On August 14 The League of Women Voters of Santa Monica honored longtime member Susan McCarthy on her impending retirement as Santa Monica City Manager at a garden tea.
The event was especially fitting, as the league honored McCarthy as Santa Monica’s first female City Manager only hours after she assumed office on November 21, 1999.
The date, August 14, was significant, too, and a cause for celebration, as on an August afternoon 85 years ago, the 20th amendment to the Constitution was ratified, giving women the right to vote.
California was the sixth state to give women the right in 1911.
One of the missions of the League from its founding 85 years ago has been to encourage women to become involved in government at all levels, to run for office, serve on commissions and make their voices heard.At the tea, women who serve in the State Assembly and Senate, on the City Council and staff, Santa Monica College board, the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, in the Police Department were also recognized.
