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i d like to call the meeting of the City Council Public Financing Authority to order Can have a roll call, please. COUNCILMAN Twining COUNCILMAN Kennedy, Mayor Pro Tem McKeon Mayor Burns, COUNCILWOMAN Van der Mark, COUNCILMAN Gruel, COUNCILMAN Williams, all present. City clerk, do we have any supplemental communications. There are no supplemental communications for this session. Good. Public comments. Do we have anybody signed up for public comments? Perfect. Ok, announcement, uh, conference was labor negotiators, agency designated re uh representatives Travis Hopkins, City Manager, also in attendance. Marissa Sur, Assistant City Manager Mike Vigliotta. Uh, City attorney and Robert Torres interim Chief Financial Officer Employee organizations, uh, Huntington Beach Police Officer Association and a Police Management Association. Uh one is that the, uh, announcement you were talking about? Yeah. All right. Uh with that, I ll make a motion to adjourn to you, um, Mayor second. Oh, where is, uh, do we have a City Manager? He ain t here MAY I be recognized? Yeah, go ahead. i m notifying the public that as an emergency matter after news broke from the Orange County Register on Friday, the 14th in order to discuss the status of a currentr c contract regarding the employment of Michael Gates as Chief Assistant City attorney, and to discuss avoidance of litigation over possible breach. I make a motion that the City Councilc go into Closed Session for discussion. Can we wait till the c s wait till the City attorneys are back. Yeah, well, hold on, we ll pause for a second, see if you We on his way. Ok, we have you and you re doing so. Good job. Mission achieved. All right, we shall reconvene and, uh, City attorney, there s been a motion on the floor. Uh, Chad, would you like to repeat it if possible? Uh, yes, ma am. Uh, I m notifying the public that as an emergency matter after news broke from the Orange County Register on Friday, the 14th in order to discuss the status of a current City contractor guarding the employment of Michael Gates as Chief Assistant, uh, City attorney, and to discuss the avoidance of litigation over possible breach, I make a motion that the City council go into Closed Session for our discussion. Do I have a second? I ll second that. Uh, do you have a comment, City attorney? I do, and I m a little bit out of breath, so I apologize. I was literally running down here. So, um, this item was not on the agenda. So whenever an item is not on the agenda, the general rule is that the City Council can talk about it. So as you guys all know, 72 hours before meeting, everything that s being talked about at the City Council meeting has to be posted on, has to be on the agenda and the agenda has to be posted. There are very limited circumstances where that rule can be changed, and one of those circumstances is that if there s need to take immediate action on an item that comes before the councilor that could come before the council. Doesn t matter what it is and that need to take immediate action occurred after the 72 hour notice requirement, then City Council can vote and it s actually got a, you have to make findings as to why there s an immediate need, the need to take immediate action, and it s gotta be a 2/3 vote. Um, based on the facts as I know them, i am not aware of anything that would present a need to take immediate action, meaning tonight on the item, meaning there is an alternative you could have a special meeting and a special meeting could be called within 24 hours. Again, nothing I m aware of, and I apologize again for being out of breath. Nothing that I m aware of tonight as I sit here would, um, require the council to go into Closed Session to take action on anything. So, um, I think it would be improper and a violation of the Brown Act to do so. City attorney, uh, can I ask you to please cite the Brown Act provision that says that we would, as you stated, need some type of immediate action. Are you familiar with the, uh, letter that we received from an attorney uh, 22 emails, uh, one recent one at 2:33 P.M., uh, addressing specifically, uh, a concern for immediate action. I am aware of the emails and if, and actually before we would even be able to go into Closed Session, you would need to, um, present the public with the information as to why you re going into Closed Session, not just that you received an email, but before you, before, if you wanna go down that road again. Yes, I ve received, I ve read those emails, and nothing in either of those email s and or documents, um, presents the need for council to take action, to take action tonight on, on any of it. And as I understand it, according to the Brown Act, it s just that there MAY be litigation, not that there s a significant risk of litigation, and I can cite the code on that. So good, good point. So, so when you re dealing with Closed Session, before you can even get into Closed Session. There s got to be a topic for the City Council to, um, to address in Closed Session. And those topics are all enumerated in the Brown Act. So you can t just go in there and talk about, you know, whatever, it s got to be one of the enumerated categories that s in the Brown Act and it s litigation, it s, um, employment matters. It s, uh, buying and selling real estate, those are some of the categories that allow us to go into Closed Session away from the public so the public can find out what we re talking about, and we can go into a Closed Session and, and talk about those items as, as Councilmember Williams mentioned, one of the items is pending or potential litigation. And there s criteria in the Brown Act that kind of defines what potential litigation is, and there s got to be a significant threat. If there not existing litigation, there s got to be a significant threat to the City of litigation, um, whether those letters qualify as potential or significant litigation, um, it, it could be argued that the second email we we received today from MR. Gates attorney Wood, could, could qualify under that category, but that s just the first step in the analysis. There s got to because this isn t on the agenda, there s a second step to the analysis that has to take place and that second step is that ok sorry, I m still out of breath. The second step is that there s need tonight because we haven t told the public that any of this is taking place. There has to be need tonight to take immediate action and that s where I don t see the need to take immediate action. Ok, so I would like to just cite the government code. It s government code from the Brown Act 54956.9, and I m sure history will tell, um, there s actually been an update to that, that Brown Act, and there was an amendment and the amendment actually lowers the threshold of what is required to go into Closed Session. And so this isn t the outcome of clo. I would like to read the government code to you. Let me stop you. I m not arguing the point that you can t go into liti go into Closed Session to talk about that letter that we received. I m saying you can t do it tonight So you could call a special meeting and that MAY be appropriate during that special meeting or at some time in the future to 100% to talk about it. That s what I m saying. There s two steps to the analysis, and I understand your point, and your point s well taken. If you read that letter, you could, um, you could certainly put 2 and 2 together and, and, and