NOT CLASSY, KATHY: Defeated Cathedral City Mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa's Petulant Post and the Challenges Facing Incoming Mayor Chip Yarborough

Summary: yesterday, defeated soon-to-be-former Cathedral City mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa posted on Facebook an implied concession of the mayoral election in Cathedral city.  She posted that she was “sad because the face of our struggling city will change dramatically and in [her] opinion not for the better.” (emphasis added)  Not only was such a post a classless departure from well-established political norms of behavior for defeated candidates, but also was sadly in character for a mayor known throughout the Valley for her abrasive, confrontational personality.  There appears to be a psychopathology at work.  Incoming mayor Chip Yarborough stands challenged to avoid aping the worst aspects of the outgoing mayor’s personality; he will need to avoid score-settling, vindictiveness, and defensiveness, growing a thick skin as he deals with the slings and arrows that will come his way as mayor, and taking DeRosa’s record as a vade mecum or handbook of how not to govern.  As residents/voters, we must avoid projecting unsustainable expectations onto the incoming mayor; we won’t get utopia in a day, and we must give incoming mayor time to accomplish the work he has set himself to do.

By: Paul S. Marchand

Way to stay classy, Kathleen.  Way to stay classy.  Not.

Yesterday morning, defeated and outgoing Cathedral City mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa posted the following on Facebook: 

    “Good morning, good morning and thank you for your love and support. God has been very good to me allowing me the opportunity to serve the great people of Cathedral City for 8 years. I lost a title, not who I am nor the friends and family that are a significant part of my life.  I'm sad because the face of our struggling city will change dramatically and in my opinion not for the better.” (Emphasis added)

The outgoing mayor likes to talk about so-called norms for council behavior.  To the extent that she was fond of doing so, DeRosa should have recognized and honored a time-tested norm in American politics that if you have been voted out of office, it is incumbent upon you to congratulate your incoming successor and to wish him or her well.   Apparently, that was too much for DeRosa.  Instead, we can probably expect a revisionist narrative in which her loss was not DeRosa’s fault, but the result of her victimization by dark forces out to “get her."
 
To say that the outgoing mayor’s performance and conduct were disappointing, would almost be to understate the case.  Facebook comments on DeRosa’s post were uniformly negative, and the post itself only reinforced the outgoing mayor’s reputation for having an abrasive, confrontational, in-your-face, “New York” personality, as well as having a thin-skinned, monarchical conceit of her own position and role in Cathedral City.  Clearly,there is a psychopathology at work here.

Indeed, the manner of DeRosa's apparently intended departure raises a series of challenges for incoming mayor Chip Yarborough.  The new mayor will be challenged to avoid the excesses of egotism, score-settling/vindictiveness, defensiveness, and sheer thin-skinned stubbornness that were so much a part of the outgoing mayor’s public persona.  Hurling F-bombs at a local businessman is, pace Dale Carnegie, not the right way to win friends and influence people.
 
After eight long, confrontational, winters of DeRosa’s mayoralty, Cathedral City residents and voters will be expecting much from a new mayor whose implicit campaign theme was to restore correct and honorable government to Cathedral City.  Chip Yarborough will need to develop a very thick skin to avoid the slings and arrows that will invariably come his way as mayor.  He will need to avoid the temptation to indulge in the kind of cronyism that so marked DeRosa’s tenure, and he will need to avoid becoming shrill and defensive when confronted by constituents with issues.  In short, Mr. Yarborough should look at the outgoing mayor’s performance as a vade mecum or handbook of how not to govern..

For, when all the sound and the fury are over, Mr. Yarborough will find himself working with a Council and an electorate that chose him precisely because he was not Kathleen Joan DeRosa, and because he offered the hope of something better, of a restoration of correct and honorable government in Cathedral City.

Of course, we who supported Chip must avoid the temptation to project onto him unsustainable expectations.  We will not obtain utopia in a day, and Cathedral City will not magically overcome all of her structural issues and challenges the instant he takes the constitutional oath as mayor.  He will need time and the benefit of the doubt, and he will certainly deserve better than to be sniped at by irreconcilable supporters of the defeated former mayor.


Still, having elected the anti-Kathy, we may dare to envision a better future for Cathedral City, in which our city council pursues a more progressive and inclusive politics than had been the case during the eight long winters of Kathleen DeRosa’s monarchical mayoralty.

 -xxx-

Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City.  He supported Chip Yarborough for mayor, and congratulates him on his victory.  The views set forth herein are entirely his own.  They are not intended as, and should not be construed as, legal advice.