The Huntington Beach Circus Returns: Another Dysfunctional Night at City Council!

As I reflect on Tuesday night’s City Council meeting (June 3, 2025), one thing becomes increasingly clear: if un-self-aware irony were a fuel source, Huntington Beach could power the entire West Coast.

Let’s start with the basics. Tuesday’s meeting, like many before it, kicked off with an stridently Christian prayer delivered by Police Chaplain Bob Ewing. Now, let me be clear—I’m not against prayer or religious expression. But when a government meeting starts to feel like a revival service rather than a civic forum, we have a problem. Our elected leaders are supposed to serve everyone—Christian, Muslim, Jewish, atheist, and more. Instead, what we’re seeing week after week is the unapologetic blurring of church and state, ignoring the religious diversity that actually exists in Huntington Beach.

What followed was predictably chaotic: Mayor Pat Burns—our local self-appointed judge, principal, and referee—lectured the crowd about decorum. Don’t use the dais as a soapbox, he said. Don’t name councilmembers, he said. Don’t clap, don’t cheer, don’t cuss. But somehow, all those rules magically vanish when he’s yelling at residents by name from the dais, interrupting speakers mid-sentence, or muttering profanities under a hot mic. The hypocrisy would be hilarious if it weren’t so damaging.

This meeting featured a whopping 75 public speakers—residents, business owners, parents, and students—many of whom passionately criticized the Council’s relentless attacks on the Huntington Beach Public Library. Their messages were largely ignored. Gracey Van Der Mark barely looked up. Mayor Pat Burns scowled and even fell asleep at one point. The Mayor as always (since former Mayor Gracey began reducing public speaking time last year)  reduced public comment time from 3 minutes to 1, even though these community members were expecting to be able to exercise their fundamental right to speak on matters affecting their community, for the full allotted 3 minutes .

And what are we all fighting over? An imaginary problem. The Council insists pornography is infesting the children’s section of the library. But no evidence has ever been provided. No librarian has ever been arrested. No parent has ever proven it. Why? Because it’s simply a lie.

THIS insanity just went up at Beach & Yorktown today, after Tory wrote this piece.
“Our Library Pedophile Matters”?????

Ironically, if you want to see explicit material in the children’s section of the library, look no further than the Bible. Yes, the very book being defended with such ferocity contains graphic depictions that would make Hugh Hefner blush. Judges 16:1, Proverbs 7:7-22, and Ezekiel 23:8—to name just a few—are filled with stories of harlots, seduction, and sexual violence. Yet, no one’s proposing to remove that. So the question becomes: is this really about protecting children or just about controlling what people can read?

Meanwhile, Councilmember Chad Williams—poster child of the moral panic—continues to litter the city with signs screaming “Stop Porn in Libraries!” while simultaneously backpedaling, claiming he didn’t personally choose that exact wording. Sir, you funded them. Own it. If the backlash is too hot, maybe don’t light the match.

Let’s talk cost. This political stunt has now led to an $8.8 million city deficit. We’ve lost nearly $25 million in funding over the next five years thanks to poor decisions like neglecting the Orange County Power Authority contract (OCPA) and sabotaging grant applications. Seven respected librarians have already resigned. Families are uprooting themselves because they no longer feel safe or welcome in a city they’ve called home for decades. All of this—millions in damage, real human suffering—just so a few extremists could feel like they “won” something.

Let’s not forget, this same council—Gracey, Pat, Casey McKeon—has been in power for over two years. They are no longer the “new guard.” They are the status quo. They’ve had ample time to fix what they claim was broken. Instead, they’ve wasted city funds on MAGA plaques, censures, and chasing ghosts in the stacks of the library.

As for Gracey Van Der Mark’s qualifications—she now claims to have a GED. Nonsense. The record doesn’t lie. She never earned one. And yet, she feels entitled to discredit librarians with master’s degrees and dictate educational policy for a city of nearly 200,000 people. It’s laughable if not dangerous.

Let’s also not forget the side characters in this tragicomedy:

• Casey McKeon, DUI on record.
• Don Kennedy, obsessed with fighting the LGBTQ+ community, yet reportedly once donned a dress at a public event.
• Butch Twining, has been seen spreading homophonic propaganda, spreading false and misleading information and confronting residents in public which whom he disagrees with.

Gracey, Casey, Kennedy, Twining.

It’s exhausting. But here’s the good news: the people are paying attention. The residents of Huntington Beach are smarter than this. We know propaganda when we see it. And we’re not afraid to push back against hypocrisy, extremism, or the weaponization of religion and power.

We are better than this Council. We are stronger than their lies. And we are not going away.

~Tory D. Johnson 
Founder, Black Lives Matter Huntington Beach