The Brief

Jets are blazing across the sky in and around Huntington Beach on the first day of the Pacific Airshow that starts Friday and continues over this weekend.

In recent years, more than half a million visitors have come out to watch eye-and-ear popping aerial demonstrations from the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds and other renowned daredevils.

The event has also become a political lightning rod in the increasingly fractious beach city.

Why opinions are divided

Some say the airshow promoter got a suspiciously sweet deal in a recent legal settlement with the city. Others say Huntington Beach should support the airshow, and its hometown promoter, in any way it can.

At issue are questions of political quid pro quo, transparency and how cities determine whether and how much to support special events put on by private companies.

The backstory

Fans watch the 2021 Pacific Airshow in Huntington Beach.

(

Michael Heiman

/

Getty Images

)

Here’s a guide to what happened, why this matters for residents and what’s to come.

First the shorthand timeline:

• In October 2021, the city canceled the final day of the three-day airshow after oil began gushing from an underwater pipeline and moving toward the Huntington Beach shoreline. 

• A year later, in October 2022, airshow organizer Kevin Elliott sued the city, saying the previous year's cancellation amounted to a breach of contract. Elliott also supported the election of new city council members who promised to support the airshow. 

• Then, earlier this year, that new city council majority approved a minimum $5.4 million settlement with Elliott plus a potential additional $2 million if the city recoups money from the companies responsible for the oil spill. 

About Huntington Beach politics

The strong and distinct reactions to the deal from residents and officials in this city of 200,000 residents illustrate intensifying political divisions. While Huntington Beach is traditionally conservative, the electorate had been trending more purple in recent years. Then, in November, voters handed a solid victory to four ardently conservative candidates.

Huntington Beach Mayor Tony Strickland, a Republican former state legislator who ran Larry Elder's 2020 presidential campaign, said the settlement was good for the city.

"Anything that brings in $70 million to our local economy, that's worth it," Strickland said, referring to an economic impact report on the 2022 airshow.

On the other side, City Councilmember Dan Kalmick, one of three Democrats on the council, said Huntington Beach taxpayers got a "horrible deal." He and the other two Democrats on the council voted against the airshow settlement.

"The settlement, as publicized, goes well beyond any exposure the city had for cancellation of one day of an airshow, which it didn't even do," Kalmick said. He said multiple authorities — state, federal and local — agreed the airshow had to be canceled so that monitoring and clean-up crews could get to work.

Kevin Elliott, organizer of the Pacific Airshow and CEO of event company Code Four.

(

Courtesy of Kevin Elliott

/

LAist

)

What the airshow organizer says

Elliott, for his part, says he regrets that the airshow has gotten wrapped up in local politics. (We should note that after we published this story, it was announced that former President Donald Trump would do a flyover as part of Friday’s airshow lineup. Trump is on his way to the California Republican Party convention in Anaheim.)

Elliot told us that, at heart, he's a "plane brain" who's especially excited this year to watch the F-22 Raptor do "things that an airplane shouldn't do, including flying backwards and all kinds of really cool stuff."

"I just want to put on a great event and I want to go back to running my business and having a good time," he told LAist. "And staying out of the newspaper. That would be my goal."

The start of the problems: The oil spill

On Friday, Oct. 1, 2021 coastal authorities got a call reporting an oil sheen off the coast of Huntington Beach. Amplify Energy, ultimately responsible for the spill, later said it found out Saturday morning about the pipeline leak from one of its offshore oil platforms.

A worker with Patriot Environmental Services stands near bags of oil collected throughout Sunday morning near the mouth of the Santa Ana River and Talbert Marsh.

(

Jill Replogle

/

LAist

)

That same Saturday, the Pacific Airshow went on, as planned as local officials tried to understand the extent of the oil spill and whether and when it might reach shore. By afternoon, boaters watching the airshow from the ocean began reporting oil in the water.

City and state parks authorities closed the water at many of the area beaches to swimming and surfing.

That evening, then-Huntington Beach Mayor Kim Carr appeared at a news conference with the city's marine safety chief, Eric McCoy, and several other officials. Carr said a decision about whether to cancel the third and final day of the airshow would be made the following morning.

At the time, the leak was estimated to be around 126,000 gallons of oil, which McCoy said was considered a major spill by the U.S. Coast Guard. Later estimates revised that down to a much smaller amount, around 25,000 gallons.

On Sunday morning, Oct. 3, 2021, the city announced that the airshow was canceled "in order to facilitate clean-up coordination efforts, and given the potential health impacts from the ongoing situation."

