Council Member Gutierrez on Colombia earthquake and summer interns

Councilmember Gutierrez, followed by Nurse.

Thank you.

I want to just quickly say thank you wholeheartedly to my four wonderful interns, whose last day is today.

Amelia, Razon Chen, and Camille, thank you so much.

I think they're somewhere over here.

Maybe they left.

But thank you so much for giving District 34 your summer.

I also want to take a second to...

Speak about what occurred this past Monday in Colombia that experienced a 7.4 magnitude earthquake.

I want to share my condolences to every single Colombian who lost a loved one.

The state of Choco and cities like Pereira, Manizales, Cali have had buildings, churches, hospitals collapse and the death toll continues to rise and thousands are still missing.

I've had to take breaks myself from the news because the images of babies and people being pulled from rubble is truly, truly jarring.

However, the coverage of everyday Colombians joining in to recover those

bodies to demand silence at these sites just to see if they can hear if any survivors are still speaking is a reminder of how united and how resilient we are under a crisis which we are not new to.

While those impacted wait for a newly inaugurated right-wing administration to take action, neighbors are throwing down to help and Colombians in New York City are doing the same by leading collection drives.

I want to thank all of those businesses, organizations, and friends in government who are leading their own efforts, my district office included.

I also want to recognize the people here, the council staff and city hall staff with families in Columbia who are sharing in this grief.

My prayers to your family.

In Spanish, I will only say that obviously this Monday we passed in the country of Colombia a

earthquake and in this moment volunteers and neighbors are working strongly to help recover their bodies and I want to thank all the volunteers, businesses that are organizing to send help to our country.

And I just want to say that while we're just weeks away from Hispanic Heritage Month, Colombia had an earthquake, Venezuela had an earthquake, Puerto Rico is in a water shortage.

I hope that we can do more than celebrate music and food because our countries cannot do that without clean water and emergency supplies.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Council Member, for your remarks.