Mailbag: Huntington Beach City Council instigating political agenda, not solving city problems

Cathey Ryder got it right in her letter (Daily Pilot, May 18), that Measures A and B in Huntington Beach are about control.

Vote “no” on both if you think the City Council or a committee appointed by the council — not parents — should decide what is appropriate for children. Vote “yes,” if you feel parents should retain the right to decide what is appropriate for their own children.

The council has brought this costly and unnecessary election upon the city by voting to establish a committee to censor or ban books from the children’s section of the library before they had even considered what qualified one to be a committee member, how members of said committee would be chosen and what guidelines would be used to determine unsuitable books or material. Isn’t voting to establish a committee without knowing how it will be appointed, and how it will function tantamount to deciding to build a house without blueprints?

It seems our current council does not know how to govern the city or try to solve its problems. So they choose to be busy fomenting a political agenda, to make it seem as if they are actually doing something.

By the way, one wonders what the committee would do with the Bible and its stories of violent murder, adultery, rape and incest.

Mark Wimbish
Huntington Beach

The opponents of Measures A and B would have you believe that their opposition is about protecting children and being fiscally responsible. Nothing could be further from the truth.

To scare voters about Measure A, they cite passages from books that are not even in our library and books that are in the adult section to try to make people believe children are being exposed to inappropriate materials. They fly in a book banning agitator from out of state.

They claim their opposition to Measure B is about fiscal responsibility. These are the same council members who gave away millions of taxpayers’ dollars to the promoter of the Pacific Airshow for a cancellation that was not the city’s doing. And then tried to hide the settlement from the public. They are the same council members who voted to spend an extra $1M of taxpayers’ money to have this special election for these two ballot measures.

This election is not about protecting children and it’s not about fiscal responsibility. It’s about control. They want to control what books are in our library and they want to stifle resistance from our library staff. They want book selection in the hands of political appointees and library operations in the hands of a company where they control the terms of the contract.

Does this sound familiar? It should. We all learned about this when studying the world history of the early 20^th century. We all saw it happen in real time in Turkey and Hungary in the last several decades.

They are running the authoritarian playbook and we’re seeing this happen across our country at all levels of government. It’s death by a thousand paper cuts.

You’ve probably heard the story of how to boil a frog: you don’t put the frog in boiling water — it will immediately hop out. You put the frog in tepid water and slowly raise the temperature, bit by bit, so the frog doesn’t notice until it’s too late.

Don’t be a frog.

Let’s stop this right now: Vote “yes” on Measure A and vote “yes” on Measure B.

David Rynerson
Huntington Beach

I am a longtime resident of Huntington Beach and I’m also proud to say a retired public school teacher.

Please vote “yes” on Measures A and B in the current special election.

A “yes” vote on Measure A protects parents’ rights by letting them decide what their children read instead of a politically appointed committee. It also protects against government overreach by maintaining the current system of educated and trained library staff managing and curating our book selection.

Measure B protects public operation of our libraries by requiring a vote by the electorate to make a change to our current system which has operated effectively and freely for over 100 years!

‘Yes” on A and B is what is best for our H.B. community and parents’ rights while also protecting our children.

Thank you to the “yes” on A and B voters in H.B. who have helped to preserve our freedoms!

Laura Sire
Huntington Beach