The Brief

In a special election on June 10, Huntington Beach voters will decide on two ballot measures:

• Whether to overturn a committee of City Council appointees charged with reviewing children’s books and determining whether they’re appropriate.
• Whether to make it more difficult for the city government to sell or outsource management of the city’s public libraries. 

Official titles on the ballot: 

Measure A: Community Parent Review Board

• A "yes" vote on Measure A means: The ordinance establishing the community review board will be repealed. It will be replaced with minimum standards for librarians to select materials for the library that present a range of diverse viewpoints.
• A "no" vote on Measure A means: The community review board will not be repealed.

Measure B: Public Operation of Library

What your vote means

• A "yes" vote on Measure B means: The city would only be able to sell one of its public libraries or outsource library services if the city declares a fiscal emergency or voters approve the sale or outsourcing in a special or general election.

• A "no" vote on Measure B means: The city can consider selling a public library or outsourcing services.

Understanding the issues

The beach city’s libraries have been a point of controversy since 'MAGA' conservatives won a majority of elected seats on the City Council. One of them, Councilmember Gracey Van Der Mark, has made it a major focus of her political career to try to get books removed from school and city libraries that she believes have inappropriate sexual content.

"What we're trying to do is take our library back to the days where our kids were able to go to the children's section and run around and open books and look at the pictures and read and have it be safe the way it used to be," she told LAist last year.

Elsewhere in Southern California and across the nation, children’s and young adult books — especially those with LGBTQ characters and themes, and books about sex and sexual health — have become a flashpoint in the so-called culture wars. The Supreme Court is currently reviewing a case filed by parents in Montgomery County, Maryland, who want to exempt their children from public school instruction that includes reading books with LGBTQ themes because of religious beliefs.

The backstory 

In 2023, Van Der Mark spearheaded an ordinance, backed by her fellow conservative council members, to establish a board of local parents and guardians to review books for children and teens proposed for library acquisition and vote on whether the books are appropriate. The board can also review books already in the library and decide whether minors need parental permission to check them out.

The City Council also ordered librarians to remove books with “sexual content” from the children’s section of the library. Initially, the librarians were instructed to remove any books showing body parts that typically would be under a bathing suit. That led librarians to move books about the human body, development, and puberty to a high shelf in the adult section of the library. You can see the most recent list of removed books here.

The backlash was swift, with opponents accusing city leaders of censorship. They mounted a petition drive to get the board repealed, which is now Measure A.

Gov. Gavin Newsom also signed a bill last year, the “Freedom to Read Act,” aimed squarely at prohibiting the kind of book restrictions Huntington Beach has enacted for its libraries.

What the review board ordinance says

The library review board, which hasn't been officially established yet, would vote on whether a book meets “community standards for material acceptable for children's access, including books that may contain sexual content or sexual references.”

“Community standards” is defined as the review board’s determination of whether or not a book is appropriate. Examples given of “sexual content” include “sex, sexual organs, sex acts, relationships of sexual nature, or sexual relations in any form.”

The board can also review children’s books currently in the library and decide whether to move them to the adult section and require a parent’s consent to check them out.

Each council member would appoint two members to the board, and the board’s decisions would be final and unappealable.

Review board faces lawsuit

Two Huntington Beach teens, backed by the ACLU and the First Amendment Coalition, sued the city earlier this year over the book review board and its new policy of restricting minors from accessing library books with sexual content.

A city spokesperson told LAist that because of the pending lawsuit, the review board has yet to be established.

Controversy over 'PORN' signs

Some of the many campaign signs seen in Huntington Beach as the city prepares to vote June 10 on two controversial library measures.

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Jill Replogle

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LAist

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Last month, in the run up to the June special election, supporters of the book review board posted campaign signs around Huntington Beach reading “Protect our kids from porn” in big block letters. The complaints began immediately, to schools, city leaders, and in online forums, including this comment on a local Facebook page directed at City Councilmember Chad Williams: “Chad Williams got a whole city full of kids googling ‘What is Porn’ on their smart phones, exposing them to more images online than any books in the library ever will.”

Williams defended the campaign tactic. “The bottom line is there’s pornography that’s available to minors in our public library,” he told LAist at the time. “I’m not going to dance around the subject, it needs to be addressed.”

According to Cornell Law School’s online dictionary of legal terms, the definition of pornography is “material that depicts nudity or sexual acts for the purpose of sexual stimulation.” It is illegal in the U.S. to distribute pornography to minors.

At a recent City Council meeting, supporters of the book review board read graphic passages from books they said were in the Huntington Beach library.

