August 06, 2020

By Betti Halsell,

Contributing Writer  

President of the Los Angeles Board of Water and Power Commissioners Cynthia McClain-Hill embodied the spirit of servitude and applied it to every step of her life. Graduating high school at the age of 16, she decided to contribute to the Black agenda by studying to be a lawyer. Watching her parents hard at work created a catapult of ambition, McClain-Hill climbed into the top 5% of California’s practicing attorneys. She explained her journey; how her strong roots to family and social equity are working as pillars of strategy for the course of the Los Angeles Board of Water and Power.  

Los Angeles City Mayor Eric Garcetti appointed McClain-Hill for the role and she was elected president on July 28, 2020. According to the LADWP press release, the mayor stated, “from the Police Commission to the DWP, Cynthia McClain-Hill has been unafraid to tackle our toughest challenges, giving her time, energy, resolve, and experience to the cause of a fairer, safer, more equitable Los Angeles.”  

He continued, “as we endure and emerge from the COVID-19 crisis, I have no doubt that Cynthia will continue the bold and thoughtful leadership of Mel Levine as LADWP board president, and help us push forward on the path to healthier communities and a more sustainable city.” 

McClain-Hill comes from a working-class background; she explained the gratitude she had for her parents transcended into a passion to do her very best in all the opportunities they provided for her. 

“Every opportunity that I have, that you have, that anybody who looks like us has, was bought for us by people who did things that were much harder than anything that we are being asked to do.” She emphasized the legacy should prompt the idea of limitless possibilities.  

McClain-Hill was born in L.A., and as a first-generation college graduate, she studied extremely hard and had the goal to be a lawyer. The only way McClain-Hill felt that she could honor her parents in her measurement of emotion was to apply herself and give it her all.   

Being planted in hard work, McClain-Hill climbed to the top percentile of practicing lawyers in California; she began to take on projects that were community-based. She stayed involved as the City of Los Angeles Police Commissioner (2016). She has served on the City’s Community Redevelopment Agency, the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC), the California Coastal Commission, the CalEPA Environmental Justice Advisory Working Group, and the Los Angeles City Small and Local Business Advisory Commission. Building from her experience, McClain-Hill became a trusted advisor for the former California State Governor, Gray Davis. 

Being familiar to leading roles, she served as president of the Los Angeles Chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO-LA) and as the organization's national president (2009). McClain-Hill has also been a part of the founding board to the present Luskin UCLA School of Public Affairs and served as vice-chair of its Advisory Board. She has received the "Thurgood Marshall Award" from Minorities in Business Magazine, Woman in Business Advocate Award from the U.S. Small Business Administration, and the Chapter Public Policy Advocate of the Year Award (2005.) 

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is known as the largest public utility in the United States, serving over four million people. McClain-Hill will oversee matters that affect the employment of 10,000 staff members and manage the mitochondria that controls water and power in Los Angeles. She explained that LADWP is “essential” to meeting the city’s metrics of sustainability. McClain-Hill emphasized that the LADWP is the molding of the economic regeneration of the City. 

 She explained areas of focus will be in employment opportunities and how to incorporate more responsibility in the battle for racial equity. McClain shared,” the work that we are doing in climate change will also lead to a whole new push in the area of employment.” She continued, “for me, that’s where my interests in both environmental justice but also in racial equity meet.” McClain addressed the current social climate, she mentioned that the current racial awareness brings the focus back to COVID-19 and how it disproportionately impacts Black Americans. She described the weight of COVID-19 on top of police brutality as a “sense of hopelessness.”  

The new president of LADWP reflected on the new consciousness that surrounds racial equity. She is looking to weave a level of accountability into the fabrics of the LADWP. McClain-Hill reflected on the original sense of hopelessness that has been wafting through Black communities due to the effects of COVID-19; what liberated her from that feeling is seeing the present engagement from the youth, demanding equality across the board. 

