This last year has been one of disappointment for Council District 1, as our mis-representative Gil Cedillo goes back on promise after promise—especially in his relentless effort to prevent bike lanes from appearing on North Figueroa Street.
All the reasons he gives are demonstrably false—and have been demonstrated to be false many, many, times in this blog and in others. (Here’s but one example, in an article I wrote for our colleagues in East Hollywood.) We have to wonder what brought about his change of heart.
Yes, change of heart, because here is Smilin’ Gil shilling for cyclist votes during his election campaign back in 2013. The video starts at the part where he praises Copenhagen-style bicycle infrastructure and holds it up as a model for Los Angeles:
Great quotes, huh? “The place that really showed me the future…was Denmark…with real bike lanes…not something to ‘share.'”
Quite a change from the petulant bully we have to put up with now.
Of course he’s a politician, and not only a politician, but an LA politician, close kin to “Windsock Tom” LaBonge, ever ready to sacrifice his constituents’ best interests to anyone with big money and influential friends. Both Tom and Gil recently reversed their positions regarding the proposed ban on growing GMO crops or livestock in LA…just days after a biotech lobbyist buttered up the nearly unanimous City Council, who suddenly shot the bill down. Evolution will now remain in corporate hands…and the streets of Highland Park will still be dominated by cut-through speeders, who will crush and kill and then drive on….
My analysis of Gil the Pill’s campaign fund sources hints at why he might so jovially have betrayed us. Keeping the neighborhood property values low for gentrification-minded developers is a likely surmise.
So, as far as 2014 is concerned, good riddance to bad rubbish. We’re stuck with Cedillo for a few more years, but at least we now know where he stands. We know that we can’t trust him, and that we’ll have to work around and against our duplicitous council member, if we’re to enjoy a healthy and safe Northeast Los Angeles in the years to come.
2 Comments
You know it’s amazing. Any time politicians start making these types of counterproductive decisions, I automatically want to assume they’re just ill-informed. But this video makes it obvious that’s not the case with Gil. He knows exactly the potential we have, and he’s already admitted that we could be so much better than we currently are, and yet he still stands against progress.
Who IS this guy?
What might have changed his mind, if he ever did support complete streets. If we were to assume he suppored the DOT’s plan then what or who altered his position? Any idea what donors, business owners. people who laughed at him at the country club etc.?