Beaches were closed and remediation workers were dispatched to mop up the oil that had already washed up on the shore and into several sensitive wetland areas. The coast reeked of petroleum.

A sign keeps beachgoers off the sand.

(

Jill Replogle

/

LAist

)

Impact of the 2021 cancellation

The airshow cancellation was devastating for Elliott. "It was probably one of the worst days of my professional life," Elliott said. "What we had put together in 2021 was essentially the Super Bowl of air shows."

Plus, the previous year, 2020, the entire airshow had been canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Elliott, who also runs an event company called Code Four, said he lost "in the multi-millions" the day of the oil spill. "We put over $750,000 worth of catering in the trash," he said.

It was also upsetting for patrons, some of whom had spent hundreds or thousands of dollars on premium tickets for the last day of the show.

The airshow is free to watch from part of the city beach and nearby state beaches. But Elliott also sells tickets, for example, for seating on the Huntington Beach pier or for a private cabana on the beach. This year, prices range from $25 to more than $5,000 for a group.

Elliott said he eventually reimbursed everyone who had bought tickets "out of my own pocket."

The legal battle that followed

The following year, 2022, Elliott asked the city to give him a break on some of the fees and other expenses involved with putting on the airshow — as the city had in previous years. Specifically, the city had previously credited Elliott up to $110,000 in parking revenue generated over the airshow weekend toward his bill for permits, reserved parking, and extra public safety staff needed for the event.

Elliott's city bill for the 2022 airshow, according to a presentation at the time, was expected to be around $257,000.

This time, though, Elliott made a last-minute request that all of the city's parking revenue generated by the airshow be credited toward his bill, with no cap.

The city council at the time denied his request by a vote of 6 to 1 and decided to revoke the parking credit completely. City officials and staff at the time noted that Huntington Beach didn't grant this kind of credit to the organizers of any other big events in the city, including the U.S. Open of Surfing, which has drawn crowds similar in size to the airshow, although over a longer period of time.

Former Councilmember Mike Posey told LAist the parking "subsidy … was always supposed to be temporary" until Elliott could attract a corporate sponsor for the airshow. A smaller, previous iteration of the airshow, before Elliott took it over, was sponsored by Swiss watchmaker Breitling.

But Elliott saw the city's decision to revoke the parking subsidy as the latest in a series of efforts, starting with the 2021 post-oil spill cancellation, to shut the airshow down.

The following month, Elliott sued the city and then-Mayor Carr.

In his complaint, he alleged the 2021 cancellation amounted to a breach of contract and damaged the airshow's reputation. He also claimed that subsequent actions taken by Carr and the city, including removing the parking subsidy, were retaliation for Elliott raising concerns about the cancellation.

Elliott told LAist he felt slighted after investing heavily in the airshow to try and make it profitable and to bring tourism benefits to the city.

"I wish that the city had come forth and said, 'Hey, you've been a great partner to the city, you're a local kid … we understand that you've been damaged by this and we want to try to do the right thing.' But instead they basically told me to pound sand and left me with no choice but to protect my interests."

Initially, the city tried to get the lawsuit dismissed, claiming it had no factual basis. But then it seemed to do an abrupt about-face, settling with Elliott for at least $5.4 million, to be paid out incrementally through January 2029. What changed?

How the air show became a hot-button campaign issue

A seat on the Huntington Beach city council is generally considered a non-partisan position — a candidate's political party is not listed on the ballot. But Huntington Beach had traditionally had a conservative-leaning council. That changed after the 2020 election, but not the way you might think.

Tito Ortiz, a mixed martial arts fighter and staunch conservative, won a seat on the council in 2020 and then resigned six months later. In his place, the council appointed left-leaning attorney Rhonda Bolton, giving Huntington Beach's city government a majority Democrat block.

They passed pro-housing measures and voted to fly the Pride flag outside city hall every June — with the support of the council's moderate Republicans. A backlash ensued.

A group of residents attempted to recall six of the seven council members in 2021. But the effort failed to make it to the ballot. They set their sights on the 2022 general election.

The Lincoln Club and several other conservative political action committees coalesced around a slate of four conservative council candidates — Strickland, Casey McKeon, Pat Burns and Gracey Van Der Mark — dubbed by supporters the "Fab 4," plus city attorney Michael Gates, who was running for re-election. (Huntington Beach is one of the few cities in California where voters elect their city attorney.)

They paid for mailers and signs saying the candidates would "save" Huntington Beach — and "save" the airshow.

