Members of Huntington Beach’s new conservative City Council majority say they have a pact with each other and the city’s residents for how they plan to lead by reaching consensus.
Running a concerted campaign, Tony Strickland, Grace Van Der Mark, Casey McKeon and Pat Burns collected more than 51% of the votes cast in last month’s election that had a field of 18 candidates.
“The people of Huntington Beach were unhappy with the direction of the city,” Strickland said, “and they made their voices heard in selecting us and we intend to work for them.”
McKeon and Van Der Mark were initially working together on their council run when they were joined by Burns. Together, the trio said, they decided after several meetings and careful consideration that Strickland, a Republican who spent time in both the state Assembly and Senate, would be the right fit for their slate.
“His experience and his values made him the perfect person to join us three,” McKeon said. “We didn’t want to divide the vote and wanted to keep it simple for the voters to see their values reflected in us.”
The majority’s first collective act was to seat Strickland mayor and Van Der Mark as mayor pro tem earlier this month when the new council members were sworn in.
Each December, the council chooses from among its ranks someone to fill the mayor role, which is typically done by rotation following a 1991 council resolution; that would have positioned the most experienced council member, Dan Kalmick, as mayor. Instead, Kalmick, Natalie Moser and Rhonda Bolton were outvoted.
The four new council members said during their run for the office they drew up a plan of four top priorities from what they heard from the community.
They call it their “Contract With Huntington Beach Voters,” with Strickland keeping a blown up poster version with their signatures in his City Hall office.
In this contract, they say they will give City Attorney Michael Gates – who won re-election in November – the greenlight to fight state mandates such as housing requirements; they will implement a 90-day plan to clean up streets and “combat homelessness;” they will “make crime illegal again” and build up the police force; and they will put their weight behind small businesses in support of their growth and development.
“The people of Huntington Beach don’t want to live in an urban center, a high-rise city, and that’s what’s coming down the chain from Sacramento,” Strickland said. “People move to Huntington Beach because they like the suburban coastal community that it is. So the first thing we need to do is sue (over) those mandates from Sacramento and work to restore the greatness of Huntington.”
Huntington Beach has had a turbulent few years. The city garnered national attention during the coronavirus pandemic with regular protests in town over the shutdowns, masking and vaccinations. A resident group tried to recall all but one member of the council earlier this year for not pushing back on the state’s housing mandates, including going to court if necessary. The council’s appointment after Mayor Pro Tem Tito Ortiz, a conservative and former mixed martial artist, resigned was a heated debate in town with many wanting Van Der Mark as his replacement. They were disappointed when Rhonda Bolton, who they deemed “deeply progressive,” was chosen by the council.
The new council members see their strong showing at the polls as a sign of support from the community and a testament that they are on the right track with their top priorities.
“I know what direction that I want to go in,” Burns said. “I want to make sure we are on a strong financial footing, I want to increase policing and bring back resident and business owner confidence. Because the reality is, if you start letting a society degrade, it’s going to degrade.
“States are making it too easy for people to be homeless and people need to be held accountable for the choices they make,” he said. “Government does not belong controlling peoples lives. It’s supposed to facilitate and support, but it’s not about giving them anything they want without anything in return.”
Burns and Van Der Mark have lived in Huntington Beach for more than 30 years and before any of them were in politics, Van Der Mark said they were just concerned citizens, feeling the call to help their community as issues have gone unmet.
“I was never into politics, I was just a house mom who became concerned, Burns was a police officer, McKeon in real estate and all of us bonded in that we valued families, the children, independence and we are also patriotic,” she said. “While we do have some differences, we want everyone to know they are welcomed here and that all we want is to bring unity and prosperity once again.”
The four said they attended more than 100 events together while on the campaign trail and found they held a common cause: A desire to actualize the needs of the community.
“Our top priorities are theirs, especially as it surrounds state mandates. Anything that’s a mandate that violates local control as a charter city – protected by the United States constitution that allows us residents to decide on infrastructure, public safety and policing – we will push back against it,” McKeon said. “In the end, we are merely conduits that are here to carry out the people’s will, and this is what they’ve told us matters to them.”
They said listening to the consensus of the community is how they will lead on council and make decisions.
“We are all in agreeance about the major issues and any other decisions that arise we will make the decisions based upon what the community decides they want,” Van Der Mark said.
A third generation Huntington Beach resident, McKeon said the four new council members are committed to hearing from residents and building consensus on the dais on decisions.
“If we have to have multiple City Hall and town hall meetings until we reach consensus we will do that,” McKeon said. “We ran to bring the council back into the hand of the people. We are not politicians, we are elected representatives – the conduit to City Council.”
Van Der Mark expressed her excitement in having a team that is “engaged and transparent with a 100% accessibility,” saying that more than half of the residents in Huntington Beach have the new council members’ cellphone numbers.
“We will meet and talk to them on any issue that they have,” she said, “and if they want to be more informed about an issue, whether it’s the (Orange County) Power Authority or the homelessness, we are welcoming input and volunteers at all times.”
The new council holds its first full meeting on Dec. 20. For more information go to https://www.huntingtonbeachca.gov/government/agendas/.
