New majority to make its mark

The new conservative majority on the Huntington Beach City Council is poised to make its mark at the next meeting of the council on Tuesday, Dec. 20.

In addition to several routine items on the agenda, Mayor Tony Strickland and new council members Gracey Van Der Mark (who is also mayor pro tem), Casey McKeon and Pat Burns raised some concerns, some of which might prove to be controversial.

Principal among those is a request by McKeon to challenge the state’s Regional Housing Needs Assessment for Huntington Beach, “including its validity over the city as a charter city, by taking whatever legal action is required.”

The RHNA is a state mandate that requires each city to zone for – but not necessarily build – a certain number of new housing units in an effort to alleviate the statewide housing shortage.

Most cities in Orange County have complied with the RHNA process, but some have pushed back on the grounds that it unfairly infringed on local control of planning.

Also raised by members of the new majority were:

• a request to pause the Main Street redevelopment project and solicit additional community feedback;
• a request for a report on crime statistics in the city and report on what measures the police department will take to “increase public safety and law enforcement;”
• a request to move toward withdrawing the city from the Orange County Power Authority.

The council will meet in its chambers on 2000 Main Street (at Yorktown Avenue) with a closed session at 4:30 p.m. and an open session at 6 p.m.

The first regularly scheduled meeting of the city council in 2023 will be on Tuesday, Jan. 3.