What supporters of Measure A say

Supporters say the book review board Measure A would repeal replaces experienced librarians with untrained political appointees with the power to decide which books kids can access in the city’s library.

They say there’s already a mechanism in place for adults to submit a complaint about a book in the library, which kickstarts a review and potential relocation or removal of the book.

What opponents of Measure A say

Opponents of Measure A, who want to keep the book review board, say the board gives the community greater decision-making power over which books are appropriate for Huntington Beach children.

They say the review board provides a safeguard to make sure children don’t have access to obscene or sexually explicit content in the library without parental consent.

Understanding the second measure on the ballot —Measure B

Around the same time the City Council passed the book review board, they voted to explore the possibility of turning over management of the city’s libraries to a private company.

The idea was immediately controversial, and the sole company that submitted a bid pulled out at the last minute. The City Council has not publicly explored the idea of privatization or outsourcing since then.

But advocates for Measure A decided to mount a second petition drive to put strict limits on the city’s ability to ever sell or privatize the library or otherwise outsource library services. That became Measure B.

What supporters of Measure B say

Supporters of Measure B say the measure will ensure that residents have the final say on any decision to privatize the public library system. And they argue that the measure allows the city enough flexibility to make tough decisions about the budget.

What opponents of Measure B say

Opponents of Measure B argue that the measure would take away the city’s ability to make budget decisions regarding the library, thereby potentially jeopardizing the city’s overall fiscal health.

Further reading

There's a lot of information about the two ballot measures on the city’s website, including:

• Full text of Measure A
• Full text of Measure B
• Official arguments for and against Measure A
• Official arguments for and against Measure B
• Campaign finance information (who spent how much to sway your vote)

Need to know how and where to vote? The Orange County Registrar of Voters has information on the time and place of vote centers and secure ballot drop boxes, and how to mail in your ballot.

You can also track your ballot and make sure it gets counted by signing up for alerts on the registrar’s website.

Gov. Gavin Newsom took his spat with President Donald Trump to the world stage Thursday, when he criticized the administration and corporate leaders he accused of “selling out” to the White House at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Newsom traded broadsides with U.S. officials throughout his three-day swing through the global confab in the Swiss Alps.

For Newsom, who is widely expected to mount his own campaign for the presidency in 2028, the event provided a new audience for his signature brand of Trump-bashing.

“We’re deeply in their head,” Newsom told news site Semafor’s co-founder Ben Smith in an on-stage conversation Thursday. “I think the affordability agenda appears to be — I’m living rent-free in the Trump administration’s head.”

The Davos drama between the White House and governor’s office escalated Wednesday after Newsom accused the Trump administration of working to block a speaking engagement the governor had planned on the sidelines of the conference.

“They made sure it was canceled,” Newsom said. “And that’s what is happening in the United States of America — freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech — it’s America in reverse.”

The Trump administration did not respond directly to questions about Newsom’s claim and referred to the governor using a misspelling of his name frequently used by Trump.

“No one in Davos knows who third-rate governor Newscum is or why he is frolicking around Switzerland instead of fixing the many problems he created in California,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said.

The governor was in the room with business titans and world leaders Wednesday when Trump delivered a speech in which he called Newsom “a good guy” and appeared to offer to send National Guard troops to fight crime in California.

As Trump took credit for declining crime and criticized cities with sanctuary immigration laws, cameras panned to Newsom, who laughed and shook his head.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent responded Wednesday, accusing Newsom of “hobnobbing with the global elite while his California citizens are still homeless,” and deriding the governor as “too smug, too self-absorbed and too economically illiterate to know anything.”

Bessent spoke at USA House, a privately funded venue holding events with American officials and executives, which was scheduled to host a “fireside chat” later that day between Newsom and media outlet Fortune.

The governor’s office accused the Trump administration of pressuring the venue’s organizers to cancel the event.

“I was going to speak last night … a simple conversation, discussion after Trump’s speech,” Newsom said. “They made sure that I didn’t.”

In his conversation with Smith, Newsom discussed his transformation to becoming one of America’s leading Trump critics — a strategy of “fighting fire with fire” with memes and online jabbing that has won admiration from Democrats across the country.

Though Newsom has attended the World Economic Forum previously, he credited his pugilistic approach for capturing attention in a fractured media environment.

“I was doing my 10-point plans before, and I don’t think any of you would have been here this morning had I done that,” Newsom said.

Asked whether California — where a majority of residents still believe the state is heading in the wrong direction — can be held up as a model of effective governance, Newsom responded that he is “proud of my state.”

