Hands Off Protest on Saturday, April 5, 2025 at the Huntington Beach Pier. 📸: DevoRoberts

Former NFL punter Chris Kluwe at the Huntington Beach City Council Meeting on Tuesday, February 18, 2025. Video by Devin Roberts.

Couldn’t reply with a picture in the other thread.

Will be voted on tomorrow, but let’s be real; they will vote this in. Looks to be privately funded with three council members choosing the location, artist and artwork design.

From last night’s council meeting.

It will be voted on at the community and library services meeting next Tuesday 2/11 at 6PM

https://huntingtonbeach.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=7133060&GUID=AE25D3D4-AB82-4581-AADC-09B2D73D3B7A&Options&Search

HB in NYTimes https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/24/us/huntington-beach-maga-plaque.html

Huntington Beach suffered another courtroom loss in its culture war battles this week when a judge ordered the city to pay $1 million in legal fees for restricting minors’ access to library books.

The backstory: The City Council passed a resolution in 2023 restricting minors from accessing books deemed to contain sexual content in the public libraries. Critics said the policy amounted to illegal censorship, and that it was actually an excuse to restrict books with LGBTQ characters and themes. In September 2025, Orange County Judge Lindsey Martinez found the policy violated California’s newly passed Freedom to Read Act. The city has appealed.

Huntington Beach ballot initiative: The city had also established a citizen review board with the power to censor children’s books at the library. Voters repealed that review board in a special city election in June 2025.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/3598589200277544

The Pacific Marine Mammal Center team works to determine the cause of death of a Humpback Whale beached near the Huntington Beach Pier on January 25, 2025.

📸: DevoRoberts

“Michael Gates, the former Huntington Beach city attorney who left to join the Trump administration in February, 🔥was fired 🔥from the U.S. Department of Justice “for cause,” personnel records obtained through a records request show.

Gates, who spent the last 10 months as a deputy assistant U.S. attorney general in the Civil Rights Division, announced on social media on Sunday, Nov. 9 that he had resigned his position in the Trump administration and was returning home to work for the city once more. He said he was “very conflicted” about leaving because the job was “the honor of a lifetime,” but the months felt like years as he missed his family and their events.

Gates, in a call Friday morning, maintained he resigned. (Oh really? He lies?)

Gates, in his initial announcement and subsequent interview Monday with a Register journalist, did not disclose that he was fired from his job. However, Gates was “terminated for cause” from the position, according to his SF-52 form, an employment document utilized by the federal government. The form said the action was authorized by Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general who oversees the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Gates was accused of creating a hostile work environment for multiple women in the office with whom he worked, according to a Justice Department source who was not among those who complained about Gates. He allegedly had a “consistent pattern” of referring to female colleagues by derogatory and demeaning names, the source said, and complained about the employment of a woman who was pregnant. On Friday morning, Gates maintained that he resigned.

Wowowow!!!! Harassing women, eh?

“They were angry I resigned, and I know this because it was well known throughout the office for months that anybody resigning would make them look bad,” Gates said. “When other people resigned, they were so mad. I’ve seen it with my own eyes because they thought it would make them look bad.” A spokesperson for the department declined to comment, as is policy, because it is a personnel matter.

Gates’ resignation announcement caught many people in Huntington Beach by surprise, especially considering the enthusiasm he showed when he took the role in February. On social media, fans welcomed Gates home, while detractors moaned “Noooooooooo! Not him again!” Huntington Beach has emerged as Orange County’s bastion of MAGA Trumpism, doing battle with California on voter identificationand affordable housing mandates. Gates has been a crusader and said he was looking forward to re-entering the fight. “The particular, and frankly, unique, battles Huntington Beach has been engaged in against the state, and how meaningful those can be, how high-impact those can be, I really did miss those,” he said in an interview on Monday. Gates was elected as Huntington Beach’s city attorney in 2014 and won reelection twice more. He said he’ll run for his old post again next year, but meantime, he said he has accepted the city’s offer to be “chief assistant city attorney” starting Nov. 24.

The city already has a city attorney, Mike Vigliotta, who was appointed to serve the remainder of Gates’ term after he joined the Justice Department. A spokesperson for the city has not responded to questions about the terms of Gates’ new employment with Huntington Beach or if Vigliotta plans to run for the office in 2026. Gates announced in February that he was leaving his post as Huntington Beach’s city attorney to join the Justice Department.”

For real though, email creepy Chad and let him know exactly what you think about the "PORN" being plastered all over the city, and especially near elementary schools. And speaking of elementary schools, someone really needs to check Chad's personal computer and internet search history.