 She said, “that sense of hopelessness began to dissipate as I recognized, really watching all of those young people hit the street with the resolve, the commitment, and the fury of their demands that it was time to get up and get focused, and think about where and how I could lean in where I sit to contribute … making substantive progress for African Americans and others around issues of racial equity. ” Community equates to a sense of family and that is part of McClain-Hill’s core.  

Embracing the new lens of social awareness, McClain-Hill is strategizing how to broaden the DWP’s social responsibility while also meeting the city’s sustainability goals. She broke down how LADWP can expedite plans that can develop the community. McClain-Hill said, “the DWP is beginning to embrace its role as an economic engine and as a catalyst for community empowerment.”  

McClain-Hill emphasized her plans for the LADWP to operate as an economic engine, thrusting the city towards recovery. She has equated her secret to her success to hard work and belief. “The thing that mattered most to me is believing in me; you must first believe in the power of yourself and your own capacity to make change.”  

She continued, “any individual who’s willing to apply themselves to commit to something that matters to them and then to work toward finding ways to impact that thing.”  The strategy has been tied to McClain-Hill’s core to build a solid foundation with the community; for the spirit of change to flow freely and be available for everyone.  

July 30, 2020

LAWT News Service

Attorney and public policy strategist Cynthia McClain-Hill was elected today as President of the Board of Water and Power Commissioners, and Commissioner Susana Reyes, a retired LADWP customer service director for low-income programs and sustainability advisor to Mayor Eric Garcetti, was elected the Board’s Vice President. McClain-Hill replaces former U.S. Congressman Mel Levine, who has served as Board President since 2013—the longest-running term of any Board of Water and Power Commission President. Mr. Levine nominated both for their respective positions, which were approved today by the Board.

An advocate for racial and environmental justice with an outstanding record of service in the public and non-profit sectors, McClain-Hill has served as Vice President of the LADWP Board since September 5, 2018. She was appointed to the Board by Mayor Eric Garcetti and confirmed by the City Council on August 15, 2018.

“From the Police Commission to the DWP, Cynthia McClain-Hill has been unafraid to tackle our toughest challenges, giving her time, energy, resolve, and experience to the cause of a fairer, safer, more equitable Los Angeles,” said Mayor Garcetti. “As we endure and emerge from the COVID-19 crisis, I have no doubt that Cynthia will continue the bold and thoughtful leadership of Mel Levine as LADWP Board President, and help us push forward on the path to healthier communities and a more sustainable city.”

“I am greatly honored to serve as President of this Board and grateful for the support of Mayor Garcetti, members of the City Council, and my fellow Board members. This is a time of unprecedented challenges, as we work to build a stronger Los Angeles by achieving our goals for clean, reliable and sustainable water and energy in the midst of an international pandemic, financial crisis, and urgent cries for racial justice and equity in our city,” McClain-Hill said. “I am confident that working together, LADWP can surmount these challenges and come out a stronger, more inclusive organization that provides equity and fairness for our customers, communities, and employees in everything we do.”

As Managing Director of Strategic Counsel PLC, McClain-Hill leads the firm’s regulatory, land use and environmental law practices. She is a widely respected attorney and public policy strategist with an outstanding record of service. Prior to her appointment to the Board, she served on the City’s Police Commission and Community Redevelopment Agency. She is a past member of the California Coastal Commission, the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC), the CalEPA Environmental Justice Advisory Working Group, and the Los Angeles City Small and Local Business Advisory Committee. She served as president of the National Association of Women Business Owners in 2008-2009. Consistently named one of Southern California’s “Super Lawyers” based on surveys of 65,000 Los Angeles area attorneys, McClain-Hill ranks among the top five percent of the state’s practicing attorneys.

Outgoing President Levine said, “It has been a great honor for me to serve as President of the Board of Commissioners for the past seven years and I am very pleased to have nominated Cynthia McClain-Hill as the new Commission President and Susana Reyes as the new Vice President.  They will bring great energy and experience to their respective positions and they will also offer the perspective of members of communities which have been historically inadequately represented at a time when that perspective is urgently needed.  Here too, LADWP will help lead the way.”