“We have more Fortune 500 companies than any state in America, more scientists, more engineers, more Nobel laureates in my state than any state in America,” he said.

While Newsom criticized the business executives he said have failed to stand up to Trump, he also continued his public campaign against a proposed tax on billionaires that could appear on California’s November ballot.

The proposal, a one-time 5% tax on assets excluding real estate, was proposed by a health care union to raise money for safety-net programs in the wake of federal cuts.

While proponents of the measure are still collecting signatures to place the idea on the ballot, Newsom said high-income earners are already leaving the state in response. And he argued that the initiative’s focus on health care programs would leave less money for California schools.

“It’s a badly drafted initiative … that literally takes teachers and takes our educational system out of any consideration of support,” Newsom said.

The Trump administration has abandoned the legal defense of its campaign to strip federal funding from schools and colleges that promote diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

The administration formally dropped its appeal Wednesday in a filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, leaving in place an August ruling from U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher in Maryland.

A coalition of groups, including the American Federation of Teachers, challenged a “Dear Colleague” letter sent by the U.S. Department of Education in February, which targeted practices the administration said “toxically indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon ‘systemic and structural racism.’”

Gallagher said the federal government ran afoul of procedural requirements and violated the First Amendment with its letter, online portal to report discrimination, and other federal guidance.

“The government did not merely remind educators that discrimination is illegal,” Gallagher wrote in her August order, “it initiated a sea change in how the Department of Education regulates educational practices and classroom conduct, causing millions of educators to reasonably fear that their lawful, and even beneficial, speech might cause them or their schools to be punished.”

The latest legal development is “a victory for California students and families,” said Christopher Nellum, executive director of EdTrust-West, a nonprofit advocacy group that aims to dismantle racial and economic barriers in California’s education systems.

“The evidence is clear: diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies expand access and help close opportunity gaps,” Nellum said in a statement to EdSource. “Federal funding threats aimed at dismantling these efforts undermine public education and harm the students who need support most.”

Educators and advocates said that over the last year, the Trump administration’s campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives had a major effect on the landscape of both TK-12 schools and higher education, even in California.

“The damage has already been done across the nation and even in California, where people think we’re impervious to the conservative backlash or right-wing movement,” said Royel Johnson, who leads the Race and Equity Center’s National Assessment of Collegiate Campus Climates at USC.

Back in February, Johnson and other advocates for DEI policies said the federal government’s guidance was not law and warned institutions from overreacting to the February 2025 “Dear Colleague” letter. Johnson has seen schools cut funding or staff to departments and programs focused on underserved groups. Some institutions have also scrubbed references to race, ethnicity, the LGBTQ community, diversity or equity in favor of something more general like community, Johnson noted, including his own employer, USC.

Some educational institutions in California made subtle changes over the last year. EdSource found that California State University institutions scrubbed some diversity buzzwords from their programs and websites. At Stanislaus State, for instance, “diversity” was dropped from events once called the Presidential Diversity Celebration Series. At CSU Monterey Bay, the Office of Inclusive Excellence became the Office of Community and Belonging.

Johnson says something is lost when schools drop “identity safety clues” from spaces and organizations that serve as a beacon to students who “have a tough time seeing themselves on campus.”

Some institutions were undeterred by federal and political pressure. Johnson points to Sacramento State as an institution that “doubled down” on its commitment to Black students and was among three colleges designated a California Black-Serving Institution. The Los Angeles Unified School District put more money into its Black Student Achievement Plan, despite being sued by a conservative group that called the program discriminatory.

The latest development is a legal victory that establishes support for the values of equity and inclusion, said John Rogers, a professor at UCLA’s School of Education and Information Studies. But he says the Trump administration’s tactics were successful in disrupting education over the last year.

“One of my concerns is that the strategy of the Trump administration is to disrupt and instigate a sense of conflict within local communities,” Rogers said.

He points to other actions taken by the Trump administration that have also been disruptive, such as canceling protections for schools against immigration enforcement or targeting policies that are aimed at supporting LGBTQ students, especially transgender students.

Johnson said that he hopes that schools and colleges can capitalize on this legal victory and stop self-censoring work under the banner of DEI that supports students and addresses the harms of the past. But he warns there will be more fights ahead.

“I hope folks can feel more emboldened today,” said Johnson. “It doesn’t mean more isn’t coming.”

Along busy streets in Long Beach’s Washington neighborhood, longtime resident Jesus Esparza says locals will consider just about anything to keep themselves safe from speeding drivers.

The latest idea: leaving reflective vests on the worst street corners so pedestrians can don them while crossing and leave them for the next passerby.

