EL SEGUNDO HERALD October 15, 2015 Page 13 David Hadley from page 3 ultimately headed east for college to study at Dartmouth where he earned his Bachelors degree in Economics and History. He went on to the London School of Economics for his Masters. He met his wife Suzanne in Atlanta and the two eventually moved to New York where they had their first child. The couple decided at that point to return to the West Coast and settled in Manhattan Beach in 1995. Hadley founded his own investment banking firm in 1999 and became active in the local community through involvements with Little League, the Manhattan Beach Education Foundation, church and other organizations. But he was also politically engaged and became Chair of the Republican Party in late 2012. “I spent over a year preparing for the upcoming Assembly race, but I was actually recruiting other candidates before I became one myself.” In 2013, Hadley founded the South Bay 100—a diverse cross-section of 176 people (including elected officials, political activists, business owners and concerned citizens from multiple parties) dedicated to improving the political leadership of the South Bay. “In addition to raising money, our goal was to unite the center right and bring some common sense to Sacramento,” he said. The South Bay 100 association created the momentum that led to Hadley’s declaration to throw his hat into the ring in last year’s Assembly election in which he managed to defeat incumbent Democrat Al Muratsachi in a very close contest. “One reason I believe I won was it was a South Bay versus Sacramento race,” he explained. “We won the volunteer and lawn sign race by 10 or 15 to one and we really treated this as a South Bay fight to win against a guy who got 90 percent of his money outside of the South Bay. People, whether they agree with me or not, thought I was doing the right thing.” Hadley’s lack of previous political office experience coupled with the fact that his victory margin was less than one percent are two reasons he believes he will be the Democrats’ prime removal target when he runs again next year. That said, he hopes his track record and ability to collaborate with colleagues of both parties will speak for itself. Said track record includes additional efforts to pass legislation connected to education—a passion for Hadley, who has four children between the ages of 14 and 20. One such bill became law: AB1452 removes a loophole that previously allowed accusations of egregious and immoral acts—even if internally resolved--to be erased from a teacher’s or staffer’s record. “Not only is it critically important that we protect our kids from teachers engaging in misconduct, but also protect our good teachers,” Hadley said. “If you can’t prove that your record wasn’t expunged, then a clean record isn’t a good defense either. So now the information will stay in HR [human resources] files.” The road has been a bit bumpier for Hadley with other education-related items. AB1048, a bill aiming to repeal the cap on school district reserves (and supported by over 900 districts statewide) did not advance. Meanwhile, a companion Senate Bill 799 didn’t even get to a vote. “It’s just really bad policy for the state because school boards are now prevented from saving for a rainy day,” Hadley said. “It is important to give them the flexibility they had until 2014. But we will be back on this issue.” Hadley noted that his AB803 will require a multi-year effort. The legislation would create a process to allow cities and communities currently under the umbrella of LA Unified (e.g. Gardena, Harbor City and Lomita) to form their own locally-controlled school districts. “This would be a big change and return a lot of power to parents and voters,” Hadley said. “It faces a lot of resistance, especially from LA Unified, but we are slowly building a coalition to get this done over time.” On the non-education side, Hadley successfully pushed through AB728—which requires internal financial audits of state agencies to be publicly published online within five days. Previously, even the media and lawmakers could not view this information. “I’m looking forward to being able to start seeing audits in 2016,” he said. Hadley emphasized that there is “a lot to do” in the state and said he will not let the fact that “you make progress very slowly in a democracy” deter him from tackling the issues. And when it comes to California, the Assemblymember did not pull any punches when identifying those issues. “We’ve gone from having some of the best public schools in the country to being in the bottom 10, with the South Bay being a notable exception,” he said. “We have major infrastructure problems--we haven’t invested in our water and local transportation. We have a high cost of living and the most expensive gas, electricity and housing. The business climate drives out too many employees. While California is a good place for companies that don’t move things—like Apple, Google and Facebook—if you make, move, grow or extract things or support companies that do, it has never been a harder time to be in this state. If we want people to have more opportunities, we need to balance public policy.” It was the quest to not only improve the prospects of his own district but the state itself that convinced Hadley to pay a substantial personal price in seeking and eventually serving in office. “I am now in Sacramento