by Kevin Cody
During a late January Hermosa Beach City Council meeting, City Manager Suja Lowenthal interrupted an exchange between Mayor Dean Francois and Councilmember Rob Saemann about the proposed new civic center.
“Would it be okay if I addressed some concerns Mayor Pro Tem Saemann raised….? Perhaps I can just add some perspective,” Lowenthal said.
Francois responded, “To be frank, Madam City Manager, the five of us need to deliberate. If any member of the body would like to ask specific questions of staff, I think that would be great.”
The uncharacteristic rebuke, echoing Rhett Butler’s rebuke of Scarlett O’Hara, signaled the forthcoming rupture between the city manager and the new council majority, composed of the Mayor, and councilmembers Saemann and Michael Keegan.
The rupture took place three months later, during two City Council closed session reviews of Lowenthal’s job performance, on Tuesday, April 22, and Monday, May 5. The closed sessions lasted over five hours, after which interim City Attorney Todd Leishman announced to a packed Council chambers, “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.”
A vote to fire Lowenthal would have been a “reportable action,” a legal source said.
The audience was so divided that City Manager supporters sat on the south side of the chambers, and her opponents on the north side.
But despite the lack of a vote on job performance, Lowenthal’s resignation three days later, on Thursday, May 8, indicates she had lost the support of the Council majority.
The terms of her resignation were not disclosed. Lowenthal declined to be interviewed. Councilmembers, who are generally prohibited by law from publicly disclosing closed session conversations, also declined to comment on the resignation.
This past Tuesday, May 14, following a closed session to discuss naming a new City Manager, interim City Attorney Leishman announced the council had voted to appoint Public Works Director Joseph SanClemente interim City Manager.
In the City press release announcing Lowenthal’s resignation, Councilmember Michael Detoy was effusive in his praise of her.
“Hermosa Beach has benefited enormously from Suja’s leadership. She brought unmatched energy, vision and professionalism to this role, providing an extraordinary level of dedication, intellect and heart to this City,” Detoy said.
Jackson, in a statement he released on Friday, was even more effusive in his praise.
“Suja led Hermosa Beach with grace, grit, and purpose. Was she perfect? Of course not. No one is. In the end, she leaves the city far stronger than she found it. Even in her final weeks, with chaos swirling and every reason to disengage, she stayed focused, committed to progress and to the team she built,” Jackson said.
Mayor Saemann’s quote for the press release was more muted. Saemann succeeded Francois as Mayor two weeks ago, in keeping with the tradition of rotating the mayor’s seat every nine months.
“Suja’s commitment to service and her strategic leadership helped shape Hermosa Beach into the city it is today,” the Mayor said in the last paragraph of the press release.
Francois’ February rebuke of Lowenthal appeared emboldened by Keegan’s election to the City Council last November.
Previous to last November’s Council elections, Councilmembers Detoy, Jackson and Justin Massey formed a majority consistently aligned with Lowenthal’s “staff recommendations.”
The perception that she gave direction to the council as often as she took direction from the council was so common that Council critic and former Councilmember Carolyn Petty complained, “The City Manager seems to believe she’s the sixth councilmember, but with much more leverage because she’s the City Manager as well.”
To deter a future council from firing Lowenthal, an amendment appeared in the draft of her October 2022 contract renewal that required a four-fifths vote, or supermajority, to terminate her. City code requires a simple (3 to 2) majority.
“I want roadblocks in place to keep puppets from rigging this dais and dismantling our city structure, with the city manager and police chief being the top targets,” Councilmember Raymond Jackson argued. The “puppets” he referred to were Council candidates in the 2022 general election, less than two weeks away. Among the candidates were Francois and Saemann. Both were elected.
The supermajority amendment was stricken from the contract following a public outcry. Still, Lowenthal continued to enjoy support from the Council majority until the November 2024 election, when Massey declined to run, and was replaced by Keegan.
Keegan previously served two terms on the city council, ending in 2009. During his 2024 campaign, he promised voters a “course correction.”
