Groundbreaking ex-supervisor Gloria Molina faces terminal cancer
Former Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina announced Tuesday that she is battling terminal cancer.
In a Facebook post, the 74-yearold says she's been receiving treatment for three years and her disease is “very aggressive.”
She shared that she is “not sad” and was fortunate to have lived “a long, fulfilling and beautiful life.”
“I enter this transition in life feeling so fortunate,” the trailblazing Molina said in the post. “I have an amazing and caring family, wonderful friends, and worked with committed colleagues and a loyal team. Throughout my life
I've had the support of many people,”
In 1982, Molina was the first Latina elected to the state Assembly; in 1987, she was the first Latina elected to the Los Angeles City Council; in 1991, she was the first Latina elected to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
As supervisor, she served the First District, which represents Pico-Union, East Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley.
The Pico Rivera native was a county supervisor for 23 years, from 1991 to 2014, and is known for working toward improving the county's foster care system, foster youth graduation rates and the Department of Family and Children Services.
In 2008, she was the focus of a whirlwind of negative publicity for introducing a motion to the Board of Supervisors to fine food trucks, including taco trucks in East L.A., for parking for more than one hour.
Molina fought the city of Whittier's plan to drill for oil in a portion of the Whittier Hills purchased with taxpayer monies from state Measure Proposition A and fought to keep the land preserved in perpetuity as open space and for wildlife.
After the Mountains Rec
reation and Conservation Authority dropped
its lawsuit against the drilling project to benefit from future oil revenues, Molina said she was betrayed by the environmental group and stood her ground.
As a member of the L.A. Metro board, Molina successfully pushed for the extension of the Gold Line (now L Line) light rail into East Los Angeles.
Molina attended public
schools in Montebello as well as East Los Angeles College and Cal State Los Angeles.
Those workers — represented by the California Nurses Association, an affiliate of National Nurses United — held protests at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center, Emanate Health Queen of the Valley Hospital in West Covina, Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center in Torrance and Community Hospital of San Bernardino, among others.
The issue of chronic understaffing was amplified last month when Kindred hospitals across Southern California held a hiring event to fill openings at hospitals in Los Angeles, Baldwin Park, Brea, La Mirada, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, Riverside, Santa Ana, West Covina, Gardena and Westminster.
That event was part of a nationwide recruitment effort at the healthcare company's 60-plus hospitals in 17 states and online.
CHA Health Systems is a Korean biotech company that acquired Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in 2004, establishing the only Korean-owned and operated general hospital in the U.S.