MCCLOUD OF SUSPICION

The Weekly’s endorsement of Carmel Mayor Sue McCloud (“Carmel at the Crossroads,” March 18-24) states that “McCloud will be re-elected.” Moreover, MCW apparently believes that Sue McCloud is “smart,” “shrewd” and intelligent, and “your vote should depend on whether her personal charm and intelligence outweighs the drawbacks of her lengthy tenure.”

During the last 10 years, McCloud has been responsible for a lack of open government, but more importantly a lack of understanding about the essence of open government, and gross mismanagement of the Flanders Mansion issue, John Hanson fiasco, John Mandurrago eight-year planning process culminating in a lawsuit against the City, Jane Miller complaint and lawsuit, secret settlements with city employees, etc., resulting in millions of dollars of misspent taxpayer dollars which could have been better spent on public safety, infrastructure and maintenance. Arguably then, her handling of these issues is not indicative of a “smart,” “shrewd” and intelligent public official.

Moreover, the idea that if McCloud would “commit to a change of tone in a sixth term, she could regain the trust of critics” is specious. McCloud has had 10 years to change her tone and has not done so, and arguably what is necessary is not merely a change in tone, but a change in substance. Importantly, she has proven to be incapable of understanding that intellectual dissent is not a personal attack, but a criticism of governance performance, thereby stifling robust debate and discussion on the issues.

For 10 years, the complicit and compliant local media have given Mayor Sue McCloud “blanket support” without acting as an independent monitor of power and exercising due diligence with respect to corroboration of information provided by McCloud. Arguably, this bias has become a self-fulfilling prophesy whereby her supporters vote on “personal charm,” not on her poor record of governance, the media continues to support her and, according to MCW, her re-election is a foregone conclusion.

Lastly, while MCW believes that candidate Adam Moniz “will be ineffective trying to run a town as cloistered and riddled with infighting as Carmel,” I posit that the election of Sue McCloud to another two-year term condemns Carmelites to another two years of secretive, unresponsive and incompetent city government with continued, exacerbated infighting. The choice is clear-cut: Suffer two more years with a known quantity or take an electoral leap in support of a man who may prove to be the person Carmel-by-the-Sea needs at this time. In other words, give Adam Moniz a chance; he could not do worse than Sue McCloud with regard to the fundamentals of governing in an open society. ––L. A. Paterson | Carmel-by-the-Sea

Editor’s note: The Weekly did not endorse Mayor McCloud, leaving the choice up to voters.