Mailbag: Readers weigh in on local elections

The city of Huntington Beach has spoken. No more liberal loons on the City Council, kind of like the Trump victory. All the liberals can move to L.A. or Long Beach, where they have something in common — watching their city continue to crumble.

Peter Anderson
Huntington Beach

Many in the Surf City community already sickened by the political “red tide” which swept into our hometown in 2022 were even further impacted by the partisan “red wave” which washed through our local elections this month. The post mortems are already surfacing. It is clear that a majority of the voters treated common sense and qualifications based on expertise and experience not only with disregard but with disdain. The same grievance-filled and feckless voters who made unqualified and unprepared Tito Ortiz the number one election winner in 2020 made equally inexperienced Chad Williams the number one winner in 2024. It was a MAGA tribal triumph, which could tank our city for the rest of the decade.

Why would otherwise intelligent residents abdicate their civic duty to elect leaders with vision and the ability to solve our problems and address our community needs in favor of ideological idiocy and cultural negativity? Why would a majority of local voters support continued divisiveness and petty partisanship over community-building and unifying skills?

The answer is informational monotheism and how these voters’ views are shaped and reinforced by only one side of the equation. How they fail to comprehend let alone appreciate other points of view. How their only response is to deny, oppose or attack what they don’t understand.

There is only one way to deal with this messaging mononucleosis: diversity of viewpoints, news sources and understandings. We must not put all our eggs into one ideological basket. We must value real information and not “fake news.” We must value honest interpretations of issues and not biased and self-serving social media. Critics tell me that articles and letters in the Daily Pilot will not “save the world” for our county’s coastal communities. But they can play their part and act their role of informing and advising its readership. It need not be reading between the lines, but just reading. Only through offered diversity will we be able to cure our civic ills and improve our political climate.

Tim Geddes
Huntington Beach

I check the Orange County vote several times a day to see if local Democrats can pull a little dignity out of the voting results. They did acquire some important positions, which were totally dominated by Republican politicians up until the last decade. And surprise of all surprises, despite being behind in the first counts, Kamala Harris has pulled ahead of Donald Trump by approximately 18,000 votes, making it the second presidential election that a Democrat has won in O.C.!

O.C. Democrats have so far tied with Republicans in the House of Representatives as well as the State Assembly, but closer to home, conservatives won the Newport Beach City Council as well as holding a lead in Huntington Beach. The council bodies are not supposed to be partisan despite the outgoing Newport Beach mayor bragging about his 7-0 Republican council when then candidate for vice president, Minn. Gov. Tim Walz, recently visited the city. And while five of the six contestants in the Newport Beach City Council race were most likely Republican, the races for the three districts (two in particular) were particularly undignified. I got involved, although I swear every race I won’t, and my heart goes out to those who played by the rules. I think everyone with a conscience knows who I am speaking about. Something needs to be done about establishing rules of decorum because council races are not a pretty look for Newport Beach.

Of course, Huntington Beach has been experiencing constant pain from discord between the citizens and the council. I hoped this election would make the relationship better but from what I understand so far from the results, things are getting worse. It isn’t like we are getting a positive role model from the federal government, so until we can get some positive role models in Orange County civic government we are doomed to chaos.

I saved the best for last: I have been a constant fan of Dave Min for several years now. I like him not only for his position on issues, particularly guns, but because he is a man of action made all the more noticeable by his opponent who is definitely not. Min went through a hard patch and rose above it, stronger for the lesson he learned. He has been declared the winner of the 47th Congressional District race and will take a seat in the House.

I also am rooting for Derek Tran, who is trailing behind Michelle Steel, and hoping by a miracle he will pull ahead in the race.

Lynn Lorenz
Newport Beach