Keegan advocated renovating rather than rebuilding the civic center, and requiring staff to work in the office. Lowenthal spearheaded support for the new civic center effort and was often criticized for inaccessibility and working remotely. Her City Hall office is protected by a security door, installed following threats against her life.
Keegan offered voters the vision of a friendlier city government focused on pothole politics. One of his campaign promises was to repave the two block long Bonnie Brae Street.
Lowenthal’s initiatives were more ambitious. She pushed through a Land Value Recapture program, which allowed residential development in the commercial district in exchange for the city sharing in the property’s appreciation. Two years into the program, no Land Value Recapture plans have been submitted to the city.
A P3 (public-private partnership) for a hotel to finance the new civic center, though not uncommon in larger cities, similarly struck residents as too clever by half.
Lowenthal’s endeavor to update the Municipal Code also encountered resistance.
Increases to the Master Fee Schedule, though some of the 139 city fees hadn’t been increased in decades, elicited widespread protests from residents and businesses.
Some of the most forceful protests were over seemingly minor changes that skewered sacred cows.
For as long as Hermosa has had parking meters, enforcement downtown began at 10 a.m. Following staff recommendation, the council moved downtown enforcement up to 8 a.m. Surfers, including high school surf teams, volleyball players, walkers and runners, who went to the beach before school or work, forced the council to restore the traditional 10 a.m. start of enforcement.
Another poorly received code enforcement decision involved the Hermosa Surf Camp. For over four decades the Camp stored its surfboards, boogie boards and pop-ups in a rusty cargo container on the beach, behind the lifeguard headquarters, out of sight from The Strand.
Two summers ago, when its director, Vince Ray, was terminally ill with pancreatic cancer, and despite protests, even from competing surf camps, the City ordered Ray to remove the cargo container from the beach.
A similar city decision, widely viewed as culturally insensitive, involved last month’s whitewashing of graffiti on the 16th Street storm drain. The graffiti, in dayglow pink, read, “Browning Lives. God Speed Greg.”
Browning was a professional surfer and filmmaker who learned to surf and to film surfing at 16th Street. The graffiti appeared Saturday morning, April 12, the day following Browning’s passing from ALS. The City whitewashed it on Monday.
A 16th Street surfer, after searching for an explanation, concluded “Suja don’t surf.”
(A paddleout out for Browning will be held in front of the 16th Street storm drain this Saturday, May 17 at 9 p.m.)
Following Keegan’s election, Saemann appeared to hold the decisive vote on City Manager Lowenthal’s future.
Saemann served two years on the Public Works Commission and 10 years on the Planning Commission. Upon being elected to the City Council in 2022 he frequently voted with Detoy, Jackson, and Massey. But he crossed wires with the Council majority and City Manager Lowenthal when she prepared a staff report for a new Civic Center in February 2024.
The estimated $100 million project could be “revenue neutral” if the Civic Center was relocated to the Community Center parking lot, and the current City Hall site, on Pier Avenue, was leased to a hotel developer, the city’s financial consultant told the council.
Councilmembers Detoy, Jackson and Massey embraced the plan.
Saemann balked at the price; at the need for a new, rather than renovated civic center; at building a hotel on Pier Avenue; and at awarding a $180,000 contract to a community engagement consultant prior to drafting renderings to show the public.
“We’re putting the horse before the cart. How is the public supposed to make an informed decision without any information?” Saemann asked at the February 2024 meeting.
“Can I interject,” Massey asked.
“No. let me finish,” Saemann said.
“What if you went on a trip for 20 years to Europe and you came back here. Would you even recognize this city? Would you wonder, ‘God, what happened to it? It’s gone,’” he continued.
Saemann also balked at the council majority’s decision to entrust City Manager Lowenthall to pick the 12 member Civic Facilities Community Advisory Group.
“The council should have the final say on who is appointed. It’s not right to leave it up to staff,” Saemann said.
At the Facilities Group’s first meeting in the Council Chambers in November 2024, a reporter, and Saemann, a retired building contractor, went to observe.
Lowenthal asked the two to leave.
The reporter left.
Saemann told the City Manager, “I’m a Councilmember. I’m not leaving.”
