Huntington Beach voters will likely decide library issues

The Huntington Beach Central Library turns 50 this year, and it’s clear it will continue to be a topic of discussion among Surf City residents as they settle into 2025.

Two library petitions — one seeking to overturn a controversial children’s book review board, the other seeking to limit possible outsourcing attempts in the future — have gotten one step closer to going before Huntington Beach voters to decide.

The Orange County Registrar of Voters informed new Huntington Beach City Clerk Lisa Lane Barnes in December that both proposed measures had gathered the required number of 13,247 valid signatures to qualify them for the ballot. The Registrar of Voters notified the city about the parent/guardian advisory board petition on Dec. 10 and the outsourcing petition on Dec. 19.

Though the Registrar of Voters office provided signature verification services, it’s up to Barnes to certify whether the petitions are sufficient per state elections code Sections 9211 and 9114, Registrar of Voters Bob Page said in an email.

Carol Daus, a volunteer with Friends of the Huntington Beach Public Library, learned of the second threshold being met this week.

“We didn’t think we were going to hear about it until January, so it was a nice little bit of news,” Daus said. “We’re more curious in terms of when this will be on the agenda. We’re assuming it will be on the Jan. 21 agenda for the City Council meeting. Now the ball is in their court, and they will have to decide what they want to do with both of these measures.”

The Huntington Beach Central Library turns 50 in 2025.

(File Photo)

The Jan. 21 meeting is the next one scheduled, as the Jan. 7 meeting has been canceled.

At that meeting, the council could accept the petitions as written, order a report or set a date for a special election. They could also choose to put the issues on the ballot for the next general election in 2026.

The parent/guardian children’s book advisory board, which would consist of up to 21 members appointed by City Council members, was first introduced in October 2023 and formally adopted in April with the passage of Ordinance No. 4318. Still, the board itself has yet to be formed.

Councilwoman Gracey Van Der Mark has been a proponent of the advisory board, stating in interviews that not only librarians should have a say over children’s books offered at the library.

“Does her piece of paper, her degree, make it OK for her to reject the books?” Van Der Mark said of librarians in October. “But if us parents reject one, we’re banners. That’s actually pretty insulting, to say, ‘Well, you don’t have a library degree, so you’re not worthy of reviewing a book.’ That’s insulting to moms and dads.”

As for the second petition, the conservative Huntington Beach council majority voted in March to initiate a request for proposal for possible outsourcing of library operations to a private company. But in June, just before the council was set to consider a bid from Library Systems & Services, the company pulled its bid.

The petition seeks to require both council and voter majority approval prior to any privatization of library operations in the future.

Daus called the petition operations a major success, as both signature thresholds were met. She added that the effort crossed over political parties.

“There were people who were Trump voters and there were people who were Harris voters who were signing our petitions,” she said. “It wasn’t a political issue for them. For them, it was protecting one of the city’s best institutions, which is our public library. So I feel, if we get to the point where these are on a ballot, I think we will be successful. I think the people of Huntington Beach really do support what we’re trying to do, which is to keep the library the way it is and managed the way it has always been managed.”