say they, there MAY be a threat of litigation enough to get us into Closed Session. I would actually like to read what the Brown Act has to say. I would like to put that on the record right now. You can do it, but it s, it s sort of irrelevant to the analysis is It says for the purposes of paragraphs 2 and 3 of Subdivision d. Existing facts and circumstances shall consist only of the following, only of one of the following facts and circumstances that might result in litigation. And I m not arguing it is a mite, and I m not arguing that it might not result in litigation. You missing my point. I m told, as I ve mentioned before, just, and I m not, I m gonna end the debate that that there s debate, but I m gonna end the my part of this conversation and say, I agree that what you are reading is 100% correct. Uh, there s not a, there s not a word of that that I believe is, is, um, is wrong. I think you re 100% right. What I m saying is that there s a second part of the analysis that you re not that you re not citing, and that is that there has to be a need tonight because again, this isn t on the agenda. There has to be need tonight for the council to take action in close session, and I don t see, I ve not heard a fact that would lead me to believe that that exists. What? Should there be an adverse employment action the damage done by the false and defamatory statements about our blameless client would be compounded, and our client MAY have no choice but to take formal action he would much prefer to avoid. And so we can come to a conclusion. Could you, could you tell everybody what that where, where you re reading from and what that means. We can come to a conclusion tonight to resolve this issue, or we could delay and then find ourselves being served with a lawsuit in the next 24 hours. So that would be the need to deal with this tonight. Not only that, that s not what the Brown Act says. It doesn t say that we have to have a significant reason. There has to be some type of great need that the threshold is simply this that might result in litigation against Listen, you re, you you re trying to change the narrative. I agree with you that there, there MAY be based on that email, a threat of litigation. I m not arguing that point with you. What I m saying is that tonight there is no facts that I m aware of that would allow the City to avoid the Brown Act requirement that we conduct open meetings and that the the public has a right to know and see what s on the agenda and come and speak. That s, that s only done in very, very limited circumstances. And so, like I said tonight, I m not aware of any fact that would require us, we require the City council to take action tonight. You could do it at a special meeting. You could do it So you re saying if we call the special meeting in 2 days or something, that would be ok, but even the ex exigency like that he s possibly employed with this now. We re coming across information that s not good enough to have it in Closed Session. And, and just so, so you, so you re aware. Councilmembor Williams, the second part of the test is not, we don t need to do that in order to go into Closed Session during a special meeting. You just have to say that as you pointed out that there s a threat of litigation. You don have to make the finding that there s a need to take immediate action tonight. Like I m saying that there s a very credible threat of litigation. We all received it. I want to have a conversation about it with my fellow councilembs in close session, and you re saying that we are not allowed to do that according to the Brown Act. That s what you re then I wanna do that. That s my motion. That s my motion. And you re not, I guess I don t know how many, I don t know how else to say it, and perhaps it s time to call for call for a vote, but it s not, it s, there is a threat of litigation. It s that because it s not on the agenda, you can t act on it tonight. You can have a special meeting and uh, can we come up with, let s then make the motion for a special meeting. Mayor, you can on your own call for a special meeting or we can get 4 of you to ask for So City attorney, just so I understand, you re saying because it was not on our agenda, we cannot have it tonight, but the agenda was already posted prior to the events that occurred. That s why I m calling this government code 54956.9, we can call the meeting to go into Closed Session because new information has come about. It s it s not just, and I m, I really am gonna end on this. It s not just new information. The Brown Act requires that you have to, that you have to take that there s a requirement that you take immediate action tonight, and I don t see the need to take immediate action tonight, and that s all I have to say. Ok, so you, you re saying that we can t, so appreciate it, you are advising us, but you re not deciding for us. And so I still like to call the motion. Well, I m gonna ok how about 12 o clock Friday, Special meeting. This is what I m calling for and someone else could make that motion, but I m calling for the motion to discuss it in Closed Session. Pat, are you making a a substitute Martian? Substitute motion, special meeting Friday afternoon. All right Any discussion, I m sorry Any discussion on the ok, call it. COUNCILMAN Twining, yes to the alternate motion. Just to be clear, we re voting on the substitute motion for a special meeting Friday at noon. COUNCILMAN Kennedy for fairness and transparency is much I d like to resolve it tonight or move forward. I, I will be voting yes for the substitute motion. Yes Mayor Burns Dito Don Yes, same as Dony, yes, yes, and, and Mayor, just, just, oh GOD. Just for the record, the, the Mayor does have the ability to call a special meeting on its own, so. Because there was a motion on the table, it, it would, it, we didn t really need to take the vote. So it s a no no Motion passes 70. And so just for my understanding, MR. City Attorney, um, you re saying because it was not already on the agenda that we re barred, the Brownak, does not allow us to have that meeting in Closed Session based off of what I just read out of the government code that s not what I m saying. I m again, you re conflating the issues. The issue is that because it was not on the agenda for tonight. You have to make additional findings. That there s need to take immediate action because the public generally has the, the, the Brown Act, the whole reason behind the Brown Act is so that the public is aware of what s going on and that there s transparency in government by not telling the public that you re going to go into Closed Session and talk about something requires additional steps. So it s not something that, that should be done or or is, is favored. It s something that s done in very limited circumstances where the need, where there s there s need to take action like right now. And in this case, there isn t, you can do a meeting in 24 hours and nothing s changed. So if we get if we get a lawsuit in the next 24 hours. Then maybe we look back and say, yeah, we, we probably should have done that. Yes. Um, I would, I 100% stick by what I have advised you right now. All right, uh, recess to Closed Session. Yep, motion recess Yeah I d like to reconvene the regular meeting of the City Council Public Financing Authority, City Clerk MAY have a roll call, please. COUNCILMAN Twining here. COUNCILMAN Kennedy, Mayor Pro Tem McKeon, Mayor Burns, here, COUNCILWOMAN Van der Mark COUNCILMAN