Manhattan Beach Man Says Hadley's Governance Approach Problematic

MANHATTAN BEACH, CA — Editor's Note: Manhattan Beach resident Gerry O'Connor writes to the Manhattan Beach City Council regarding Suzanne Hadley serving as mayor.

Dear Councilmembers Napolitano, Montgomery, Hersman, Stern and Hadley:

First off, please know that my concerns surrounding Councilmember Hadley’s possible appointment to Mayor are founded in her public decision making practices and overall approach to governance, not simply her personal opinions. If the published claims of some were indeed true — that all those challenging Hadley’s appointment to Mayor merely disagree with her politics — then the hundreds of comments I’ve submitted to our City Council over my forty years of residency would include at least a dozen or two comments like this one, raising concerns about the Mayoral appointment of a councilmember with whom I often disagree … for certainly there have been plenty such councilmembers!

Yet, this is my first such comment, ever.

Councilmember Hadley’s blatant Brown Act violations alone should be reason for serious pause by Council. Her frequent use of social media and public appearances to openly broadcast her opinions on existing council agenda items, and/or in attempts to get matters placed on future Council agendas are not only problematic, but very arguably illegal.

Councilmember Hadley’s independent and thereby inappropriate public challenges of the decision making of other elected and appointed bodies (e.g. MBUSD, LA County Board of Supervisors, LA County Department of Public Health, CA Governor’s Office, etc.) are a clear abuse of her elected office that reflect an unwillingness to differentiate between private individual rights and public officeholder responsibilities.

Councilmember Hadley's consistent and repeated references to "my voters", "my constituency", "my supporters", and the like, makes it abundantly clear that she is unwilling to accept that councilmembers represent the overall community, not just a subset who they believe to agree with their positions.

As such, Councilmember Hadley consistently fails to effectively represent our overall community's best interests — in how she approaches issues, how she votes, how she governs, and how she publicly presents herself as an elected representative. It's certainly fine, expected even, to occasionally hold minority opinions — but when a councilmember is unsuccessful at turning their minority opinion into a majority position, they must ultimately accept the result. That's how a democracy works. Yet Councilmember Hadley has unabashedly proven she will continue to represent only her own positions and interests, even after City Council has formally considered those very positions and decided otherwise.

That this council has largely failed to address such clear violations and problematic approaches has only contributed, quite significantly in fact, to the very challenges many have now raised regarding the mayoral appointment.

The position of Mayor represents the overall community as well, but it also includes the critical added responsibility of publicly representing and communicating the City Council's positions, rulings and policies on important, and often controversial community matters.

Councilmember Hadley's actions have provided no reason to believe that her uniquely problematic approach to governance would be any different as Mayor, where the community stakes are much, much higher. Having a Mayor who publicly challenges the judgements and decisions of the very City Council on which she sits would only invite undue and inappropriate challenge of our city's governance, not to mention the public confusion and even shame it would assuredly bring to our community.

As prime evidence, one need only recall Hadley's June 30 MSNBC appearance wherein, while filling in for the Mayor as Mayor Pro Tem, she brashly objected to LA County DPH policies in direct conflict with the clear support by Council. Hadley's public display of defiance (and, frankly, ignorance) was so incredulously off target that it required an immediate corrective press release from the Mayor.

But there is no overseer at City Hall to correct an off-target Mayor.

Further examples abound — certainly Councilmember Hadley’s abuse of her councilmember position to publicly rail against MBUSD policies, despite MBUSD having a separately elected governing body, displays a particularly troubling level of disrespect for not only her fellow elected representatives, but for the very electorate, right here in our own town, who elected *her*.

It brings me no joy to declare that Councilmember Hadley has consistently proven herself to be uniquely divisive, exactly when our community seeks unity. And quite arguably, our community needs that unity now, more than ever.

So YES, if I were in your shoes, I would be giving very serious consideration to, and leaning toward simply skipping over Councilmember Hadley in this Mayoral rotation, and continuing to do so until such time as she exhibits an approach to governance that does not so threaten the public decision making process of our Council/Manager form of government.

But therein lies another challenge. Even with sincere hopes of measurable corrective action on Councilmember Hadley’s part, any determination of the adequacy of any such future correction would be, at best, a collective judgement call by Council with no clear criteria established.

Plus, given this council’s inaction to date in response to Councilmember Hadley’s uniquely problematic approach to governance, one might reasonably expect that this Council will not be inclined to stray from the routine mayoral rotation. But to indeed just appoint Councilmember Hadley to Mayor with mere discussion but no specific action to address such an unprecedented level of public concerns would be a huge mistake.

Thus, I propose a slightly different tack, one that seems a more realistic expectation of this Council, and one that would help to not only publicly recognize but formally address the above-described unique challenges, going forward.

Just last year this council established 'Rules of Decorum' and a 'Civility Policy' for public meetings:

• https://www.citymb.info/home/showpublisheddocument?id=40752
• https://www.citymb.info/home/showpublisheddocument?id=40750

But these guidelines were intended primarily to address public behavior.

It’s clearly now time for our MB City Council to use this same approach, but to specifically now define, implement, *and enforce* the behavior of Councilmembers and, separately, the Mayor.

On the enforcement front, it is critical that a procedure *must* be in place to first censure, and then, if necessary, remove a fellow councilmember from the Mayoral appointment, should these established rules of decorum and/or civility be violated.

By so showing that ‘what's good for the goose is good for the gander’, this council could very effectively use this opportunity to play the role of a true unifier rather than just further fuel the growing divide.

Pausing to do so will serve to signal, to all, that this Council acknowledges the challenges expressed by many, and not only takes them seriously, but recognizes the requirement to address them on a go-forward basis — *independent* of who is appointed Mayor or who is serving on Council.

Please give this alternative your serious consideration.

Respectfully,
Gerry O’Connor
Manhattan Beach