When in 2019 the people of Cleveland Heights voted decisively to end 99 years of city manager leadership in favor of an elected mayor – beholden to the voters and not to City Council – the hope was that the change would result in visionary leadership in a city that desperately needed it.
To that end, in 2021, our editorial board endorsed Kahlil Seren as the city’s first mayor, citing his experience, research, enthusiasm and – yes – vision for the future. The electorate agreed, and Seren was elected with 60% of the vote.
Unfortunately, Seren provided little of the above qualities. What the historic suburb got instead was almost four years of chaos, petty infighting and needless conflict. The bizarre conduct of Seren and his wife, Natalie McDaniel, blocked progress, forced qualified people to quit his administration and generated lawsuits focused in part on McDaniel’s disruptive, expletive-laden actions at City Hall…