Gruel COUNCILMAN Gruel COUNCILMAN COUNCILMAN Gruel Williams, all present. Ok, we re gonna have the invocation. Tonight s invocation will be given by Huntington Beach Fire and Police Chaplain Roger Wayne. With me as we begin this evening s City council meeting. Lord, thank you for bringing us back together again to discuss the issues of our City and, and to seek your guidance and direction for each councilmember as they perfectly consider the direction that you would give to them. We pray for your wisdom and guidance as they consider each of the issues on the agenda. MAY you lead them as they make important decisions concerning our City. And MAY you bring your peace, unity, and harmony through all the discussions. We pray that you would give each councilmember ears to hear as they received the comments from those who will be coming to the podium to speak this evening, and MAY they earnestly consider all of the concerns that are being voiced. Keep them open to the feedback they receive so that they MAY graciously lead and govern with the most complete information and to provide the best direction for our City. And Lord, please guide each speaker who comes to the podium this evening that that they would offer their comments clearly and concisely with dignity and respect. We thank you, Lord, for the wonderful and safe year that you ve given us and for the enjoyable summer season that you ve provided to our City with, with all of its special events. And as we re now in the midst of the end of the year holiday season. MAY you continue to bless our City and pro pro provide everyone with a blessed and thankful Thanksgiving, reflecting on all the blessings that we ve been given by your gracious hand and the blessings that you provide to us each day. And we pray that you ll keep our hearts and minds focused on you as we enter the Christmas season. And help us to remember that you are the reason for the season and what its true significance is to all of us as the Christmas season unfolds. We ask you to bless each of our council members and their families that you would keep them healthy and safe. We pray for each and every one of our first responders and public servants as they so selflessly and faithfully serve our community. We ask your guidance and wisdom for each of our City leaders and for all of our City employees who so faithfully and diligently serve us all. Bless our meeting this evening, and MAY your peace and wisdom guide all that occurs tonight. MAY the joy that you brought to this world fill us with hope and joy as we look forward to all that you will do in our lives and in our City as we close out the year 2025 and enter into 2026. And we asked this in your wonderful name Lord. Amen. Amen. Please stay standing, uh, say the Pledge of Allegiance with me. Ready? Begin. Or just sta I under GOD. The all City attorney, do you have anything to report from Closed Session? Nothing tonight, Mayor City councils, would anyone like to make a comment? I would. Don I just want to say thank you to Chaplain Wing for those heartfelt words. It s always a nice way to start these meetings. Thank you, sir. Anybody else All right Uh, supplemental communications, City clerk, do we have any supplemental communications. Yes. We do For the Study Session um, item number 7, PowerPoint presentation received from Bob Page. Also item number 73 emails uh, treasurer s report, item number 9, revised PowerPoint presentation received from Jason Schmidt. Consent calendar, item number 10, 1 email, item number 11, 2 emails, item number 13, 3 emails. Item number 13, Appendix for the City of Huntington Beach, 2025 Parks and recreation Master Plann update, item number 17, 1 email, item number 19, 1 email, item number 21, revised PowerPoint presentation received from Joseph Pen e ll All right, do we have anyone signed up to speak? Mayor, is it too late to make a council comment? No, go ahead. I d just like to make a remark. I want to speak to, uh, the character integrity of, uh, Michael Gates. He is a man of integrity and uh he is a, he s a man that stands for righteousness. He knows what he stands for. He knows what he stands against. And uh I m just thankful for him and I look forward to serving with him. Thank you, I agree Uh how many do we have to speak at this time we have 37 speakers. Ok. Proper corm at City Council meetings imperative in order for the public to remain informed about issues pertaining to the city s business. The public comments portion of the meeting is an opportunity for the public to be heard and address those issues in a public forum. Disruptive behavior, impeding or delaying our ability to conduct the Council s business will not be tolerated. Penal Code Section 403 prohibits disrupting this meeting and enforcement action will be taken for violations of this law at this time, the City council will receive comments from members of the public regarding any topic, including items in open session agenda. Individuals wishing to provide a comment on items, MAY do so in person by filling out a request to speak form delivered to the City clerk. All speakers are encouraged but not required to identify themselves by name. Please note that the Brown Act does not allow discussion or actions on topics that are not on the agenda. Members of the public who would like to speak directly with the councilmember on an item, not on the agenda MAY consider scheduling an appointment by contacting the City Council s administrative assistant at 714-536-5553 or emailing the entire City council at City.Council at Surf City-dashhb.Org. And just so you guys know, there s a lot of people tonight. If you want to have a little private conversation with the person sitting next to you below you or above you. Take it out in the hall because I ll tell you it reverberates down here and it really distracts from the us listening to people are speaking at the podium. So if you want to have a side discussion, please take it outside. And not in the hallway because the hallway is even worse. Uh, so City clerk called the 1st 15. When your name is called, please come down, use both podiums. Andrew Salazar, MR. Amory Hansson, Andrew Einhorn, Pat Goodman, Mark Tooic, Monica Asbury, Tim Geddes Ken Inaway, Don Thomas, Laura Ann Mary Hannah Oh, I didn t, I didn t say that on microphone, so I ll say it again. W worth repeating. Each speaker will get up to, up to 2 minutes. You want me to go first? Ok. All right, go ahead. Ok, can you hear me? Thank you, everyone. My name is Monica Asbury and I m a resident of Huntington Beach, and I hope to start off tonight with some positivity. On DECEMBER 13th we re having our annual toy drive. I m with the Orange Coast region of the Porsche Club, and this will be the 13th or 14th year that we have hosted it in conjunction with the Huntington Beach Police Department and the 5th Battalion, 14th Marines from the, um, Naval Weapons station from Seal Beach thanks to Bossvens Bo and Lieutenant Archer and of course Chief Parra for allowing the equestrian team, the k-9 and their static sa um, display team to come and try to get the community involved. We have 3000 members in the Orange Coast region and we would love to see again the City council represent you as you have been in the past, so that s DECEMBER 13th from 10 to 2 at Central Park West in Huntington Beach, so it would be wonderful if you put it on your calendar and Andrew, if you would like a toy box at one of your restaurants, I m happy to bring you one. Just to note that s so people know it s over there by the lake, lake, we ve had it there every year. It used to be the pic uh the what is it, the picnic shelter, yeah, and those are gone now, so we come the Marines typically bring their infantry weapons and we have a huge crowd. We re hoping to fill at least 36 boxes, which is usually the record that we do for them and again we ll be there from 10 to 2. The Marines will be there in full force. They ll have their weapons hbpd and if the Huntington Beach Hazmat team hasn t been called out, they also come to show their support. So again it s for the underprivileged in Orange County and it s for the usmc toy drive. Great event. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker Hi, my name is Andrew Salazar, and I ve been talking with Chris Cole at the City Council in um getting the rights to, to the lease of the Huntington Beach Disc Golf Course since FEBRUARY. It looks like I, I submitted a bid and it looks like they, they love it, but it s been stuck with the city attorney and I m just kind of asking for advice. He encouraged me to come down here and ask her advice uh on what to do with that if it s stuck with the City attorney. Fill out a blue card and ask for a meeting. Yeah, we ll get it to you. Ok, and the blue cards are? Oh, the sergeant Arms will give it to you. Ok, thank you very much. All right. Andy Einhorn, 40 year Huntington Beach resident. This council is off the rails. You burn through taxpayer dollars on unwinnable lawsuits, book banning, voter id, housing, and don t forget the air show settlement fiasco. Every dollar wasted defending your failures is stolen from our parks, libraries, schools, and neighborhoods. Your groupthink mentality is not leadership. It s arrogance This council has divided the City. You were trusted to serve all of it We need leaders who will govern for everyone, not from the far right or the far left. We need balance not extremism. Your maga orientation is far from the center. Your vision is toxic. Your patriotism is a mask for your power grab This warped version of leadership has dragged our City in the wrong direction. And I truly hope that possibly some of you can change your ways because Huntington Beach deserves better. Good evening Next speaker Mayor and City Council, I m here to speak on, uh, voter id and the terrible situation of the mail-in ballots that they re sending to everyone, even if you just go to the dmv and get a driver s license, whether you re a citizen or not, uh, the our voter registration and voter uh situation is really out of hand, um, I mean ballots are going to dead people. They re going to people s pets. They re going to one house has, you know, 10 people living in it and uh they all have the same name and they vote and they all turn him in Um, we need a real organization, a reorganization I should say of our balloting, and it s, you know, it costs money, it costs a lot of for the citizens to do this, so I would simply ask for a hand counted process on election night to restore our trust overnight because there s just no trust in this system at all. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, good evening. Uh, I was going to refer to Pat Burns as our Minuteman Mayor for a restricting public comments without without real heavy volume, but I was, uh, I was, I was pleased that uh he was uh uh he gave us 2 minutes. It must have been all the people he s, uh, roped into speaking tonight. Uh, I wanted to just comment on the, uh, the previous speaker Uh, I ve worked for the uh Orange County Registrar of Voters for several elections, including the special election just passed, and she is so far wrong, it is just off the charts. So I just want to be able to, uh, say, and if she wants to go down and really talk to the tour the rov office. She s welcome to do that. Anyway, uh, Tim Geddes in the house. I, uh, well, I, I guess Hurricane, I, I guess, uh, Huntington Beach is on stormwatch with Hurricane Michael blowing back into town Whatever our former City attorney, uh, whatever our former City attorney Michael Gates did or did not do in Washington dc. He helped create a hostile work environment here by pitting our maga City Council against a large segment of the community and by costing the City big time. There were no guard rails protecting our local government with a scandalous Pacific air show settlement fiasco. No guard rails uh with the ridiculous jousting with Sacramento. That MAY cost the City not only millions of dollars but also lead to penalties, restrictions, and endless litigation. We need guard rails starting with the election of community backed council candidates like Taran Palumbo and Ben Davis next year. Only guardrail representation will protect us. Thank you. Next speaker please Good evening Mayor and Council. I am Dan Thomas. This happened to be taken at the, um, Huntington Beach Pier in 2008. This is my son and I. He s military I actually was an observer at the rov and watched the military votes be frauded. I have testified to that Healing after an election is impossible when half the community believes the game is rigged. Transparency isn t a luxury, it s oxygen. Right now our process is so opaque and convoluted that people walk away convinced something is wrong. Paper ballots mailed to every address whether requested or not. Dropbox is left unattended. Ancient voter rolls. It s a recipe for distrust. The only antidote is a process so open and simple that suspicion starves Let s give our residents that gift. We were promised universal mailing, voting would explode turnout. It didn t. We were promised technology would make elections faster and cheaper. It hasn t. Instead, costs are up, timelines are longer, and we ve lost trust anything is, anything is accurate That s not progress, it s a farce. Bob Page is a good man stuck running a bad system designed by Sacramento. If they won t fix him, fix it. Then let Huntington Beach needs needs to be um, in charge and step up and run our own elections the way our grandparents did and our parents did publicly, simply, and finished on election night. Thank you so much. Good evening, um, Mayor and City Council. I wanna thank you, uh, City Council and the City Manager for inviting Orange County Registrar of Voters, Bob Page to present tonight on election security. This is important information for all voters and candidates and elected officials, uh, about 85% of Orange County voters cast their ballots by mail. Uh, MR. Page will explain the system of checks and controls that ensure every valid ballot is counted, whether it s cast by mail or in person, are there isolated cases of fraud? Yes, but they are not systemic or widespread, which is key. Orange County s election system is secure and transparent, open to anyone to observe strong internal controls, well trained and experienced staff significantly reduce the risk of fraud even if they cannot eliminate it entirely. Orange County remains a gold standard for election integrity, supported by the county Board of Supervisors who provide the resources needed for fair and accurate elections. Thank you for your presentation tonight. Freedom, democracy, truth. I am so happy today that Bob Page, the Orange County Registrar of voters, is going to be speaking on the integrity of the Orange County elections. However, I find it very interesting that he s speaking under what called the Study Session. When you re invited United for Freedom to speak, that anonymous woman spoke