Manhattan Beach Resident Explains Why Hadley Should Be Mayor

MANHATTAN BEACH, CA — EDITOR'S NOTE: This is a letter to the editor and the opinion of the letter writer.

Last year, when she ran for one of the two open seats on the Manhattan Beach City Council, Suzanne Hadley received the most votes by far. A distant second was Councilmember Hildy Stern who was also elected.

In her current role as Mayor Pro Tem, Suzanne is scheduled to assume the role of Mayor at the December 1st Council meeting under Manhattan Beach’s traditional system of rotating the mayor’s position between the five sitting councilmembers for 9-month terms. At that same meeting, Hildy Stern would presumably take the position of Mayor Pro Tem.

Yet now Councilmember Stern and outgoing Councilmember Nancy Hersman have decided to bow down to a shrill, strident minority and have placed on the December 1 meeting agenda a discussion of the mayoral rotation with an eye to either denying or delaying the assumption of the mayor’s duties by Ms. Hadley.

This is an especially bad idea for a number of reasons:

1. This is contrary to how our rotational mayoral system has worked for 50 years.
2. This introduces an element of poisonous, NextDoor-style partisanship into what is supposed to be a nonpartisan Council.
3. This will destroy any vestiges of comity and collegiality within the Council chambers which, in turn, will hinder Council’s ability to work together for the good of the community.
4. This will set an extremely divisive precedent for our community as each mayoral transfer going forward will likely generate a partisan political circus, with both sides refighting the last election.

Most importantly, Hildy Stern and Nancy Hersman would be denying an eminently qualified Suzanne Hadley from assuming the role of Mayor simply because a vitriolic, intemperate group of residents doesn't share Suzanne's views on the issues. While they may not agree with Suzanne I, and thousands of her supporters who voted for her, do agree with her and we deserve and expect to see her in the Mayor’s seat, just as those who voted for Hildy Stern (I did not) deserve to see her in that role nine months from now.

To fulfill their fiduciary duty to all the city's residents, I urge Councilmembers Stern and Hersman to withdraw this extremely misguided agenda item and stand united with their fellow Councilmembers in full support of Mayor Hadley.

To do otherwise will be bad for our City Council and bad for the community as a whole.

Mike Michalski
Manhattan Beach