LADWP General Manager and Chief Engineer Martin L. Adams said, “All of us at LADWP owe President Levine a tremendous debt of gratitude for his leadership and service over the past seven years.  He has led the Board during some of the Department’s most transformative and challenging times and has done so with wisdom, thoughtfulness, persistence and humor. This Department is stronger, because of Mel Levine’s steady leadership. Our newly elected Commission President Cynthia McClain-Hill is a strong, impactful leader with a toughness that enables her to get things done. I look forward to continuing to work with her, Vice-President Susana Reyes and the entire Board to accomplish great things for the Department and the City as we focus on transforming our water and power supplies to more sustainable resources, investing in infrastructure, and creating equity within our organization and the communities we serve.”

Newly elected Vice President Susana Reyes was appointed to the Board of Water and Power Commissioners by Mayor Garcetti and confirmed by the City Council on June 5, 2019. Reyes is the first Filipino-American and also the first LADWP retiree to sit on the Board. She previously served as the director of LADWP’s Low-Income Customer Access, a position that helped ensure low-income ratepayers could access financial assistance, discounts and rebates offered by the utility.  A public servant for over 33 years, she is the founder and CEO of AgilEngines LLC, an advocacy and consulting firm focused on community outreach and civic engagement strategies.

“I am humbled and honored by the trust instilled in me and I am excited to get to work as the new Vice President. The City of L.A. and LADWP are at a crossroads going through a movement moment. I envision opportunities for innovative and bold solutions for LADWP to serve the public more reliably, safely, and equitably and in new ways that will transform its culture and capacity for change. I will work to ensure the public trust through a system of transparency, public participation, and stakeholder collaboration.”

Reyes’ experience also includes working on Mayor Garcetti’s Sustainability team as a Senior Policy Analyst, where she helped oversee the implementation of Los Angeles’ first Sustainable City pLAn and secured a $1.7 million grant for the City from the California Air and Resources Board to help launch BlueLA — an EV car sharing pilot program in low-income communities. She is also an active member of the Sierra Club, and was elected to the organization’s first-ever all-female Executive Committee in 2017.  She serves on the Governing Board of the Sierra Nevada Conservancy on forest health and watershed issues and has served on the board of the L.A. League of Conservation Voters. Her work advancing equity and climate justice initiatives has earned her distinguished awards and recognitions.

July 09, 2020

By Whitney Gresham and Trevor W. Coleman II

The Michigan Chronicle

For more than 50 years, the McDonald’s Corporation took pride in branding itself as a socially conscious corporation particularly interested in doing business in abandoned and long-ignored Black communities while embracing racial diversity as a critical component of its corporate ethos.

It is a philosophy that helped create a popular narrative and also focus on story that the Chicago-based company was a progressive business and a place where African Americans could grow, find mentors, promotions and economic opportunity.

However, that image was shattered this year in an explosive lawsuit brought by two African American female executives who claim that under new leadership the company not only deliberately divested from the Black community and businesses, but hurled racist, sexist insults at them including referring to the employees as “niggers” and “angry Black women.”

Adding further injury to the grotesque insults, the women also claimed when they spoke up about such treatment they were demoted, and the perpetrators were promoted.

The shocking accusations have rocked the fast food industry especially since McDonald’s has long projected itself as a leader in diversity initiatives and as an aggressive recruiter and developer of African American talent and entrepreneurs.

But Domineca Neal and Vicki Guster-Hines, former vice presidents of the fast food chain, allege the discrimination and harassment started and progressive programs came to a screeching halt following a change in corporate leadership at McDonald’s in 2015. In their suit they said the new regime engaged in systemic racist and discriminatory behavior and civil rights abuses against them and other Black executives.

Among the allegations were that one top white male executive repeatedly referred to them as “angry Black women” and another who earlier had referred to Black employees as “niggers” shockingly being promoted rather than disciplined following a complaint filed against him for such racially abusive language.