under presentations and I was wondering like why? And it dawned on me that it was because under presentations she was telling a story. And did you know it was a story? It didn t have to be factual, just a story. Therefore, when you have Bob Page, the registrar of voters here, you are looking at it as a study on facts and findings. I will tell you that a number of us did go on United for Freedom s web page and the claims that they made were pretty muddled. Well, untrue, uh, because they claim to have all these lawsuits, but they failed to tell you that they were dismissed for lack of facts and evidence. Therefore, the fact that you re going to study and take into account the factual findings of the Orange County elections is commendable. After all, you all are here because of the Orange County elections and if you don t believe in the integrity of the Orange County elections, then shoot. Why don t we have Natalie, Rhonda, and Dan up here. Why am I not sitting here? So thank you for inviting Bob Bob Page, the Orange County Registrar of Voters, who will speak to the integrity of our elections. Next please ma am Good evening, uh, MR. Mayor and, uh, members of the council elections used to be, uh, one day of our entire community came together. The neighbors talked, the kids handed out flyers and we felt involved today we re just spectators watching a black box system that none of us understand. The more we learn about Orange County s administration, the less confidence we have. Costs skyrocket results take longer. The participation has plunged Meanwhile, ballots are mailed to everyone, even to a dog that somehow voted in the 2021 recall If a dog can vote, what does that say about the rest of the list? There is no integrity in our voting system We need transparency. We deserve a system that s transparent so that any child could explain it no more machines, please. Let s do paper ballots, one day voting results uh, immediately after the voting. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you, ma am. Amory Hansen, thank you, MR. Mayor. My name is MR. Amory Hanson. I m speaking tonight to inform the council that usa snowboarding dropped its bid to be a governing body of surfing. This means the usa Surfing will most likely continue as the governing body of Olympic surfing. All sports are important to the Olympic movement. It s important that sports govern themselves to ensure governing bodies are truly representative of the sports played. I thank the council for expressing its support for self-governance and democracy and sport. I hope the Council will continue to have many successes. C Cus, Altius, Fortius, faster, higher, stronger. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, good evening, Council. Uh, my name s Mark Tonkoicch. Uh, we voted for him, we passed voter id in Huntington Beach. Of course, uh, it didn t take long for the state to turn around and sue us, so I encourage you to fight them. We voted for it. Our votes won, they want to combat it Uh, the other thing, a picture id is more secure than anything we re using right now. Every time you go to vote, you prove who you are by pulling that out. The current voter verification is done by comparing previous signatures to current. I vote in person sometimes. Sometimes I use the, uh, mail-in ballot. When you vote in person, you felt a ballot, you scan it, and you sign on a monitor, a touchscreen. You ever sign for a, uh, credit card at the drug store. It doesn t look anything like your signature handwritten. So where s the validity behind that? Um nothing can beat a government picture id to be used when checking in. We also ought to go back to precinct voting. That was the simplest we can turn it around in a few days. And uh instead of this cycle we re in right now, I believe it s 67 days from when it starts till it ends. Actually, today I checked, we re still counting the votes for Prop 50 in Orange County. So, how secure is the system if a dog voted at voted twice. Uh, once voted for the recall and once voted for an actual election. Um that was done via the mail. I mean, who or what else can vote this way with the MAY in. Uh, the woman that did this, she shouldn t be prosecuted for showing holes in our system. She should be given a medal to show the incompetence of the system as it stands. Thank you. Good evening, Honorable Mayor and honorable members of the City Council. My name is Kenny Noway. I lived in Huntington Beach for over 50 years. When Mayor Burns was asked to comment on the possibility that as a result of the congressional redistricting provided by the passage of Prop 50, Huntington Beach could be represented by Congressman Robert Garcia. Who is an accomplished, openly gay, progressive member of Congress, Mayor Burns replied the following. One I helped the new congressman from Long Beach comes in with the intention to represent the Huntington Beach and not his leftist agenda. 2 he stated that I hope he doesn t put agenda before people. And this party before service. In light of Mayor Burns s comments, I respectfully request that our City council pursue all future activities in a manner consistent with Mayor Burnne s request of Congressman Garcia. And with the mindset as stated by one of your supporters, and you know him well. My neighbor and friend MISTER Ted Ross who would like our City council to proceed. The spirit of compromise to achieve shared goals with an emphasis on financial accountability and transparency. Thank you so much. Next 10 speakers, Calvin, Ernsson Russell, Cheryl f. John Mckai Pete Lynne Muslin Michelle Morgan Jan Midnick Brenda Kathy Carrick Hello, Councilmembers. My name s Urson Russell. Uh, Mayor Burns, thank you as well. Um, I m here to talk about the elections. I m doing this for a long time and it s really disparaging and disheartening just to hear the divide that keeps happening in our communities. One side s completely convinced that they have it all figured out and the other side just continues to have questions. And I just after 3.5 years, I don t quite know what the solution is. I just, I don t see that the state s going to fix this or that the county that has essentially controlled system, and, and I ve been, you know, I, I have a lot of respect for the, the team and Bob Page and everyone that s down at the county register is a voter s office, but there processes that are followed and then when those processes are done, things that fell off from being checked just get left on there and that s where we have voters that are still on our rolls from like the 1990s that haven t voted since then. So Lars all these examples, and it doesn t point to fraud, but it points to the fact that this very, very complex system that isn t being managed at the county level that s being managed in centrally controlled at the state on almost every aspect of the process, the policy, and the way that you go about managing the administrations is taking away the community aspect and it s continuing to have an impact on our elections. It s disenfranchising voters because it seems that every election there s one other pile of ballots somewhere. There s one other questionable thing. There s one nonhuman that voted. And it s gonna continue on and on until our elections become really part of the community again and I don t see that Sacramento s gonna create the program to have community elections important again, and I think that s up to our local communities, and I see this body in this community here if we can get all seats at the table and have some adult conversations and let s try something that tries to heal what s going on in our elections. