{"id":299910,"date":"2026-05-04T23:42:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T23:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/299910\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T23:42:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T23:42:18","slug":"city-must-pay-almost-1-million-in-legal-costs-over-library-policy-orange-county-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/299910\/","title":{"rendered":"City must pay almost $1 million in legal costs over library policy \u2013 ORANGE COUNTY TRIBUNE"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courts & Law<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

HUNTINGTON BEACH Central Library (Flickr\/cclark395).<\/p>\n

By a staff writer<\/p>\n

The City of Huntington Beach has been ordered to pay nearly $1 million in attorney\u2019s bills after losing a legal battle over its efforts to restrict access to some books in its library system.<\/p>\n

In an Orange County Superior Court ruling on April 27 by Judge Lindsey E. Martinez, Surf City is now required to pay $959,853.73 in expenses to a variety of plaintiffs who sued the city over its 2023 decision to separate some books on puberty, sexuality and related issues from access to minors, claiming they were \u201cpornographic.\u201d<\/p>\n

That amount was reduced from an original cost of $1.5 million.<\/p>\n

The judge ruled that the action by the city violated state law. Opponents of the city\u2019s action claimed that despite legal setbacks, the city has yet to return the relocated books or the signs indicating which books have been moved.<\/p>\n

The ruling is the latest setback in the city\u2019s battles with the State of California. The city attorney\u2019s office \u2013 and in other cases such as voter ID and land use \u2013 has contended, without success, that Huntington Beach\u2019s status as a charter city allows it to defy some state laws.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Courts & Law HUNTINGTON BEACH Central Library (Flickr\/cclark395). By a staff writer The City of Huntington Beach has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-299910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}