'I Am Not Your Negro': A Defiant Kahlil Seren Tells Off Cleveland Heights Council in Tense Emergency Meeting

Cleveland Heights Mayor Kahlil Seren showed up at an emergency City Council meeting Friday after Council—and the whole city—had questioned his whereabouts. On Monday, a civil rights complaint was released accusing him and his wife, Natalie McDaniel, of antisemitism. Credit: Mark Oprea

Where in the world is Mayor Seren? Is he okay? And who’s to replace him if he’s no longer in office—either due to recall or his own resignation?

Those were the brimming questions on everyone’s mind at Cleveland Heights City Council’s emergency meeting Friday afternoon, a gathering centered on Seren’s whereabouts this week amid ongoing controversies. It was also a meeting that at many points grew tense and volatile.

On Monday, a complaint filed by a former city employee accused Seren’s wife, Natalie McDaniel, of spouting or texting a flurry of antisemitic remarks over the past year or so. (Beyond that, her unofficial role and allegations of how she’s created a hostile work environment have become a flashpoint this year.)

Since the filing earlier this week, Seren’s been MIA—so much to the point Council President Tony Cuda told Scene he had a Heights police officer do a mid-week wellness check on the mayor.

The agenda for today’s meeting included the item: “The “Mayor’s whereabouts, presence, accessibility and ability to perform the duties of Mayor.”

“All since Day One, residents were asking, is he okay?” Councilwoman Gail Larson said. “Because they were concerned about his personal well being. In this moment, it became clear that the mayor chose not to communicate, to indicate he was okay.”

“Instead, he chose to remain inaccessible,” Larson added. “This is not the behavior of a good leader.”

Seren, who appeared at Council’s meeting earlier this week on Monday but only to “listen,” broke his silence Wednesday evening with 15-minute video response posted to his personal Facebook page denying that his wife made antisemitic remarks — “Some of the most important people in our lives are Jewish people,” he said at one point — then began Friday morning by livestreaming himself working alone at City Hall on the city’s YouTube page. (“The Mayor’s Whereabouts Part 1,” the video was cheekily titled.)

He brought the same defiant appearance to Council on Friday afternoon, categorizing both the civil rights complaint and the emergency meeting as “an exercise in electoral politics.”

As was Cuda’s check-in on Wednesday.

It “seemed disingenuous, so I did not answer you,” Seren said. He leaned into the microphone. “But I just want to say this Council is by no means my overseer.”

“And I am not your negro,” he said, to jeers in the crowd.

Cuda tried to keep the peace. He turned then to the mayor. “I’m sorry you took it that way,” Cuda said. “But that’s certainly not the way it was intended.”

Council President Tony Cuda said he’d set Friday’s agenda as an info-gathering session rather than an attempt to publicly oust Seren. “There was this golden opportunity to bring this community together, and it didn’t happen,” Cuda said. Credit: Mark Oprea

Since late last year, Seren has racked up a laundry list of complaints from Cleveland Heights employees and residents. He blamed City Council for obfuscating parts of the 2025 budget. He put his performance coordinator, Andrea Heim, on paid leave weeks after she made a formal complaint about McDaniel’s outburst in December, an incident that also led to the resignation of City Adminstrator Dan Horrigan. (Heim eventually resigned.)

And following the filing of the civil rights complaint, led by former employee Patrick Costigan, he opted to work from home while Heights residents chewed on the alleged antisemitism spouted by McDaniel.

All good reasons, several said on Friday, for the call for Seren’s immediate resignation.

“We’ve become the laughing stock of every other city suburb,” Councilman Chris Cobb told the room. “The residents have lost faith in their government and their mayor. The mayor has lost their respect.”

“How can we go forward for the next seven months? We can’t,” he added. “It’s up to the mayor, if he loves this city, to decide if he truly loves this city, [to do] what he needs to do.”

According to the Cleveland Heights City Charter passed in 2022, Heights residents have “the right to recall” Seren from office, if a fourth of them vote to. A petition has to be signed. Cuda would call an election. If the majority vote yes, Seren would have to go.

But that wasn’t on Cuda or his Council’s agenda Friday. Instead many, especially Cuda, seemed more interested in publicly calling out Seren on record and asking for an apology that, many said, did not come in his Facebook video.

Or even from Friday’s opportunity to do so.

Shortly after the meeting adjourned, with no resolution passed to remove Seren, a handful protestors joined media in rushing the mayor as he stood up at the pulpit. At one point, Seren jeered at a protestor as he was being told to step down.

“Resign immediately!” one woman said.

“This man is a fraud!” another said. “That man is a hollow shell!”

“It is totally his ego. It is 100 percent—1,000 percent his ego,” James Bates, who’s lived in a home in Cleveland Heights for the past five years, told Scene.

“Excuse my French: God damn it, God damn it,” he added. “I mean, even Richard Nixon had the gall to get up and resign the presidency of the United States. This is Cleveland Heights, Ohio.”

The seat is up for election in November, but Seren has not pulled permits to run.

In an interview afterwards, Cuda said that his agenda carried no political strategy other than to allow Cleveland Heights’ leader to speak honestly.

“There was this golden opportunity to bring this community together, and it didn’t happen,” Cuda said. “I’m heartbroken.”