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next speaker, please Go ahead, sir. Well, uh, councilmembers and, uh, Mayor, my name is John Nikai. I ve been a, uh, resident of Huntington Beach for the past 20 years and I just wanted to uh voice some of the concerns and observations I ve seen, um, we ve, uh, implemented a lot of the voters Choice Act to give people more access, more access, and so we have this mail-in ballot system which is extremely expensive and it, it, uh, is, you know, wide open to fraud. These the people, uh, who, uh, the, the, the list of ballots goes out to people who MAY have been dead for 10 years or or moved away 15 years ago or 5 years ago and there s no way to really know if the person, uh, submitting the ballot is really the person who, uh, uh, is, uh, legitimately supposed to vote. There s also no way with the mail-in ballot to be able to do any kind of id check. Now I know the, the voter id check is a hot topic, but on the other hand from a common sense standpoint, don t you really want people who are supposed to be voting, check to make sure that that, uh, only the people who are supposed to be voting are actually voting. I mean, the Chinese could come in, send a bunch of people and wipe out all the Huntington Beach votes with the number of people they have over there, so, uh, I, I do want to say, uh, stand up for voter id, uh, and I think we should go back to the precinct voting that we used to have before, uh, with the current system besides all the huge costs of printing, we turned in all those ballots. It s kind of like I take all the ballot s I throw them on the floor and I pick them up and then I have to run through, um, uh, so all these expensive sorting machines and then uh have uh herds of people going through trying to uh validate the IDs on the outside of the envelope. Thank you, sir. Thank you Next speaker, please. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to have this clarification opportunity to talk about some of the things found on the Prop 50 election reports that we re seeing currently, um, in looking at some of the unofficial ballot count reports. And if you can drill down, you can actually see how many yes votes and how many no votes have been cast. Well, uh, as of now we show 525 more votes in the records that are counted more than the total of the yes and the no votes that were cast. These are concerning because the numbers should match. They did on 115, but somehow they failed to match now. Um, another report shows Prop 50 election had 488 under votes and I m not sure why a yes-no vote should have an undervote, but this is something it would be interesting to find out. Um, and there s another election, um, result unofficial election result versus the daily summary turnouts. And on that one, there was some concerns because the vote by mail unofficial election results versus the daily summary turnouts showed that 15,926 deletions were taken away from the turnout vote totals. and then on the um vote in person, uh, 4,753 more votes were counted than voters that actually cast an in-person vote. And then on this record, the turnout totals 17,086 deletions versus what actually came through. So those are, those are concerns in numbers, and I think these are kinds of things that should be adjudicated. There s another unofficial daily total versus the raw count of in-person votes. There s 4,767 more votes counted than what they re showing as in raw in-person voting records. So again, there s a big discrepancy there in numbers that need to be adjudicated. Thank you Next speaker, please Next speaker. Yeah, uh, thank you. Uh, good evening, uh, ladies and gentlemen of the Council. Yeah, I wanted to uh touch a couple of things right now. I ve been a citizen of California all my life, and I ve watched the voting process continues to degrade year after year, decade after decade, and everybody s saying, hey, let get computers that ll make it quicker, faster, and more efficient. Well, if you do a study of how much money is spent in the last 10 years on computers. It s cost us more to vote than just the old fashioned way. I m speaking about that because they uh if Orange County is a gold star of voting. Why is the doj investigating the rov in Orange County. Which which the rov and all Manage has refused to respond to the doj. What does that tell me as a citizen, as a state, Something s wrong with the gold star of Orange County s voting. Basically, what it is is you ve, uh, the, the City, state, county of uh California, he eroded voter confidence and people are just, they re fed up, they re tired of what s going on. They get no answers. They get no response. They get support from the federal level and the state level box. What does that tell everybody? We need as a City to stand up and say, let us take care of our own voting and our own process and work it out. Basically, we are here as we the people to speak out at this fraudulent voting process here in Orange County. Thank you. Thank you Next speaker, please. My name is Jan Madnick. I m a 44 year resident of Huntington Beach. Back on OCTOBER 21st when you had a presentation by an election denial group. I was one of the many Huntington Beach citizens to write and discuss and urge you to have Bob Page, our oc County registrar, come speak the truth about election security at a City council meeting. Thank you for doing so tonight and also to a congressperson Gruel for actually touring the facility, which I would suggest all of you who think that there s some problems with our elections to do the same thing. I m so happy that you actually listened to my voice. It was a nice feeling. So on that, on that basis, if I MAY use a little more time to strongly urge you not to hire Michael Gates back as an attorney in any position in Huntington Beach. He does not represent our interests in a professional manner and has cost us citizens thousands if not millions of dollars, you can do better. N Um, first of all, I have gone and observed the rov and I ve also done monitoring at various voting locations, but I want to commend and thank this council for supporting fair elections here in Orange County, particularly during a time when fraud seems rampant, made easier by Dropbox s mail-in ballots, and the elimination of local vote sites. There s been a lot in the news this week about release of the Epstein files, a call for full transparency, and yet we have those in this county, maybe even in this room who are trying to block the release of voter records that are under subpoena by the Department of Justice in an event, in an effort to have that same transparency in our Orange County voting process. My understanding is that our voter, uh, registrar of voters, Bob Page has promoted this resistance, and that s shameful. I m sure he will try to justify this. Do not be fooled. I want to encourage you all to stand strong and on behalf of Huntington Beach residents and all of Orange County, I thank you again. Next please Good evening. Tonight I m here because something fundamental it s is at stake. Our trust in the very system meant to protect our constitutional right to vote. The right to vote is sacred. It is the foundation of every freedom we enjoy as Americans. Yet here in California, that right is being strained by systems that are inconsistent, vulnerable, and