The city council of Santa Monica, CA has shown Wells Fargo how it feels about their involvement with the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Last week the city council in Santa Monica heard more than 30 speakers in a session that lasted well into the small hours of the morning.
Drums and chants were performed and speakers begged for the local government to take any action that was possible to halt the construction of the pipeline.
In this case the small government did what they could, and early Wednesday morning voted to sever all financial ties with Wells Fargo.
Council member Tony Vazquez had this to say, “Santa Monica is taking a stand against Wells Fargo because they have repeatedly used deceptive business practices,” and he went on to comment, “Their investment in the Dakota Access Pipeline is the latest egregious action. It’s our hope that other cities will divest their funds so together we can have a collective and powerful impact.”
While this action by the City of Santa Monica is not expected to affect the development of the pipeline, it does send a powerful message to the nation.
Seattle was the first city to cut financial ties with the banks that are backing the Dakota Access Project, and the mayor of New York has expressed interest in bringing the issue up formally.
“Look, I think what’s happening with the Dakota Access pipeline is just plain wrong,” Mayor de Blasio stated in an interview with The Washington Times.
The mayor of New York City continued, “I think what the Trump administration did was wrong. I don’t know enough about which companies are involved, but I’m certainly interested in anything we can do to avoid that pipeline destroying the earth and harming Native American people.”
It is no secret that the Dakota Access pipeline is a horrible idea, and should be stopped immediately.
With cities across the United States expressing their contempt for the financial backers of a ill-conceived and dangerous idea, we can only hope that meaningful action to halt the pipeline is taken.
And that it is never, ever completed.
Scrap it!
[via surfsantamonica]