On Oct. 27, 2022, the candidates held a "victory rally" at the Huntington Beach pier. Elliott's company, Code Four, provided the sound and some of the signage for the rally, he said.

Elliott said the work was "pretty simple" and cost him less than the $1,089 that the four city council candidates claimed as in-kind contributions in campaign finance disclosures.

Elliott did not donate money directly to any of the four council candidates or city attorney Gates. (His company Code Four did give money, the maximum $4,900 allowed, to the 2022 winning campaigns of state Republican state legislators Diane Dixon and Janet Nguyen.)

"Franky, I supported them as much as I could without creating any kind of a conflict of interest for them," Elliott said of the council candidates. "Because, you know, they campaigned on saving the air show and I've invested millions and millions of dollars in saving this air show for the city, so our interests were pretty aligned in that regard."

But looking back — post-election and post-airshow settlement — some political opponents and civic watchdogs see the rally and Elliott's work on it as part of a suspicious pattern.

"I have substantial questions about the relationship between the four newly elected council members, the city attorney and Elliott," said Kalmick, one of the liberal council members.

Kalmick also pointed to several photos from the 2022 airshow posted to Facebook showing Elliott and his wife posing on the beach with the "Fab 4" candidates. (Elliott said he regularly invites candidates, council members and many others to the show, "Democrats, Republicans, my mom's friends, you know, my friends that were my teachers in the first grade.")

All four council candidates and city attorney Gates won their election in November.

The settlement and concerns about quid pro quo

In March 2023, Gates, the city attorney, filed a request in Orange County Superior Court to have Elliott's airshow cancellation lawsuit dismissed. Gates and deputy city attorney Lauren Rose argued that the city was "legally permitted to cancel the Airshow due to unforeseen circumstances rendering performance impossible due to health and safety reasons."

They also said this about Elliott's claim that revoking the parking subsidy was retaliation: "it is speculative and unsubstantiated how this was in any way connected to [Elliott's] negative comments regarding the City's reaction to the unexpected and disastrous oil spill."

But less than two months later, Gates, Elliott, Strickland and two of the other conservative council members held a news conference announcing a settlement. "Ladies and gentlemen, we saved the airshow," Strickland said to applause.

"The previous city council was not business-friendly and not airshow-friendly," he went on. "The Fab 4 …saved the airshow by putting the hard work and leadership required to solve this conflict."

In dollars, what they put in is $4,999,999 of city funds spread out over seven years, with the first payment of $1,999,000 due before July 31.

The city also agreed to:

• Forfeit $194,945 in fees still owed by Elliott for the 2021 airshow.
• Refund him $149,200 from the 2022 airshow, when the city council declined to give him the parking subsidy. 
• Reinstate the parking subsidy, starting at a minimum, rather than maximum, of $110,000. Plus, waive parking fees for up to 600 spaces for airshow setup and takedown.
• Pay Elliott up to an additional $2 million of any money the city recovers from the oil companies responsible for the 2021 spill. 

Those are the details in the settlement summary released to the public. Gates has declined to make the full settlement public, raising questions about what else the city may have agreed to.

A legal push for more transparency

Gina Clayton-Tarvin, a local school board member and former city council candidate, has sued Gates under state public records law in an effort to get the full settlement released.

Gates told LAist earlier this year that he hasn't released the full settlement agreement because there's still pending litigation in the airshow saga and doing so could compromise the city's position in that litigation. "But if a judge were to order the release of [the settlement], I'm happy to release it," Gates said.

Both sides of the settlement say it was a tough negotiation and neither side got everything they wanted. "We get a lot more as a city than we're giving out," Strickland said. "It's not even a close call."

Earlier this year, a former Huntington Beach mayor and a former planning commissioner tried to intervene to halt the settlement agreement. Thus far, they haven't been successful, although Lee Fink, a lawyer working with them, has said they haven't given up.

At the same time, Elliott hasn't dropped his lawsuit against former Mayor Carr for her role in canceling the 2021 airshow. In his complaint, he said Carr "unilaterally" canceled the airshow because of her personal feelings towards Elliott, and in order to garner media attention to “further her own political career.”

Carr told LAist earlier this year that the claim was bogus. "He's created a completely fantastic tale of somehow I unilaterally canceled the air show," she said. "As the mayor of Huntington Beach, you do not have the authority to issue permits, consequently, you don't have the authority to cancel permits."

She said she didn't understand why the city would offer millions to settle what she called "an easily dismissible lawsuit." Then she corrected herself.