It’s a grassroots tactic that illustrates their frustration with Long Beach’s increasingly deadly streets. In 2025, the city recorded 53 fatal traffic collisions, a sharp increase from 2024 and the most in more than 10 years.

Long Beach has been striving for years to make its roads safer. In 2016, the City Council said it hoped to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2026. It was their version of a Vision Zero plan that many municipalities have adopted.

But in the ensuing decade, Esparza, who leads the local neighborhood association, says he’s seen little progress. He’s regularly passed along residents’ requests for traffic-calming measures — things like adding more lighting or delaying green lights so pedestrians get a head start in a crosswalk. But, he said, he’s yet to see any effective measures installed.

“We would always ask for speed bumps or speed tables,” Esparza said in Spanish, “but they don’t put them [on our streets.]”

Despite a rise in deadly crashes, a spokesperson for Long Beach’s Public Works Department, which manages streets, said the city is still confident in its strategy.

Its “core principles” include protecting pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists by slowing down drivers, Public Works spokesperson Jocelin Padilla wrote in an email. Those plans “remain unchanged.”

She said speeding is a primary factor in the city’s most serious crashes. Bad driver behavior, such as impairment and distraction, is also to blame.

Their greatest toll has been on people outside of cars. Last year, 32 people were killed while walking, biking or riding an e-scooter. That eclipses the number of people murdered here last year: 29.

Other residents have also pressed for faster action.

On another dangerous section of roadway along Orange Avenue, resident Kelsey Wise said she’s seen countless near misses. In response, she spent hours putting together a PowerPoint presentation to convince the city to install speed humps on Orange Avenue between Seventh Street and Hellman Avenue.

Wise estimated that roughly half of the drivers on her street travel above the posted 25 mph speed limit — a habit she finds increasingly troubling when teenagers from the nearby school zip through her neighborhood on electric scooters and e-bikes.

Last month, Wise presented the information to Councilmember Mary Zendejas’ office, who told her they would refer the presentation to Public Works. She’s yet to hear anything back.

“I think the system right now is designed to respond once something catastrophic happens, not when residents are signaling that something catastrophic is likely to happen,” Wise said.

Public Works told the Long Beach Post that seemingly simple fixes like the speed bumps Esparza and Wise asked for aren’t feasible. Its engineers prefer other “traffic calming treatments.” Speed humps slow down emergency response vehicles and the department has received “objections to noise” caused by drivers hitting them, Padilla wrote in an email.

Padilla said they instead favor “bulb outs” that extend curbs into the street at a crosswalk and “diverters” — islands that separate bicyclists from regular traffic and prevent cars from turning into neighborhoods or where it’s unsafe.

Over the past few years, the city has “made meaningful investments” to redesign major corridors with those principles in mind, Padilla wrote. Last May, Long Beach celebrated the completion of a $44.2 million project that installed protected bike lanes, new crosswalks and other traffic safety features on Artesia Boulevard.

On Tuesday, the City Council voted to approve reducing speed limits on dozens of streets.

Kurt Canfield, an organizer with local street safety group Car-Lite LB, said he was skeptical that speed limit reductions would slow down drivers unless it ramps up enforcement. Cops have been writing fewer speeding tickets since the pandemic.

The city has pivoted to relying on automated enforcement. Officials plan to install speed cameras at 18 locations throughout the city, but they’re not scheduled to be installed until the summer. They’ll then start issuing warnings to drivers until fines begin in the fall.

Canfield said he hopes last year’s high death toll will be an outlier.

“I think people are wanting to get back out and bike and walk, but as more people start doing that, now we have what essentially amounts to more targets to be victimized,” Canfield said.

The high death toll, he said, doesn’t mean the city’s approach is wrong, Canfield said.

“It just means that we need to try more, we need to continue building safer streets and changing behaviors because it does work,” he said.

It was short lived, but the wintry spell that graced Southern California is leaving the area. We're in for dry, sunnier weather this weekend and warmer weather early next week.

Today's highs will again be mostly in the mid-60s along the coast, topping out around 67 degrees in the valleys and Inland Empire.

Coachella Valley will see highs from 67 to 72 degrees. Meanwhile, in the Antelope Valley, cooler conditions will continue with highs from 54 to 64 degrees.

This weekend will be fairly windy across SoCal starting Saturday evening. The National Weather Service forecasts winds from 15 to 25 mph across L.A. County mountains and hills. Come Sunday, winds will be strongest in Inland Empire and inland Orange County, where gusts could range from 30 to 40 mph.