Commentary: Measures A, B and C will harm Huntington Beach

As former members of the City Council, we had hoped that with experience and time, the current Huntington Beach City Council majority would govern without controversy and divisiveness in the community. We had hoped that by working with the community many issues of concern would be settled.

However at meeting after meeting they have continued to bring forward new controversial items, which bring more division and continue to cast our city in a negative light. When the newly elected City Council members took office they immediately broke with protocol and selected a new person to be mayor, then they eliminated the participation of the Greater Huntington Beach Interfaith Council involvement in the invocation, banned the Pride flag from being flown from city facilities, eliminated important citizen boards and committees, gutted the Human Dignity Statement and established a book banning committee. Citizens came down to City Hall in the hundreds to protest during public comments, but have been largely ignored.

When the new council members came into office in late 2022 they were given a gift of a well run city with many fine institutions. Huntington Beach has a great park system, a beautiful and famous library system, a senior center, miles of beautiful beaches, thousands of acres of wetlands saved and restored, history remembered at the Newland House, a sound financial position and a well educated, experienced staff.

Since then, the city has lost five department heads and our city manager. This council has attacked our much-loved libraries by bringing book-banning to our city.

Now four members of the council have placed Charter Amendments A, B and C, on the March 5 ballot at a cost of over $450,000. Placing these on the primary ballot is a wasteful expenditure of taxpayer funds. If they had waited for the general election the costs would have been much less, as at that time there would be more cities dividing the costs.

Ballot measures A, B and C are costly and wasteful. Measure A would require voter I.D. when voting. One provides I.D. when you register to vote, and the state does not allow requiring voter I.D. at the polls, so this measure is inconsistent with state law. The state attorney general warned the City Council that Measure A would result in legal action if it passes. Yes, yet another lawsuit at great cost to the city. The supporters of this measure cry voter fraud! There have been no cases of voter fraud prosecuted in Orange County. The county election process has been praised for how well it is run. If this passes the county may not allow our city to participate in the county-run elections, thus costing Huntington Beach millions to set up its own system. City staff is unable to even estimate the total cost of this measure, yet the council placed it on the ballot anyway.

Measure B puts a flag policy into our charter. The council already updated a flag ordinance less than a year ago. Measure B would require a unanimous vote of the council before any commemorative flag (other than the Olympic flag) could be flown from city facilities. No other policy requires a unanimous vote of the city. This is just a sneaky way of making it as hard as possible for future councils to fly the Pride flag at City Hall in June.

Measure C is more administrative than the other two but still should receive a no vote. It includes the right for the mayor to unilaterally cancel meetings, which should be the decision of the entire council.

Huntington Beach voters, please join all of us in voting”no” on ballot measures A, B, and C.

Connie Boardman, Kim Carr, Debbie Cook, Shirely Dettloff, Jill Hardy, Linda Moulton-Patterson, Joe Shaw, Victor Leipzig and Grace Winchell are former Huntington Beach City Council members.