HUNTINGTON BEACH CITY HALL (Tribune photo).

By Miles Gaskin
Orange County Tribune

Continuing to lean into Surf City’s status as a charter city, the Huntington Beach City Council acted to join an alliance with similar municipalities.

On Tuesday night the Huntington Beach city council voted unanimously to establish a new collaborative program that they hope to run in conjunction with several other cities in California.

According to a staff report, Huntington Beach was initially approached by the city of Porterville, in hopes of establishing a “league of charter cities.”

The staff report also says that the program will “advocate for preserving local control and minimizing external interference from Sacramento.”

The agreement was initially proposed by Porterville Mayor Greg Meister at the Feb. 18 Porterville city council meeting.

This item was brought to council by Mayor Pat Burns, and Council member Casey McKeon.  Burns expressed his support for the establishment of this program.

“There is no mystery that we have been fighting some fights, and we have been standing alone a lot of the time as a charter city.”

“The charter city has been ingrained in our state constitution, and in my view it has not been respected by Sacramento, our governor, and our attorney general. We should be able to run our own city, for me that is so important.”

McKeon emphasized the importance of working with other like-minded charter cities.

“One of the most frustrating parts of these last two years are the fights we take on against the state, we always champion our charter city status which gives us special constitutional protection under the state constitution, we ask ourselves, who is with us?”