by Mark McDermott
Suzanne Hadley ran for elected office for the first time in 2019 and was elected to the Manhattan Beach City Council. She’d walked away from a business career 23 years earlier to be a stay-at-home mom, and she campaigned on that fact.
Hadley said that being a mother often means practicing fiscal restraint. “Sometimes,” she said, “you just have to say no.”
She again referenced this experience while arguing for one of her central campaign promises, which is to keep the City’s fire department rather than contracting the service out to LA County.
“Again, I go back to being the mother of four kids,” she said. “I believe in doing the basics well. I will stay in my lane at City Council. I consider police and fire a core municipal service. That is why you live in towns and cities — public safety police, fire, trash, sewers. It’s not sexy, it’s not glamorous. Being a stay-at-home mom with an MBA for 23 years is not sexy and not glamorous. I did it willingly, I did it with honor, I did it patiently. I will keep police and fire in-house. I have the financial chops to make it work. Will there be tradeoffs? Absolutely. I’m not going to promise you the moon. I didn’t promise the moon to my kids. I’m used to people not being happy with me, for 23 years. When you are raising a family, you are not looking to be best friends.”
Four years later, Hadley said she is proud of what she accomplished.
“I tell people, I ran on puppies and rainbows in 2019 — you know, the public schools, spending, small business,” she said. “And then we’ve had civil unrest, Bruce’s Beach, COVID, etcetera. I am proud of my first-term record. To be honest, I think I was refined by the fire. Under difficult circumstances, there was a lot thrown at me. I was faithful. I was diligent. I displayed courage. I took tough votes that I still stand behind, and I think I did a lot of good for the city in terms of public safety, defending small businesses and sanity, basically. I wasn’t perfect, certainly. And I made a few gaffes.”
The largest controversy Hadley generated — and there were a few — were comments she made on national television in late June, 2020, in protest of the fact that L.A. County was about to close the beaches for the 4th of July weekend.
“This is not the plague,” Hadley said. “I don’t know anybody who has died; maybe you do…The role of society is not to prevent death. It’s to inform adults of the risks and the opportunities of life and to let them choose those opportunities and risks.”
Hadley also emerged as a critic of MBUSD leaders, speaking on behalf of parents who were frustrated at the pace of schools reopening.
“I am unrepentant about my stances during COVID because I do think the county and the state and the nation overreached in keeping our schools closed,” she said. “Certainly, the schools were closed five extra months longer than they needed to be, legally, and that hurt our kids. Our small businesses were hurt by the overly broad shutdown. Big box stores were allowed to reopen and our smaller ones couldn’t. That wasn’t fair. So I’m proud of my role in nudging elected officials to reopen faster.”
Within six months of taking office, Hadley fulfilled her promise to help keep fire services in-house as part of a vote to nix further consideration of contracting with LA County fire. Hadley also led the charge in a 5-0 vote just last month that likely was part of the tradeoffs she’d predicted, imposing a new contract on MBFD that included reduced salaries for new hires, civilianizing fire prevention, and a change in prescribed staffing.
“The benefit of the new contract is that we finally got the firefighters union to give up a cap on the number of firefighters per shift,” Hadley said. “They got it 1996 and they never should have had it…By hiring more firefighters, we will reduce overtime, reduce fatigue, reduce burnout, and make every community member safer.”
Hadley believes this may be her most important accomplishment.
“I said this in closed session to my colleagues: I would rather lose this reelection and get this contract imposed,” she said. “I didn’t know how my colleagues were going to vote. But I said I want to remove prescribed staffing even if it costs me reelection, because that’s how strongly I feel that we’re setting up the fire department for success for the next 25 years. And that will be my legacy.”
Hadley is also proud of her role as fiscal watchdog, most recently voting against a budget that a majority of her colleagues approved that included 11 new municipal positions. She believes there is some crucial unfinished business in filling vacant positions on the police department and is frustrated by the pace of that hiring. Hadley is likewise displeased with the Community Development department’s pace in overseeing the transition to permanent dining decks.
“That is why I am running for a second term, to finish the job,” Hadley said.
She is keenly aware that other candidates’ talk of “divisiveness” is aimed at her. Hadley believes in the clash of ideas. She singled out her clashes with Councilperson Hildy Stern.
“I love the quote ‘Iron sharpens iron’ from the Old Testament,” she said. “Hildy has made me a better councilmember. If someone is never challenged, how do you know what they really believe?”
“I feel dumbfounded that what they call divisiveness, I literally call debate and discussion,” Hadley said. “Isn’t that what the country was founded on, lively debate and then let’s make the best decisions after everyone has weighed in? It’s called democracy.” ER