During his swearing in as Mayor two weeks ago, Saemann recalled the first time he came to Hermosa, with classmates from Lutheran High in Leimert Park, near the Los Angeles Coliseum.
“I was 15. We went body surfing at the Pier and peeked inside the Insomniac Coffee House. I thought I had discovered a magical place. I knew that day, this is where I want to live.
“Hermosa can never be like 1963 again. But it is still a magical place, and I hope it will be for generations to come,” he told the packed council chamber, which included high school classmates.
The sentiment the new Mayor expressed that evening, more than his differences with City Manager Lowenthal over projects and policy, appear to be what swayed him over to the “course correction” proposed by Keegan.
In addition to hiring a new City Manager, issues confronting the City Council include a lawsuit over the city’s ban on short term vacation rentals; a proposed, 50-foot high apartment project, opposed by neighbors but exempt from city zoning restrictions; a looming budget deficit; and whether to renovate or rebuild the Civic Center.
During his swearing in, Saemann challenged his fellow Councilmembers to work together. Detoy is a fire fighter; Jackson, a retired Army Colonel; Keegan, a retired real estate developer and bakery owner; and Francois, a Red Cross volunteer, known to run stop signs on his bicycle.
“Our diverse experiences make us wiser. There’s nothing we can’t do if we work together,” Saemann said.
Detoy hasn’t bought it. He left Tuesday night’s Council meeting before its conclusion.
Roughly 20 minutes later, he posted on his council Facebook page, “Tonight, after the closed session, I made the difficult decision to walk out of the Council meeting…. Until my colleagues are willing to step up and do what’s right, I could not in good conscience continue to be a part of the meeting….”
Jackson accepted Saemann’s challenge. But first, he insisted in his statement following Lowenthal’s resignation, that credit be given where it is due.
“I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy, and I remain extremely optimistic, thanks to Suja’s leadership and the incredible team she built,” he said. “The foundation is super solid, and it will carry Hermosa forward. To borrow a sports analogy: next player up.” ER
What’s the “divide” to mend? Fiscal responsibility and low expenditures vs. Suja L’s spend-a-thon?
Thank god the days of the tyranny of the very vocal minority are over. The small group of left-wing fanatics led by Dency Nelson will hopefully be over so we can get back to fixing streets and sewers and stop with the WOKE virtual signaling projects.
Seamann, Keegan, and Francois are puppets for racists, misogynists, and anti-vax cretins. We need to end this far right movement led by the biggest losers in the universe, Matt McCool and Kent Allen.
Thank you for putting the rank in proper order. It is Matt McCool and Kent Allen, but so many state Kent’s name first.
For the record, Tracy Newnab is Kent Allen. I never have to hide who I am and I stand by my values and my love of Hermosa Beach.
The bottom line is exactly what we see happening across our country, entitled and unqualified individuals thinking they deserve positions of power, and when their insufficiencies start to become evident they look for a scapegoat. This time it was Suja, just like those blaming DEI while they make a mess of everything. It’s not a new phenomenon but they sure have been emboldened to believe that they are actually qualified when nothing could be further from the truth.
You’re just an anti-vax Karen that annoys the HBPD cops. You and Kent Allen are just sad CHUDs
Kevin Cody’s reporting catches a few of the many nuances that give insight into what’s been going on for almost seven long years with Suja Lowenthal’s cavalier management of Hermosa Beach, as facilitated especially by her cadre of self-centered sycophants (God’s gift to Hermosa Beach), and to Hell with anyone else.
One has to love the reference to “Gone With The Wind” in the story’s first four paragraphs. While the word “damn” is not used in the story, as kids “damn” was one of the first bad words we learned in the 1940s and 1950s as we would routinely imitate the line from Gone With The Wind, by saying to others, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn”, with of course a Southern accent.
For younger folk, per Wikipedia; “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” is a line from the 1939 film “Gone With The Wind” starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh. The line is spoken by Rhett Butler (Gable), as his last words to Scarlett O’Hara (Leigh), in response to her tearful question: “Where shall I go? What shall I do?”. “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn”.
Don’t let your bulletproof door hit you in the ass on the way out.