Mailbag: Is transparency a flight of fancy in Huntington Beach?

Only in Huntington Beach can government transparency be controversial. Transparency is what protects us from grift, cronyism and corruption. Transparency builds trust and keeps our democracy safe and honest. Rules and procedures must be open to scrutiny and comprehensible; a transparent government makes it clear what is being done, how and why actions take place, who is involved, and by what standards decisions are made. Then, it demonstrates that it has abided by those standards.

Much is hidden from residents in my city by our extreme council majority: the settlement agreement for the Pacific Air Show, their plan to restrict books and eliminate librarians in the public library and detailed city finances. Our extremists and the city attorney are blocking residents from participating in the democratic process by restricting information. A transparent city council develops mechanisms for citizens to hold the government accountable. Citizens want to know if a decision was taken through correct procedures. Lack of transparency breeds corruption. In Huntington Beach, transparency is found in windshields, water, goggles, and wine glasses but not in our city attorney and extremist-four council majority.

Nora Pedersen
Huntington Beach

O.C. can help keep control of the House

Although the Democratic Party has made large inroads in Orange County in the last decade turning it from red to purple and giving the majority of votes in 2016 and 2020 to Donald Trump’s opponent, it still must struggle to win elections.

What does that mean for local representation in Congress? First of all and most importantly, California congressional districts could determine control of the House. And in a presidential election I consider to be the most important in my lifetime, controlling the House of Representatives is going to be paramount.

Furthermore, one of the most important House races is in Orange County, pitting Dave Min against Scott Baugh in the 47th District consisting of Irvine, Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach and Seal Beach. Unfortunately, because of a bitter personal battle Min had to fight in the primary, his war chest is down. But his Republican contender has major vulnerabilities too, so the negatives could cancel each other out. Before the primary election, Min was a college professor at UCI and is currently a state Senator. He was endorsed by the L.A. Times and Katie Porter who would like to relinquish her seat in the 47th to Min. Baugh is a former state Assemblyman who ran unsuccessfully for Congress twice. The L.A. Times says Baugh is out of touch with the issues of the 47th, but nonetheless he ran a close race there against Porter two years ago.

The framers of the Constitution set up a federal system consisting of the state and central government, providing a division of power between the two.

They also provided a system of checks and balances among the three branches of the national government to keep any one branch from having too much power. They said nothing about political parties. In fact, Washington and the other founders warned against the factionalism they created.

In a perfect world, political parties could provide a workable division of power between the President and Congress. However, the fear that the founders had about political parties has been realized dramatically since 2016. Political dissension is threatening to destroy the ingenious form of government that our founders provided and our freedoms along with it.

Lynn Lorenz
Newport Beach

State bill a ploy to influence local education

As local school boards become the political battleground for the rights of parents, school choice and governance of local control of education, a troubling state Senate bill (SB 907) advances in Sacramento authored by state Sens. Dave Min and Josh Newman. This bill’s outcome is clearly intended to weaken the pro-charter and pro-parental rights majority of the Orange County Board of Education (OCBE). A story by Daily Pilot reporter Sara Cardine, (Is a bill to reconfigure the O.C. Board of Education and its elections about democracy or politics?, May 24) indicates that Sacramento politicians, led by Min and Newman, are craftily engaging in raw Machiavellian political power and politics. Many Orange County parents already view SB 907 as a ruse used against Orange County residents and voters, a raw political power grab in response to the recent election campaign victories by OCBE trustees that created a pro-parent and pro-school choice majority.

Newman and Min want to gerrymander local control of education by expanding OCBE’s composition and current trustee boundaries. This is a similar political tactic that many Washington lawmakers want to do to the U.S. Supreme Court. By stacking the OCBE with their candidates, California’s only governing political party effectively and simply destroys local control of education here in Orange County. SB 907 basically redistricts and expands the OCBE by an unelected and unaccountable county committee, that is controlled by anti-charter and union protagonists.

Newman boasts on his X account that his SB 907 is simply “modernizing” the Orange County Board of Education. If Newman and Min’s logic is true, then they should legislate and apply “modernizing” and expanding the current O.C. Board of Supervisors to seven members from five. The supervisors represent the same constituents as the OCBE. But do the voters really believe Newman and Min’s deception? No, they do not. Even Newman’s political challenger in the November state Senate race, Dr. Steven Choi, has criticized SB 907.

SB 907 is opposed by moderate-minded and centrists Democrats, independents, and the California Charter School Assn. Even the moderate leaning California School Boards Assn. objects to the bill. In the senate bill analysis of an argument in opposition, the CSBA stated SB 907 “sets a troubling precedent by singling out and manipulating just one county board of education for manipulation. By doing so, SB 907 tramples on the will of local voters by legislating the addition of two additional seats on the OCBE in an effort to dilute the current makeup of a locally elected governing board. This proposal enables the state to reach into communities to influence changes to a locally elected governing board, circumventing the longstanding normal process that requires a vote of the electorate to make a similar change.”

So it is on record by the CSBA that Newman and Min are trampling on the will of the voters and removing local control of education.

Dr. Ken Williams
OCBE member