The Hermosa Beach City Council sat poker-faced during Monday night’s special council meeting while listening to interim City Attorney Todd Leishman deliver his closed session report.
The report followed an hour long closed session, which was a continuation of a two hour long closed session at the Council’s April 22 meeting. The subject was whether or not to fire City Manager Suja Lowenthal.
Last month’s closed session was preceded by two hours of public comments. Almost all the speakers urged the council to retain the City Manager. Monday’s closed session was preceded by another hour of public comments, divided roughly equally between residents in favor of and those opposed to retaining the City Manager.
Residents hopeful of learning the council’s decision Tuesday night following the closed session were disappointed.“It might be a little anticlimatic. But no action was taken in closed session that needs to be reported under the Brown Act. When action is taken, it will be made public,” interim City Attorney Leishman told the Council and residents who packed the chambers.
Following the council meeting, neither Councilmembers nor the interim City Attorney Leishman would comment on when the Council’s decision about the City Manager will be disclosed. Participants in council closed sessions are generally prohibited from publicly disclosing the discussions.
A measure of how divisive the City Manager issue is within the community was apparent in exchanges that involved recently retired Hermosa Police Chief Paul LeBaron and Councilmember Dean Francois. LeBaron is supportive of Lowenthal. Francois has been in frequent conflict with the city manager
LeBaron expressed his support for Lowenthal at both the regular April 22 councilmeeting and the Monday, May 5 special councilmeeting.
He began his Monday comments by correcting Mayor Rob Saemann for addressing him as chief.
“As of an hour and a half ago, I am no longer Chief,” LeBaron said. To which the Mayor responded, “You’ll always be chief to me.”
LeBaron noted he was eligible for retirement when he left the Long Beach Police Department to head Hermosa’s police department in 2020.
“I came here because I value Suja…. In my 32-and-a-half years, I’ve never worked for anybody I admire more than her.”
“In conclusion,” he told the Council, “I want to make sure you’re paying attention to the facts, and that they are true facts.”
Among the facts he said he wanted to clarify were the circumstances around an e-mail he addressed to Councilmember Dean Francois, and copied to the other councilmembers on Monday, April 21, the day before the first closed session to review the City Manager’s performance.
“There’s been mention of intimidation of a council member…. Council member Francois has consistently, since he’s been a council member, violated the law, and I have pointed it out to him and talked to him about it in regards to traffic violations…. How do I explain to my officers why they are being asked by him, as mayor, to enforce a law that he continually violates?”
In the e-mail, the the chief cited three bicycling violations by Francois: one, observed by an officer, of Francois running a stop sign in front of the police station; a second videoed by a resident “shows you riding through the red light at Pier and Hermosa Avenue; and a third photographed by a resident “of you riding your bicycle on the sidewalk in violation of the law.”
In an interview last week LeBaron said the timing of the e-mail was unrelated to the following evening’s council discussion about the city manager’s performance.
“I sent the e-mail Monday because that’s the day I received the complaint from my officer,” LeBaron explained prior to the meeting
Francois, in an email to the City Attorney, expressed concern about the then Chief’s email.
“I am greatly concerned that this is an attempt to affect our closed session item regarding the city manager. It is inappropriate interference from a police chief. It’s quite clear this documentation and timing has been delicately done to coincide with this [closed session] agenda item.”
The City Council’s next scheduled meeting is Tuesday, May 13. Council meeting agendas are generally posted the Thursday before the upcoming meeting. ER
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