The Power4PuertoRico coalition on Thursday announced a leadership transition after the resignation of Erica González, who is taking on new professional challenges. On an interim basis, strategist and consultant Federico de Jesús Febles will take over the coalition’s political project, while Cristina Rodríguez Greemberg will lead its educational work. The organization said the two will divide the tasks of educating the Puerto Rican diaspora and its allies about the need to decolonize Puerto Rico and empowering Puerto Ricans in the United States to consolidate the coalition’s advances since its founding after Hurricane María.
De Jesús Febles said that under González’s leadership, Power4PuertoRico became the only national full-time organization dedicated to pushing significant structural reforms for Puerto Rico. He highlighted the coalition’s push of a bill that sought to set a date for the exit of the Oversight Board, which controls the financial decisions of Puerto Rico’s elected government through the PROMESA law.
He also cited the coalition’s advocacy for releasing reconstruction funds the first Trump administration held up, and its call to abolish the former law 22 of Puerto Rico, now folded into law 60 of 2019, which lets US millionaires who move to the island avoid federal taxes. Rodríguez Greemberg credited González with expanding the coalition’s network of Puerto Rican community organizers nationwide through Boricuas Holding It Down and Beyond Colonialism.