four days and three nights a week eight months a year,” he said. “I had to suspend my business since I no longer have the time to devote to it, so my income is now considerably lower than before. I am working extremely hard in the Assembly. It’s time-consuming and challenging, but also interesting and worthwhile. But I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for my situation. I am privileged to represent almost 475,000 people of the South Bay and I wake up thinking of ways that I can honor that the best way I can. The reason I ran was that I feel I’m the luckiest guy in the world. I grew up in a middle class family of six kids. I’m happily married, ran a wonderful business and live in the beach cities. Who could ask for more? But unless we make meaningful changes in how we govern, it will be the first time we leave the next generation in more precarious shape than the one before it. So I am committed to doing everything I can to help our state move forward. It has been a huge change for me, but I’d definitely do it all over again. . . .” • EDD and Me from page 3 and I reached out to anyone I could think of to help. I contacted my newspaper association California Newspaper Publishers Association (CNPA), Congresswoman Maxine Waters office, Senator Ben Allen’s office, Assembly Member Autumn Burke’s office, Supervisor Don Knabe’s office and El Segundo Mayor Suzanne Fuentes. Only Mayor Fuentes took action. Mayor Fuentes reached out and connected me to Assembly Member David Hadley’s office. These two elected officials stepped up and actively helped me. Sarah Wilfong, of Assembly Member Hadley’s office, regularly reached out to me and monitored what was happening, contacted EDD on my behalf and I felt supported 100%. EDD had made factual and procedural errors in my case and, in my opinion, acted inappropriately. I would have liked EDD to recognize their errors, much sooner, but they had taken a contentious position against me, from the beginning, and dug in their heels. They told me I’d be looking at over a year, before my appeal got in front of a judge and I’d be accumulating fines while I waited. However, due the efforts of Assembly Member Hadley’s office, EDD finally acknowledged they were wrong and reversed their findings. It took EDD three months to back down and my attorney bill was $20,000, but it was over - for now. I’m certain, that without the actions of Mayor Fuentes and Assembly Member Hadley and his office, my case would have dragged on for over a year and cost me much more money. These are politicians that do care about small businesses and they will help you. – Heidi Maerker, CEO, Herald Publications • Legal Aid for Elders Changing a Will: Definitely Not a Do-It-Yourself Project By R Christine Brown, southbayelderlaw.com There are many different ways to revoke a will. But without the guidance of an experienced estate attorney, a prior and properly executed will trumps a do-it-yourself will. It may seem that revoking a will should be a pretty straightforward process, but it is not. In more cases than you can imagine, people who think they have done all the right things end up leaving their assets to unintended heirs. Writing a will or making changes to a will are one thing – properly executing them is another. Stories of people who change their minds after their wills have been executed are common. They often tear up the pages or write all over the will. There are many different ways to revoke a will. But without the guidance of an experienced estate attorney, a prior and properly executed will trumps a do-it-yourself will. A recent article from Elder Law Answers, “Efforts to Change Will Using Photocopy and Then Downloaded Form Are Ineffective” (article at attorney.elderlawanswers.com), describes a case decided by the Minnesota Court of Appeals in August 2015, that proves that it is possible to “fail to revoke” a will. Esther Sullivan had a will created in 2006. It was a properly executed and valid will that left half of her estate to a former employee. In 2008, she had a change of heart. She photocopied the will and made handwritten changes to it, all of which she initialed. She also wrote that the 2006 will was void. This new document removed the former employee and left half the estate to someone else. Later, in 2010, Williams downloaded a form will off the Internet, filed in the blanks and signed it believing it was to be her new will. The court, however, ruled that her 2006 will was still valid. The reason? Neither the 2008 document nor the 2010 document were properly executed. Consequently, neither “new will” could by law revoke the 2006 will. Even though it is clear that Sullivan wanted to revoke her will and no longer wanted the former employee to get half of her estate, her failure to properly revoke the 2006 will means that the former employee will get the inheritance. Be sure to work with an estate planning attorney whether you want to create, change or completely redo your estate plan. Please visit our website for information on elder law, Medi-Cal Planning and estate planning issues, and sign up for our free monthly e-newsletter. The archive on our website contains numerous blog posts on these legal areas as well. You can also “friend” us on Facebook (R Christine Brown) to receive periodic posts on elder law issues. • Follow Us on Twitter @heraldpub
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