too often lacking real oversight. We re told to trust the process, but trust requires transparency and right now voters across the state are seeing warning signs Millions of vote by mail ballots are sent out, yet large numbers never return. We all remember when a mail truck in Huntington Beach was robbed during Prop 50 with ballots inside, when ballots can disappear in transit, how can voters believe every vote is counted. Transparency, we are left with a patchwork, um, of systems that fails to guarantee equal protection under the law, and enforcement too often when laws are ignored or procedures violated, nothing happens, no accountability, no corrective action, no explanation to the public. When people can t trust that every legal vote is counted and only legal votes are counted. Our democracy doesn t just weaken, it fractures. People disengage people lose faith, and once confid ence is lost, it is incredibly difficult to restore. This Council has already shown an interest in election validity, and I want to commend you for that, because real reform does not start in Sacramento. It starts right here in our cities and counties where voters demand to be heard. So tonight I urge you to push for a stronger mandatory post-election audits, full transparency in how ballots are handled and counted, strict adherence to certified equipment, meaningful public reporting from the Secretary of State. And the county election Off. Thank you. On a totally different topic. My grandmother, an Alabaman cotton farmer set me down at 8 years old. And that was considered the age of consent in the Southern Baptist Church to explain the facts of life. She told me that I would be getting the curse that comes with all women soon. She ordered me not to let any boys touch me, bad things would happen. She forgot to tell me what those bad things could be. When her son sexually assaulted me at 9. I knew that I could not talk to her because I m the one that would be beaten. The worst part was I wasn t sure what the curse was and what to call what he did to me. What to name it When I was 11, I moved back with my mother and discovered libraries. I d lived there discovering the truth of what happened to me and to begin to understand what my body was and how it worked. That s what books do. They help children understand when the parents need help explaining or they help a young girl who was terrified to tell anyone what happened to her to gain her voice. Reopened the teen section and quit trying to say you re doing it for the kids You re only helping the pedophiles. Next speaker, please Good evening. Um, they are in the console My name is Calvin. I m a resident of Orange County for the past 4041 years and uh i ve, uh, since I retired I volunteered on a lot of things as and that decide to get involved with the uh election process and the more I volunteered and went to the rov and then also volunteered to cure ballots and the more I kind of got disillusioned with the process, you know, there s a lot of holes in it, uh, and what really got me was, you know, 2021 I thought uh we can make the better for California with the recall, but then, uh, that, uh, that memory came back just recently with the uh kind of told us everything we didn t know, which is the current systems security requirements allow a dog to vote and uh you know that s the thing that uh. If that happens, uh, what else is being let through the system and not being uh not being um uh you know vetted out We still have, uh, based on some of my, uh, research, we still have 125 to 175 year old voters in uh Huntington Beach and uh also people who haven t voted since the 1990s. So there s a little bit of uh voter roll that needs to be cleaned up and uh I don t, I don t understand why that doesn t get done as a regular routine procedure. So you know with this uh voter choiceice Act and uh the uh paper I mean ballots to everybody. The costs are up, the speed is down as far as counting. Uh, voter confidence and in the long run is down to you. Thank you. Next speaker please Good evening. My name is Cathy Keri. I m a 50-year resident of Huntington Beach. How many times have we heard we don t need voter id because there is no graft The problem I have with that is that it is not logical. When asked for id at the airport, do we say, I m not showing you my id because I don t have a history of crashing planes. When asked for id when buying liquor, do we say, I m not showing you my id because I ve never lied about my age. Of course not. We say yes, here is my id. The purpose of showing an id is to prove you are who you say you are. I think we all agree that we want secure and fair elections. We need to have confidence in the results. Voter id is simply a way to strengthen the integrity of our vote if we require id to confirm our identity for everyday financial and safety transactions, it is totally logical to require it for the most fundamental act of citizenship, voting. Stop the nonsense. Follow the logic. Let s work together to put voter id into place. Thank you. Next 10 speakers, Chris Cluwe, John Ridelli Max Daffron Delane Pat m Annabella Linda m, George a Lisa h Patricia Pappas Go ahead, sir. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and hb City Councilmembers. Much of what follows with a few updates was presented to the community and library Services Commission meeting, uh, to consider the 2025 Parks and recreation Master Plan. My name is John Ridelli, and I ve enjoyed living in the great City of Huntington Beach, where well over 20 years. In fact, I graduated from Edison High School in 1974. I m here to respectfully request two things for consideration as it relates to the potential possibility of 4 more Boy Bo courts at Edison Park. And the restoration of the existing force synthetic resin Boyba quartz and Murdy Park. First, I respect and understand that the community and library services Commission has already passed approval for the amenities that haddison Park that do not include Boy ball courts. My comments here delayed the groundwork for a possible last minute appeal. To the City council to to please consider for synthetic resin bocial quartz in the new Par design. It is impark is located on the far other end of town, a full 67 miles away and would serve a large portion of our community, particularly seniors and recreational players who currently have no convenient access to a quality Boch facility. I m not going to finish this, but I send in an email written supplemental uh uh communication, and I hope you ve had the chance, so we ll have a chance to look at it. The courts are suffering there, Murdy Park. They need restoration badly, and I had met with Kristen Martinez. She says she s going to put it on the budget for next year. I hope that s the case. Thank you so much. Thank you, sir. Hi, uh, Chris Cluy, Huntington Beach resident. Um, I wanna thank the Council for allowing Bob Page to present from the oc registrar of voters. Um, I am looking forward to the presentation, and I m sure it will be factual and filled with useful information that I hope everyone pays attention to. Um, I would also like to thank Mayor Burns for giving us 2 minutes, which I m sure has nothing to do with the crowd of people behind us currently in the audience. Um, but what I would really like to point out is, are you guys aware of the atmosphere that you are creating right now. You talk about distrust you talk about not being able to trust our voting systems, and you are the