Mailbag: Readers respond to H.B.’s new 7-0 leadership

I was hoping that once the election was over, the MAGA conservative City Council majority and City Atty. Michael Gates could get past the partisanship and do what’s best for all the citizens of Huntington Beach.

It doesn’t appear that’s going to happen anytime soon, based on last night’s meeting where the minority three (Dan Kalmick, Natalie Moser and Rhonda Bolton) completed their term and the so-called HB3 (Chad Williams, Butch Twining and Don Kennedy) were sworn in. Much posturing, gloating and loud cheering was in evidence (Painted red: Huntington Beach seats all-MAGA City Council, Daily Pilot Dec. 4). Many in the chamber were wearing red “Make Huntington Beach Great Again 7-0” hats.

On the agenda was the mayor’s presentation of gifts to the three outgoing council members, we assumed to recognize their pubic service for the past several years. Sadly, then-Mayor Gracey Van Der Mark finished her one-year position by cutting off Dan Kalmick five minutes into his farewell speech with an abrupt “time’s up” and “let’s move on” and gave Natalie Moser a one-minute warning. In an additional note of disrespect and downright pettiness, she gifted each of the three with a large framed poster collage of Trump with bloodied ear and raised fist, “Trump Won,” a Trump boat parade, and other partisan images, wrapped in a Daily Pilot newspaper with an article and photo of Van Der Mark on the front.

So much for class and honoring the dignity of her official office. What a pathetic embarrassment. Let’s hope and pray that the new mayor, Pat Burns, can do better.

Michele Burgess
Huntington Beach

I attended the transitional Huntington Beach City Council meeting and spoke in public comments. My welcoming to the new City Council members came with a warning and a dire prediction. My prediction that Surf City would continue to see division and civic strife if it clung to its grievance-filled agenda that offered no solution to our problems, address for our needs, or building for a brighter future unless wider and more constructive interaction with the greater community was attempted and achieved. It unfortunately had fallen on deaf ears by the end of the meeting.

The concluding remarks of all were unapologetically partisan, and any possibility of a nonsectarian stance firmly kicked to the curb. When the nine reindeer pulling Santa’s special interest group sleigh all donned Trump-style “Make Huntington Beach Great Again” red caps and came out as the “MAGA-nificent Seven” with their enablers, all pretense of serving the entire citizenry was eliminated and democracy debased in our hometown.

As I said in my remarks that while “to the victors may go the spoils” may apply here, it is a profoundly selfish, anti-democratic and reckless sentiment and one that does not serve the citizenry being represented. Added to this debasement is the adversarial and pugnaciously partisan stance our local government is now taking towards Sacramento and the greater powers that be.

Now that there are no guardrails on the dais, we will see if the MAGA sweep of offices in Huntington Beach leads its officials to descend to mischief and malfeasance. This is uncharted territory for our city. Let’s hope it doesn’t lose its way.

Tim Geddes
Huntington Beach

Notorious huckster, hustler and conman PT Barnum is often associated with the quote, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” While there’s no evidence that Barnum actually coined this phrase, whoever did clearly had unknowingly described much of the Huntington Beach electorate.

The results of our last elections demonstrate that memories are far too short. Rather than voting to ensure there would adults in the room to check the current City Council majority’s reckless, rash and recalcitrant impulses, H.B. voters decided instead to send them blindly ideological fellow travelers.

It’s almost like everyone simply chose to forget this City Council majority’s action over the past two years. The disregard for community norms and traditions, the politically motivated manipulation of the city charter, and the almost comedic lack of public accountability and transparency (may the Brown Act RIP) apparently weren’t enough to cause voters to pause and consider the consequences. And then there was the overt cronyism and political patronage. Why wasn’t a secretive multimillion-dollar multiyear giveaway to a political ally not a bright red flag of warning? Given that this majority’s first action was to abandon all local limits on political campaign donations, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised.

So fellow H.B. locals, here we are. We’ve elected a cabal of partisans who up to now have prioritized power over service, special-interests over community, and endless culture-wars to constructive achievement. However, “buyer beware.” With failure comes the inevitable assessment of blame, and H.B. voters just eliminated this cabal’s favorite scapegoats. It will be interesting to see where the blame will fall next. God knows it certainly won’t be at City Hall.

Steve Shepherd
Huntington Beach