HB City Council Race

Our life finally calmed down enough to attend the Huntington Beach City Council candidate forum on Monday August 25th. My youngest son who was working on his Citizenship in the Community merit badge attended with me.

Candidates attending were: Erik Peterson, Lyn Semeta, Mike Posey, Billy O'Connell, and Barbara DelGleize. Before attending, I only knew Erik Peterson and his positions. I came away with hope that if any four of the five are elected, Huntington Beach will be a far better place. 

The following is from Erik Peterson's website, but its sentiments are echoed by the five:

"The two primary jobs of the city are to provide for the public safety and to maintain and improve its infrastructure. I want these two functions accomplished proficiently and within a reasonable budget so we can invest in additional public services and economic development.

"Aren't you tired of the City managing your daily life? With little public input, the City Council has passed the following laws which do little in practical good and limit your freedoms: How we must carry our groceries from a store to our homes; they have tried to regulate restaurants on how they package take out food; they have taken fundraising opportunities from our schools and needed money from our public safety; determined what types of pets we can buy locally. They want to annex property that has no fiscal advantage to the city, but rather has nothing but costs."

Erik Peterson, Lyn Semeta and Billy O'Connell are opposed to the high density building you see at Bella Terra and Beach Blvd near Yorktown. Mike Posey and Barbara DelGleize are not vehemently opposed, but rather cede that there is little which can be done to oppose it, so it is best to limit where it is placed. 

I mean this nicely: my son prior to entering the meeting could be considered your "average, uninformed voter." Here's his take:

Adam's post:

All the candidates made valuable points, although I didn't agree with some of them. The two which made the most sense to me: Lyn Semeta and Erik Peterson. They had concrete ideas and specific reasons why they were opposed or in favor of something, where the others were a little more vague. I specifically liked their positions on high density building.

I didn't like Barbara DelGleize's and Mike Posey's position on high density. I think there probably IS something that can be done to stop it, and fix the problem. Even if you couldn't do anything about it now, to throw up your hands kind of bothered me.

I don't remember much about Billy O'Connell other than his introduction, and the fact that he's Irish and lived in Ireland. 

I liked Mike Posey's analogy on the plastic bag ban tax: if the City Council can arbitrarily impose a tax on a bag, what's to keep them from arbitrarily imposing a tax on anything else they want?

If I had to vote today, the four I would vote for (in order) are: Erik Peterson, Lyn Semeta, Billy O'Connell, Mike Posey. I would really prefer the first three, but there are four seats open on the City Council and I liked most of what Mike had to say, except for high density.

Back to Kathryn:

I think Adam's observations are telling. He felt the candidates which were clear and concise on message were Erik and Lyn. What is interesting is the Huntington Beach Republican Assembly held an endorsement vote after the forum. Only two candidates carried a majority of the vote: Erik Peterson and Lyn Semeta. The other candidates evenly split the vote, which were not enough to earn an official endorsement. 

Personally, I am troubled by Billy O'Connell's backing by the teamsters. My brother, a union carpenter, would likely be ecstatic. 

Although Mr. O'Connell says the right things about limited government etc., I worry that such a close association with "organized labor" will have an impact on workers in this city. I can't work for a grocery store without being part of a union, even if I disagree with everything the union does, and even though it does little for me in terms of wages or benefits. Will that type of situation expand or contract with a city councilman closely tied to the unions? I don't know.

I'd like to make a suggestion to Lyn, Mike, Billy and Barbara. You really need a website or at the minimum, a blog. Call me an old-fashioned journalist, but a paragraph on Facebook or 120 characters on Twitter are just not going to cut the mustard when it comes to getting your message across. You cannot possibly meet enough HB residents to get your message across in person. Only Erik Peterson has a website containing his message. And, although Erik's my guy (feel free to contact me for a yard sign), I'd like to have like-minded people join him on the City Council. Additionally, a website or blog will allow you to link YT videos where you have appeared, so people can see you "live" or at least, "in person." Call me if you need help putting one together (blog. I don't do websites.)

A nod to Barbara DelGleize here. She was the first to tie High Density to SB375. You may remember from my previous post, SB375 is the state's Agenda 21 agenda. So my question to Barbara is: if you recognize it for what it is, why are you throwing up your hands at it?

One last point. Joe Shaw once made the snarly comment that "if people don't like the job he and Boardman are doing on the City Council, kick them out of office."

Please. If you only agree with Joe Shaw on one thing---agree with him on that, and kick him to the curb. Vote for any of the five attending this candidate forum. You'll be glad you did.