The president of the Los Angeles City Council is resigning the chair, although she will remain on the council, after audio of offensive comments she made a year ago became public Sunday, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Democrat Nury Martinez, who has been president since December 2019, was caught on audio making disparaging remarks about colleagues on the council, including some racist comments about their constituencies.  Some members of the council have said they will take up the issue of whether Martinez should remain on the council.

In a recording of a conversation from October 2021 released Sunday, Martinez said council member Mike Bonin, who is white, treated his adopted Black son “as an accessory” and said the child was “Parece changuito,” or “like a monkey.”  She also said the sizeable population of people of descended from migrants from Oaxaca, Mexico were “lot of little short dark people.”  About Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, she said, “Fuck that guy. … He’s with the Blacks.”

In the conversation with Councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León and Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera, Martinez spoke bluntly about dividing up the city based on political power.

While she tried to quell the rising outrage of her statements after their release Sunday, Martinez’s resignation of the council’s presidency is designed to minimize the political damage to her career while maintaining her political influence.  With four of the 15 council members resigning at the end of their terms, and a fifth facing a tough reelection bid, the role of the new president of the council will be determined after the midterm election.