Two ballot initiatives related to the five libraries in Huntington Beach, determining whether a review board will decide what should be in children’s sections and if future councils could privatize operations, showed early success in initial results released Tuesday night following the close of polls on the special election.
Measure A, which had nearly 59% of voters support as of Tuesday night’s returns, pushes to get rid of a law the Huntington Beach City Council approved in 2023 that created rules for a proposed 21-member children’s book review board. While the board hasn’t been set up, it could relocate library books from the regular children’s section to a more restricted area that requires parental permission for children to check out those books.
Additionally, it could also block the purchase of new books if a majority of the members feel a title doesn’t meet “community standards.”
If Measure A wins, it eliminates the law creating the review board and instead declares the director of the city’s libraries as the person in charge of setting standards for what materials the library holds.
Supporters of Measure A argued to voters that the motive behind the law amounts to banning books and silencing ideas. If they are successful, they said, it will keep parents in charge of their family’s reading choices and not politicians.
Councilmembers said the law they created is to prevent children from being exposed to “library books and/or materials that may be considered lewd or pornographic.” A vote against Measure A, they told voters, would preserve community input on what children are exposed to in city libraries.
Councilmember Gracey Van Der Mark in June 2023 ignited the issue when she proposed making a law to screen out children’s books with sexually explicit material.
Measure B, which has more than 60% of voters support, stems from when the Huntington Beach City Council considered having the library managed by a private company. If Measure B is passed, it would create a law requiring the City Council and a majority of voters in an election to approve a change in library management.
Both initiatives are supported by a grassroots group known as Our Library Matters.
The group’s campaign manager, Spencer Hagaman, said on Tuesday that he and the group of about 120 volunteers, who knocked on 10,000 doors, sent mailers and worked a phone bank, were optimistic.
“This is about fundamental American rights,” he said. “It’s a battle over something that shouldn’t be a battle.”
“Regardless of tonight’s votes, I’ll call it a win,” he added. “I’ve never seen so many Huntington Beach residents motivated. I’m proud of the work we did.”
Carol Daus, one of Our Library Matters’ many volunteers and a longtime Huntington Beach Public Library volunteer, said she was ecstatic with the early results as they came in.
“You never know in a place like Huntington Beach, it’s a conservative city and they poured a lot of money into the campaign,” she said. “It was somehow complicated with the ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ We didn’t know how many we reached. I’m just grateful if it holds. Right now, it’s looking pretty good on both measures. I feel pretty confident.”
Opponents to Measure B say it would strip the council’s ability to make financial decisions in the city’s best interest.
Among those is Mayor Pat Burns, who has been on the council since 2022, and said he was spending his evening taking down campaign signs.
He was optimistic, he said, despite the extensive campaign launched by Our Library Matters, that the council’s decisions would stand.
“People definitely don’t like the books that were put in the library for kids unmonitored by the parents,” he said. “So, I try to be optimistic. But the pro-yes people have launched a campaign that has a lot of distortions of the truth. I’m optimistic people see through it and hopeful that we’ll prevail.”
Van Der Mark, disappointed with the early returns, said she and others on the “No on Measures A and B” team were “swimming upstream,” but still vow to remain committed to protecting the community’s children.
“This won’t change that we will continue to expose what is going on in our public libraries and protect our children from it,” she said. “What we were trying to do with these measures is to bring in the community and involve them in the process.”
The OC Registrar of Voters will post updates daily at 5 p.m. as the remaining mailed-in or dropped-off ballots are counted.
Staff Writer Michael Slaten contributed to this report.