"Well, I do understand why the new council majority would settle. I mean, [Elliott] is their friend, their ally," Carr said. "To me, it smacks of corruption, definitely feels like a pay to play."

What about the oil company responsible for the spill that caused the 2021 airshow to be canceled? Amplify Energy recently settled a $45 million class action lawsuit with impacted businesses and property owners.

Elliott's company was not part of that settlement, but he said he's been "in very intensive pre-litigation settlement discussions" with the company.

The city of Huntington Beach also plans to pursue money from Amplify. How much could come back to city coffers after the Pacific Airshow gets its $2 million cut is unknown.

Fink, the lawyer, said his clients would likely be enjoying the airshow this weekend. "No one’s against the Airshow," he wrote in an email. "The Airshow will go on regardless of the litigation. But people are against a $7 Million giveaway to a political supporter under the guise of a settlement agreement in a frivolous case."

Michael Gates, a former deputy assistant attorney general, produced a letter Friday that he said confirmed he was not fired for cause, but rather resigned from the Civil Rights Division of the federal Department of Justice.

The Orange County Register last week reported that Gates had been fired for cause, citing an anonymous DOJ source who said Gates repeatedly referred to women colleagues by derogatory and demeaning names and had complained about the department employing a pregnant woman. The Register also published a government employment form, which was undated, that they said showed that Gates was fired for cause.

Gates told LAist the allegations were “100% fabrication.” Then on Friday, he shared a screenshot of a Nov. 21 letter from John Buchko, director of operational management at the DOJ, stating that the department “has accepted your voluntary resignation” and “will remove from your personnel record any previous reference to your termination.”

LAist reached out to Natalie Baldassarre, a DOJ spokesperson, to confirm the letter, sharing that screenshot. She responded by email: “No comment on personnel matters.”

Michael Gates provided this letter. A spokesperson for the department said they would not comment on personnel matters.

(

Courtesy Michael Gates

)

Back to Huntington Beach

Gates told LAist earlier this month that he was resigning from his job with the federal government because he missed Huntington Beach and his family. On Friday, the Huntington Beach City Council confirmed Gates has been hired back as chief assistant city attorney. He starts Monday.

Gates is both loved and loathed in politically contentious Huntington Beach. He has been an outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump and his policies and a continuous thorn in the side of Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is one of the most prominent critics of the president.

Gates was first elected city attorney in 2014 and has won re-election twice since then, with wide margins. Huntington Beach is among a minority of cities in California that elects rather than appoints a city attorney.

Gates' track record

As city attorney, Gates sued the state over housing mandates and the right to implement voter ID. He also marshalled the city into the center of culture war battles. While he was city attorney, his office sued California over the state’s sanctuary law, as well as a law prohibiting schools from requiring teachers to inform parents of a child’s request to change pronouns or otherwise “out” them as LGBTQ.

Many Huntington Beach residents support his work. But Gates has also faced heavy criticism and legal penalties, for some of his actions. In 2021, the city paid out $2.5 million total in a settlement with one former and one current employee who alleged age discrimination while working at the city under Gates. The city did not concede to any wrongdoing under the settlement.

And last year, Gates helped broker a controversial settlement over the pandemic-era cancelation of the city’s annual airshow, which will cost Huntington Beach taxpayers millions over the coming years.

What’s next?

Gates told LAist he’s looking forward to, once again, heading up the city’s litigation, including a scheduled trial against an effort to force Huntington Beach to adopt by-district elections. He said he plans to run again for city attorney in next year’s election.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican who rose to prominence as one of President Donald Trump's biggest defenders and recently became one of his biggest critics, is leaving Congress.

Greene's announcement late Friday that she would resign effective Jan. 5, 2026, is the latest escalation of months of clashes with the president over his second term agenda — including the release of the Epstein files.

"Standing up for American women who were raped at 14, trafficked and used by rich powerful men, should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the President of the United States, whom I fought for," Greene wrote in a lengthy statement shared online.

The third-term Congresswoman also said it would not be fair to her northwest Georgia district, one of the most conservative in the country, to have them "endure a hurtful and hateful primary against me by the president we all fought for," while noting that "Republicans will likely lose the midterms."

Greene is one of a record 40 House members and 10 senators who have indicated they do not plan to return to their seats after the 2026 election, joining a number of lawmakers who are retiring or running for a different office.
Copyright 2025 NPR

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman filed a motion Friday in Superior Court to dismiss manslaughter charges against two Torrance police officers who fatally shot a Black man in possession of an air rifle in 2018.

