Former California Assemblymember turned labor leader Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher set off a firestorm on social media after publishing a leaked confidential memo detailing how Amazon had a local mayor in their back pocket to expand their business interests in communities of color in the Inland Empire.
The leaked documents also shine a light on how minority elected officials are selling out their own people under the guise of “jobs, jobs, jobs”.
The document, titled “Community Engagement Plan 2024,” was described by Fletcher as an “interesting read about how Amazon plans to use $$ to non-profits in communities of color to fight legislation that limits environmental effects of warehouses & labor organizing.”
Someone sent me @amazon’s “confidential” SoCal’s community engagement plan. It’s an interesting read about how they plan to use $$ to non-profits in communities of color to fight legislation that limits environmental affects of warehouses & labor organizing. pic.twitter.com/5GhOuiyamJ
— Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (@LorenaSGonzalez) December 5, 2023
Los Angeles Times wrote about how they worked with actor Cheech Marin In the first two years of the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture’s existence, by contributing funds to his much-lauded Riverside facility.
But this year, Cheech hosted an exhibit that included a piece depicting an Amazon warehouse on fire. In an interview, the artist said the piece, titled “Burn Them All Down,” was not a call to arson, but instead a commentary on how public officials were not listening to community concerns about the growing number of warehouses in their Inland Empire neighborhoods.
Amazon saw the comments as being hostile toward the company. The e-commerce firm called it quits on future donations.
“We will not donate to the Cheech,” Amazon officials wrote in a leaked document that outlines the company’s plans for community engagement next year in the Inland Empire. “We will not continue to support organizations that did not result in a measurable positive impact in our brand and reputation. Additionally, we will not fund organizations that have positioned themselves antagonistically toward our interests.”
The document also states that Amazon is facing “significant reputational challenges in Southern California, where the company is perceived to build facilities in predominantly communities of color and poverty, negatively impacting their health.” The document then names City of Perris Mayor Michael Vargas, who Amazon refers to as “Perris Mayor Marty Vargas” in an apparent typo, as an “influential elected leader that we have cultivated through PPE donations to support the region, touring him and his team, and ongoing engagement.”
The city government of Perris posted a photo on Facebook of the mayor in an Amazon warehouse in 2021 with the caption, “Mayor Vargas and City staff welcome Amazon KRB4 to the City of Perris!”
Inglewood residents are familiar with these overtures when the city council rammed an NFL stadium down our throats without public input. It was later discovered that the entities behind the project bankrolled the campaign of Mayor James T. Butts Jr. who then poured over $100,000 in loans into the campaign of former Councilman George Dotson. Those loans have yet to be paid back and Dotson was voted off the council in March of this year.
Why are minority politicians so eager to sell out their own?
Source: L.A. Times, Vice