Environmental activists held a protest outside the house of San Bernardino Mayor John Valdivia on World Asthma Day yesterday, calling on the mayor to do more to protect air quality in the region.
The activists from the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, the Sierra Club My Generation Campaign, and the Sunrise Movement hosted a rally outside the mayor’s house.
They were protesting what they consider to be the mayor’s bad record on air pollution and health disparities in the region, including his role in approving the Eastgate Air Cargo Logistics Center bound for the San Bernardino International Airport.
Roxana Barrera is with the Sierra Club My Generation Campaign.
“We are out here because today is World Asthma Day, we are out here to try to encourage the mayor of San Bernardino, John Valdivia, to think about the choices he makes when he decides to bring more warehouses and more trucks to pollute our air," Barrer said. "We have the worst quality in the nation, and he doesn’t seem to think about his constituents.”
The American Lung Association found in its annual State of the Air report that the Los Angeles-Long Beach region, which includes Riverside and San Bernardino, has some of the worst air quality in the nation.
Reached by phone, Mayor Valdivia touted the 4,000 jobs the Eastgate project will bring to the region and said he thinks the community of San Bernardino generally looks favorably on his policies to create what he calls an “economic renaissance” in the city.