Hochman argued in court documents that prosecutors can’t meet the legal standard of proof needed for the officers to be convicted of a crime.

The court has not yet ruled on the matter.

The details

Officers Matthew Concannon and Anthony Chavez were indicted in 2023 in connection with the killing of Christopher Deandre Mitchell, 23, who was suspected of stealing a car.

As the officers approached the car, they saw what was later revealed to be an air rifle between Mitchell’s legs. When Mitchell appeared to reach for the rifle,the officers opened fire, according to police.

The backstory

Former District Attorney Jackie Lacey declined to file charges against the officers in 2019, saying they reasonably believed Mitchell had a gun. Her successor George Gascón, elected in 2020 on a platform of police accountability, assigned a special prosecutor to review the case. The special prosecutor sought the criminal indictment.

When Hochman took office in 2024, he appointed a new special prosecutor, who recommended the charges be dropped.

“We cannot move forward in good faith with prosecuting these two officers because we cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt with admissible evidence that the officers unreasonably believed they were in imminent danger when they saw what looked like a sawed-off shotgun or rifle between Mr. Mitchell’s legs and his hands moved toward the weapon just before the officers shot,” the statement read.

The courts

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Sam Ohta did not immediately make a ruling Friday on the motion to dismiss the charges, saying the state Supreme Court is also considering the case.

The state Supreme Court is considering an appeal filed by one of the officer’s attorneys after Ohta rejected an earlier motion to dismiss by the defense.

As the Palisades Fire was still burning in January, residents saw an eye-grabbing headline: the Santa Ynez reservoir, perched directly above the Palisades, was offline for repairs and empty.

The reservoir’s closure frustrated residents and spurred Gov. Gavin Newsom to announce a state investigation into whether the reservoir being full of water would have made a difference fighting the deadly fire.

After months of analysis, California agencies including the state’s EPA, Cal Fire and the Department of Water Resources issued a report confirming the explanations given by local officials and experts in the aftermath of the fire: the water supply was too slow, not too low — and even a functioning reservoir likely wouldn’t have done much in the face of an unprecedented natural disaster.

Why the hydrants stopped working

The report found that not even a full reservoir positioned uphill from the Palisades Fire could have maintained water pressure and stopped the devastation.

“The water system lost pressure, not due to a lack of water supply in the system, but because of an insufficient flow rate,” the report states.

A reservoir perched at a high elevation, such as the Santa Ynez, can serve an important role in maintaining water pressure for hydrants throughout the system. As water gets used downhill, water from the reservoir flows to towers that maintain water pressure. Because of gravity and physical limitations on flow rates, the pressure towers can't be refilled at the same pace as they are drained and eventually dry up.

In the case of the Palisades Fire, the report states, a full reservoir would have helped keep water pressure up for only a short time.

The report noted that some data points on the demand on the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s system were missing.

However, investigators found that based on experiences with other fires, the high demand across the system meant it was “unlikely that [the reservoir] could have helped maintain pressure for very long.”

The system’s design

The report found that the closure of the Santa Ynez Reservoir was in line with the primary purpose of L.A.’s water infrastructure: maintaining a clean drinking water supply. The reservoir repairs were prompted by a damaged cover. The repairs, the report notes, were required by federal and state laws on drinking water safety.

More broadly, municipal water systems like L.A.’s weren’t built to fight wildfires, as LAist reported in January.

“This report confirms what we and others have been saying more broadly regarding water system expectations and capabilities, but does so completely independently and with new details specific to the L.A. fires,” Greg Pierce, the director of UCLA’s Human Right to Water Solutions Lab, said in an email to LAist.

What’s next

The report makes two major recommendations: continue to follow the California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan, and make sure firefighters in the state are positioned for year-round fires.

The state stopped short of recommending any changes to L.A.’s municipal infrastructure. Water experts like Pierce say massive amounts of water and a very expensive redesign of L.A.’s water system would be needed to keep fire hydrants working during large urban conflagrations.

For their part, researchers and others have been looking into other solutions, including putting more utility lines underground and redistributing water across the system.

The report about the reservoir comes on the heels of a separate report from the Fire Safety Research Institute about the timeline leading up to and during the January firestorm. That report, which was commissioned by the California governor's office, contains a detailed account of the Palisades and Eaton fires' progressions and emergency services' responses on Jan. 7 and 8.

As for the Santa Ynez Reservoir, the repairs to fix its broken cover and make it usable again are slated to begin in June and finish by May 2027.