City Councilmember Tyron Hampton has urged Mayor Victor Gordo to place an ethical investment resolution on the agenda, responding to repeated pleas for the Police and Retirement Board to divest from Boeing, Chevron, and Caterpillar, as well as ongoing public appeals for divestment from companies alleged to benefit from humanitarian harm. The move seeks to ensure that city investments align with ethical principles and avoid connections to companies implicated in global atrocities, particularly concerning the Israel-Gaza conflict.
“I think that we shouldn’t be investing in any companies that we know have been benefiting off of the harm of human beings,” Hampton said during Monday’s meeting, highlighting the moral basis for his proposal.
The resolution follows over the past several months of residents demanding City Council divest from the companies amid claims they are linked to the Israel-Gaza conflict. While Hampton did not mention these companies by name during his comments, his call targets any corporate beneficiary of human rights abuses.
Precedents from cities like Portland, Maine, where the city council unanimously passed a resolution to divest city funds from companies deemed complicit in Israel’s war crimes in Gaza—including Boeing, Caterpillar, Chevron, General Dynamics, Intel and Volvo—and from Hayward, California, where the City Council voted to divest from Caterpillar, Chevron, Hyundai and Intel, citing concerns over Palestinian rights, highlight a wider trend.
Internationally, Norway’s $2 trillion wealth fund, managed by Norges Bank, has excluded Caterpillar and five Israeli banks on ethics grounds. The decision was based on findings that Caterpillar’s equipment—such as bulldozers—is being used in what Norway’s ethics council described as “widespread unlawful destruction of Palestinian property in Gaza and the West Bank,” according to The Guardian.
Despite public pressure, officials clarified that the city itself does not invest in those companies, nor does it have any control over Police and Fire Retirement Board investments. Previous city efforts to address the regional conflict have included a symbolic resolution for a cease-fire last year. The proposed resolution, if adopted, would reaffirm the council’s commitment to scrutinizing the ethical implications of municipal investments, although immediate policy shifts over independent retirement boards remain out of the city’s jurisdiction.
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