Library petition proponents cry foul after Huntington Beach sends out survey

The battle over the library system in Huntington Beach took a new turn Friday, as the city emailed surveys to residents asking them if they were misled into signing petitions that would put the proposed children’s book parent/library review board, as well as future outsourcing of library services, on the ballot for voters to decide.

Volunteers worked for months to circulate the petitions, which asked only for a signer’s name and home address, not email address, according to Protect Huntington Beach co-founder Cathey Ryder.

Following signature counting for both library initiatives by the Orange County Registrar of Voters, the City Council voted last week to order studies before deciding on an election date. But now, after receiving the emailed city survey, volunteers fear that the council is trying to stomp out the petitions before they even get put on the ballot.

Ryder was a proponent of the review board petition. She said she put an attorney who specializes in elections, Long Beach-based Richard Rios, on retainer in December.

“In his history of working with ballot measure initiatives, he’s never known a city to do this kind of thing,” Ryder said. “Is the purpose of this because they want to file a lawsuit to invalidate our ballot petition?

“We’re not taking any legal action at this time,” she added. “We just don’t understand why they’re afraid of democracy.”

Protect Huntington Beach co-founder Cathey Ryder, shown at a press conference last April, was proponent for one of the library initiatives.

(Eric Licas)

Ryder said she’s heard from at least 100 people who signed the petitions but did not receive the survey. Additionally, some who didn’t sign the petitions have said they did receive the survey, she said.

Huntington Beach deputy city manager Jennifer Carey said the survey was sent to people on the city’s email newsletter distribution list. Anyone who signed the petitions can email [email protected].

The survey asks residents who signed the petitions to discuss their experience. It inquires if they were incorrectly told the petitions were to prevent the library from being shut down and/or sold, or to prevent children’s books from being banned.

“The city has a duty and an interest in ensuring local election integrity and compliance with all election laws,” Carey said in an email. “This city effort is in response to concerns raised by community members to city officials that they signed the petition(s) because they were told something that was not true.”

At last week’s council meeting, Mayor Pro Tem Casey McKeon and Councilwoman Gracey Van Der Mark said that residents had raised concerns that they had signed the petitions because they were given bad information.

“People are not happy because they feel we were tricked, so why should we ignore that?” Van Der Mark said Monday. “I do not think there is anything wrong with asking the community to participate, or how they felt about something.”

She added that depending on the feedback received, the council will consult with the city’s legal department on how to move forward.

The survey the city of Huntington Beach sent to residents requesting feedback.

(Courtesy of Cooper Carrasco )

Some, like Huntington Beach resident Cooper Carrasco, have expressed surprise to receive the survey from the city. He responded indicating that he didn’t feel he had been misled.

“I just didn’t think the city would ever be emailing me about that, you know?” Carrasco said. “Then I read it and I was like, holy crap, they’re trying to get me to snitch or something like that. I don’t want to exaggerate, but it’s like an interrogation.”

Carrasco and Barbara Shapiro each spent time last year collecting signatures for the petitions.

“We had to go through training to learn how to speak to people,” Shapiro said. “Part of our training was [that] every person was given an opportunity to read the entire petition before signing. No one was coerced into signing that petition.”

Receiving the city survey sent a chill down her spine, she said.

“I felt like I was being harassed,” she said. “I have a right to privacy. If I’m signing a petition, the city doesn’t need to know I’m signing a petition. The only one who needs to know is the Registrar of Voters, and the only reason the Registrar of Voters needs to know is to verify if I’m eligible by making sure I’m a registered voter.”

Don McGee, right, shown speaking at a City Council meeting last October, has been a vocal proponent of the children’s book review board.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

Dom McGee, who was recently appointed to the Huntington Beach Planning Commission by Van Der Mark, has been a vocal proponent of the children’s book review board. He shared a video time-stamped from September, which contains an eight-minute interaction between him and a signature-gathering volunteer.

In it, McGee asks several times about removing books from the library, with the volunteer responding in the affirmative that books had been banned rather than simply moved.

“It speaks for itself, really,” McGee said Monday. “She couldn’t name a single one of them when I asked her.”

Carrasco, though, said the city’s survey seemed like an attack on its own residents and their efforts.

“You have to respect the people in your city a little bit if you’re going to be in charge,” Carrasco said. “It’s so disrespectful to all of the people who got all of these signatures and spent a whole year on this. It’s crazy. I don’t think they understand the implications of what they did.”