The money diverted in the scheme was originally intended to feed vulnerable seniors and people with disabilities in his district, which included Little Saigon, Huntington Beach and — in the earlier part of the scheme — Santa Ana.

The diversion of the funds “hurt and created true victims of residents who were denied the services, the assistance, the opportunities, to recover quickly and to have their needs addressed,” said Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento, who was mayor of Santa Ana during the pandemic.

“The money should go back to those that were harmed. But let's figure out who was harmed and make sure that we look at that,” he said, noting the changes to the district lines.

Fallout

Do is now serving a five-year sentence in federal prison after he admitted to accepting bribes in exchange for awarding millions in tax dollars meant to feed needy seniors and people with disabilities in his district.

As part of the plea deal, Do acknowledged taking more than $800,000 in bribes through his two daughters, including a down payment on the house his youngest daughter Rhiannon Do later forfeited to resolve the criminal case. The unaccounted-for dollars were first uncovered by LAist.

Federal officials recovered money from seized bank accounts and two properties connected to the bribes — including the Tustin house his daughter bought.

Millions more haven’t been recovered, at least yet

The amount of taxpayer money recovered so far is less than half of the $7.9 million Andrew Do admitted was diverted from specific meal contracts.

In a lawsuit seeking to recover funds, the county alleges the total amount lost was even larger: $13.25 million. The county’s suit — scheduled for trial in November 2027 — covers all of the money Do gave to two nonprofits, Viet America Society and Hand to Hand Relief Organization.

That leaves more than $4 million — and possibly much more — not yet recovered.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office noted they have an ongoing criminal case against Do’s alleged co-conspirator Peter Pham.

“Assuming we obtain a conviction in that matter, we would expect to seek restitution,” the spokesperson, Ciaran McEvoy, said.

Pham left the country on a flight to Taiwan in late 2024 and remains a fugitive, according to McEvoy. The case against him also includes charges against another alleged co-conspirator, Thanh Huong Nguyen, who led the Hand to Hand nonprofit.

The scandal has also been costly to taxpayers in other ways. In addition to what the county has spent on legal fees to pursue the lawsuit, $1.7 million has been spent on outside contracts — including a forensic audit — Supervisor Katrina Foley said on Tuesday.

Congratulations to those lucky — or deep-pocketed — enough to score a ticket to one of eight World Cup games in Los Angeles. (If not, it's not too late.)

That now means a visit to Los Angeles Stadium in Inglewood — or SoFi Stadium to the rest of us — along with tens of thousands of others, all jostling to get in, seated, fed, and out.

SoFi is home to both of the city's (American) football teams: The Rams and The Chargers. And the ginormous arena plays host regularly to music's biggest names.

So it's all well-trotted territory. But to make your journey a bit easier, here's our cheat sheet on SoFi.

Driving?

We have to ask: you sure you want to get in a car? Because there are many public transit options to help you avoid traffic and save you money.

My colleague and transportation reporter Kavish Harjai has put together an entire transit guide for said purpose.

Still driving?

Fine! When in Rome ... we get it. In addition to navigating game-day gridlock, you’dll arlso have to park that thing.

Parking at and near SoFi Stadium

You can purchase official parking for each game. And offsite parking too. Inglewood’s Park & Go offers remote parking and shuttle service every 15 minutes to the stadium.

Pro-tip 1: Most of the streets near SoFi are permitted for residents only. Your car will be towed.

Pro-tip 2: There will be folks selling parking spots in private lots and driveways. As they say, caveat emptor.

Pro-tip 3: It could take at least an hour to get out of SoFi after the game. Use the restroom before heading to your car and pack your patience.

Food and stuff

Pregame: As my colleague Gab Chabron says, Inglewood's food scene reflects its Black and Brown residents that make up nearly 90% of its population. So grab some mightily tasty wings at a strip mall, or go a little fancy at a supper club co-founded by actor Issa Rae. Gab has all the details and more recommendations on his guide.

Game time: Plenty of options too at SoFi, which you can find here.

Pro-tip 1: After some back-and-forth, FIFA now allows fans to bring in one, soft, plastic 20 oz factory sealed disposable water bottle to the match. No other outside food or drink is allowed.

Pro-tip 2: The stadium does not accept cash.

Pro-tip 3: SoFi has a strict bag policy. Read what is allowed here.

Pro-tip 4: Yes, you can bring a poster and a flag. But there are strict rules on what those signs say.