In an exclusive interview with the Michigan Chronicle, Neal, a native Detroiter, said the harassment began shortly after the new CEO, British-born Steve Easterbrook, came on board in 2015 and initiated a corporate restructuring plan that de-emphasized racial diversity and input from Black executives and franchisees. She and Guster-Hines were then demoted from vice-president to senior director positions in July 2018.

They are seeking compensation following those demotions, claiming that they occurred as a result of discrimination.

“When they assumed leadership, it became very clear that African Americans stakeholders were no longer a strategic priority and the environment became toxic,” she said. “An example would be, you know, cutting advertising spending with African American agencies that impacted, of course, African American customers and local community organizations, and it didn't make economic sense, it didn't make good business sense.”

McDonald's commitment to diversity was so widely known and promoted that it was regularly named among the Fortune 500 top corporations for diversity and inclusion and other companies would benchmark against them.

That reputation, however, is now threatened by the lawsuit scheduled to be heard in the Northern District Court of Illinois next month or early August. Besides Easterbrook; who was let go last year after it was revealed he was involved in an affair with a colleague in violation of company policy, also named in the suit are the current CEO, Chris Kempczinski, and Charles Strong, the chief field officer.

At its bare essence, the women allege in the suit the world's largest fast-food restaurant chain has “declared war against the African American community.”

She noted her observation is based on its new business plan and corporate leadership’s attitudes toward African American employees and owner-operators who had the majority of restaurants in African American consumer markets and would be impacted, more so than others. “And that action coincided with a significant reduction in the number of African American owner-operators.”

When Neal and other executives brought these concerns to the attention of leadership, they began to retaliate against them. They defunded the company’s African American Diversity Council and it subsequently became dormant. The Council provided career development and a talent pipeline for African American employees. And soon the demotions started with African Americans being targeted for elimination such as herself and Guster-Hines, leaving no African Americans at Kempczinski’s leadership table during his tenure as president of McDonald’s USA to advocate on behalf of Black employees, franchise operators, or customers. The suit claims the number of African American executives in the top ranks of McDonald's operations fell to seven in 2019 from 42 in 2014, the year before the new regime came on board.

The suit also alleges:

• Before Easterbrook and Kempczinski’s arrival, African American consumers generated 20% of all revenue for McDonald's US stores.

• Easterbrook and Kempczinski caused a decrease in advertising to attract African American patronage. The constant cutting in the funding of programs for building African American leadership resulted in the system-wide purchases by African Americans to decline by 6%.

• Nearly one out of three African American franchisees left the McDonald’s system since Easterbrook arrived which was disproportionate to the loss of non-African American franchisees.

But among Neal’s and Guster-Hines’ most shocking claims was the racist, sexist taunts they had to endure from the McDonald’s executives. The suit alleges that in 2005 Marty Ranft, a white vice president and general manager of the McDonald’s Ohio Region told Guster-Hines “You are a nigger like all the rest--you just believe you are better cause you are a smart one.”

She further alleges she reported Ranft to her supervisors and emphasized that she would not tolerate being called a nigger within McDonald's or anywhere else. She said there was no response to her complaint from the corporation and Ranft was eventually promoted to Vice President of Development for the entire U.S.

The suit also alleges in 2017 Strong, who supervised Neal and Guster-Hines and at the time responsible for 50% of the U.S. business and about 14,000 restaurants, instructed Neal not to consult with or take the advice of two African American women, Bridgette Hernandez and Barbara Calloway who had been promoted over Strong’s opposition. She alleged he stated, “We don’t need any of that Black woman's attitude. They are too angry and aggressive.”

The next year in March 2018, Strong allegedly told Guster-Hines that five African American women, Chioke Elmore, Regina Johnson, Hernandez, Calloway and Neal, were “angry Black women” that “always seemed to be mad about something.” He then allegedly asked Guster-Hines to explain the source of their anger.

The five women constituted 40% of female African American vice presidents as of March 2018. And were three out of five vice presidents reporting to Strong when he allegedly made these statements.

“So that was shocking that he was so openly discussing that with various stakeholders that we were angry Black women,” Neal said.