ones that are creating that. You re the ones who brought in the voter denial group to do their presentation. You are the ones that are eroding what this community has and for what? You guys were elected by that system. You re sitting up there. You won Congress. You won the Senate, you won the presidency. Are we to say that those were all invalid because sure, I ll take that. Are you gonna resign right now? Are you going to say that our system doesn t work and actually have the courage to stand behind that? And not do this job anymore, because I think that you know the system works, and you count it on the system working because it got you into power. And the people of this City voted for you, and we all have to live with that. But when you try to call that into account and say that it s false, you are the ones that are tearing America apart. And I really hope the people behind me pay attention to this presentation. So that way, you can actually understand that our elections, while not perfect, are fair, and they are trustworthy. So please pay attention to this presentation. Thank you. My name is Harry McLaughlin. I want to thank the Council for inviting Bob Page to come here and give a presentation tonight, and I would like to thank COUNCILMAN Gruel for showing up at the tour. I wish the rest of you could ve made it. Maybe next time. I ve got something I spoke here back when the world, the, the world was young on SEPTEMBER 14, 2023, and we actually had 3 minutes to talk. Nationwide there has been an ongoing effort to instill fear and doubt in the security and legitimacy of our voting systems. One of the foundations for our democracy. Fabricated entirely out of whole cloth. It is a ginned up solution to a problem that does not exist. As a poll worker during elections, I know firsthand that this is pure baloney based on falsehoods and misinformation. The Orange County Registrar of Voters is a national model for how the voting process should be carried out. Please explain to our citizens why this current Republican council majority wishes to exert any measure of local control over a county election model that currently functions quite well without additional local interference. I find it curious that the only election shenanigans pulled off either locally or on the national level are those being tempted by Republicans. Locally in 1988, Garden Grove s Kurt Pringle hired uniformed security guards to intimidate Latino voters and entering vote centers. They were sued in they fined $40,000. Nationwide in DECEMBER of 2020, Republican groups from seven states submitted lists of fake so-called alternate electors to the National Archives. These included dozens of local Republican Party leaders, 4 current candidates for public office, 6 current officeholders, and at least 5 federal officeholders. The indictment said potential indictments of these Republicans rosters are playing out in real time as I speak. However, our felon in Chief has decided to pardon them all. Nothing has changed from SEPTEMBER 14th, 2023 to now. We can do better Next speaker, please. Good evening everyone Council Mayor, the price tag for Orange County election keeps climbing, but what do we have to show for it? Longer counts more confusion, reduced voting options and zero noticeable increase in participation. Meanwhile, a dog voted in 2021 and nobody was fired. That alone should tell us the system is broken beyond patching. We don t need another audit or another task force. We need to go back to what worked for 200 years. Neighbors counting ballots in front of neighbors on election night. Huntington Beach can start that revolution. Let s do it. Thank you. Thank you, Nick Next speaker please Mayor and Counciluncilmembers, I really appreciate, um, you allowing us to come and speak today and your patience with all the comments. Um, confidence in our elections is not growing, it s collapsing. Every new detail we learn about Orange County s system makes people feel more disenfranchised. Many people don t even vote because they don t think their vote um they don t bother voting because they don t think their vote is going to count. We automatically mail ballots to every name on the list, whether they ask for one or not. We have voters in Huntington Beach who haven t cast a ballot in 15 years, still listed as active and for the NOVEMBER 4th special election we had fewer than 70 in-person vote centers. Down from 190 the year before. That s not expanding access, that s shrinking it. We can do better and we should right here start in Huntington Beach. Thank you. You Next please Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. The single biggest threat to our republic right now is apathy. and apathy is winning because people no longer believe their vote is counted accurately. Every new story, dogs voting, someone caught cheating, endless delays pushes more citizens towards why even bother. We can reverse that spiral overnight with community transparency. One day in person, hand counted in public If the state won t permit it, nothing should stop our community from doing it. For our own municipal races and showing the rest of California how it s done. We need to lead by example. Thank you. Good evening, City Council. Um, thank you so much for putting up with us tonight, um, and hearing both sides, we appreciate it. Um elections are supposed to bring us together and not drive us apart. Right now, they appear to be doing the opposite, but I, like many citizens in Orange County, get these in my email box. You probably get them too. So they called the election in California before Orange County rob even submitted one tally for in-person voting. Um, later on that night there were several, like 112,000 votes, um, that were counted from vote centers and the majority of them voted no on Prop 50. But we wouldn t know that. Scanning, voting in person the first day, uh, I m scanning on on election day is the best way to vote. It is the one that is most cost effective, but yet, did you get any flyer in the mail that told you scan your vote if you can scan on election day. That would save the county lots of money and it would give us more accurate votes, and it would give us votes counted on time. Thank you very much. Well, uh, I picked quite the night to come introduce myself to the community. Honorable Mayor Call is, uh, my name is Max Daffron. I ve met plenty of you before in the previous week. I am the new PRESIDENT And ceo of the Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce. I m also a uh Lifelong Huntington Beach resident in Huntington Beach native. It s great to be here serving the community. I wanted to come out and actually thank you all, uh, for participating in the, uh, state of the City event last week. The fabulous presentation from the City, uh, Mayor Burns and, uh, Mayor Pro Tem, your, your, uh, uh, speeches were incredible, really appreciate the partnership really looking forward to continued partnership with our business community here in Huntington Beach. Uh, really, the possibilities are endless. We have over 10,000 businesses in this great City, and uh I m very happy to be home and uh uh partnering with all of you in the future to make Huntington Beach the best place to do business in California. So thank you very much and great to meet all of you. Next speaker please Good evening Council. I m Delane Bailey, and I m here because a 12 year old asked me how votes are counted, and I couldn t give him a straight answer wit