But what she, Guster-Hines, and others found even more jarring and demoralizing was after they shared Strong’s racist, sexist, and demeaning remarks to his superiors, he, too, was promoted and they were demoted.

“In shocking ways difficult to overstate, McDonald’s under Easterbrook and Kempczinski declared a war against the African American community,” the lawsuit alleges.

Neither the McDonald’s Corporation Media Relations Department or the lawyer representing them, Nigel F. Telman of Chicago, returned calls from the Chronicle by publication deadline.

However, in a statement to the media in January, issued at the filing of the suit, McDonald’s said it disagreed with the characterization of the company’s behavior. It said 45% of its corporate officers and all of its field vice-presidents are people of color.

"At McDonald's, our actions are rooted in our belief that a diverse, vibrant, inclusive, and respectful company makes us stronger," the company said. "While we disagree with characterizations in the complaint, we are currently reviewing it and will respond to the complaint accordingly."

Carmen D. Caruso and Linda C. Chatman, the Chicago-based trial lawyers representing Neal and Guster-Hines said the behavior by McDonald's executives constituted some of the most egregious acts of racial discrimination they have ever been confronted with in their careers.

“Under the guise of reorganizing the way they manage the franchise system, the restaurant system across the country, they basically decimated the ranks of the African American leadership and employees,” Caruso said. “That to me is one of the most glaring act of intentional discrimination that we saw in the case. And we lay those numbers out in greater detail in the complaint itself. But that was very, very, serious discrimination in employment, and it's over and above a lot of other things that came before and other things that have come after, but that's kind of a centerpiece of the discrimination against the executive employees, including Domineca and Vicki.”

Chatman agreed and said that they are also arguing that McDonald’s will try to argue that their promotion and demotion policies are neutral because they are based on data, not race. The racially hostile work environment had a particularly destructive impact upon Black employees, including Domineca and Vicki.

“The crux of it is that, under Easterbrook and now Kempczinski, McDonald’s is not interested in, or focused upon, Black customers, Black franchisees or Black executives, as evidenced by how they decimated their ranks at the corporate level," she said.

“Domineca and Vicki were forced to witness McDonald’s blatantly deemphasize Black people and the effect upon them was terrible," Chatman said. “I mean, how are they supposed to work in an environment that is openly hostile to people who look like them.” 

Neal said when Kempczinski was told about concerns that there weren’t any Blacks on his U.S. President executive team, he said he can the ask questions “the numbers don’t matter.”

“But, the numbers do matter,” Chatman said.

Caruso said the bottom line is that they are alleging their clients were victims of intentional discrimination and it came from the very top of the McDonald’s organization in the person of Steve Easterbrook and Christopher Kempczinski.

“It was not an accident that all this happened to Domineca and Vicki, and other African Americans in the company,” he said.

Neal, reflecting on her time at McDonald's recalled how happy she was to join the organization in 2011 precisely because of its reputation for embracing the African American community.

“And we embraced them, and that was shown through the loyalty to the brand, the representation of African American talent at all levels throughout the organization and the opportunities to create wealth for the African American owner-operators which was also very inspiring and a representation of their diversity and inclusion values,” she said.

Now, after leaving the corporation in March, Neal still finds the swift turnabout in the company’s attitude and values – after nearly 50 years of progress – disconcerting. She said the whole “angry Black woman” incident felt as if she was living in an episode of Mad Men.

She is left to wonder how sincere the corporation was about diversity and inclusion in the first place. She noted things would never have had gotten out of hand as it did if the Board of Directors had come down on the executives. But they didn’t.

“It was very disheartening, heartbreaking, and shocking because I think that we're at a stage in society, where we know that's language that is racial in nature and stereotypical and used in a manner to quiet African American women from being able to comfortably bring their authentic selves to the workplace," Neal said.

(Part 2 of Big Mac Attack on Blacks: Black McDonald’s Owner-Operators Caught between a Rock and Hard Place as Black Executives Fight for Fairness and Corporation Demands Loyalty)