{"id":328659,"date":"2026-05-23T00:39:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T00:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/328659\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T00:39:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T00:39:12","slug":"orange-countys-biggest-headlines-as-primary-election-draws-near","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/328659\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange County\u2019s Biggest Headlines as Primary Election Draws Near"},"content":{"rendered":"

Campaign spending by outside groups is heating up in a handful of critical Orange County races ahead of the June 2 primary election<\/a>, with millions of dollars of special interest spending in two different Assembly races \u2013 both of which are guaranteed to send a new representative to Sacramento.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also one guaranteed new OC Supervisor<\/a> this election season as incumbent Doug Chaffee terms out while several candidates eye the North OC seat on the OC Board of Supervisors while OC Supervisor Katrina Foley runs for reelection against Assemblywoman Diane Dixon in South OC.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The race for OC Treasurer-Tax Collector is also heating up as incumbent Shari Friedenrich runs for reelection against Dana Schultz \u2013 both of whom participated in a Q&A from Voice of OC<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Supervisors Janet Nguyen and Don Wagner are raising questions over just who runs the county government after they took issue with a news release from Foley, announcing the pause in herbicide use countywide \u2013 a move they said should\u2019ve been discussed by the OC Board of Supervisors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It all comes against the backdrop of OC becoming a purple county<\/a>, with Democrats taking a slight edge in voter registration over Republicans in recent years while nonpartisan voters remain a wild card.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the first time in years, Orange County\u2019s homeless population reportedly shrank<\/a> according to the recent federally mandated headcount of the houseless population \u2013 yet local officials still aren\u2019t sure exactly how it happened.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Santa Ana\u2019s moving forward with a proposed ordinance barring police officers from moonlighting as ICE agents<\/a> or other federal immigration officials.\u00a0
Huntington Beach is on the hook for $50,000 a month<\/a> until city council members adopt a state-approved housing plan \u2013 the result of a yearslong legal battle against Sacramento over California\u2019s housing mandates.<\/p>\n

\"\"A B-29 Superfortress flies down the coast at the 2025 Pacific Air Show. Credit: ERIKA TAYLOR, Voice of OC<\/p>\n

Current and former Huntington Beach elected officials are also being fined by state regulators<\/a> for allegedly not disclosing tickets they received to the Pacific Airshow \u2013 an event that was given what many critics call a lopsided deal to settle a lawsuit when the airshow was shut down early from the 2021 oil spill.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Surf City council members also halted the bidding process for a controversial public relations and rebranding contract<\/a> \u2013 a proposal that drew concerns that one potential contractor was being improperly favored.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Westminster officials banned the recreational sale of whippets<\/a> in an ongoing trend of cities cracking down on people using nitrous oxide to get high, while still allowing the gas to be used for culinary and medical purposes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite bleak budget projections, Orange\u2019s Hart Park Pool reopened year round<\/a> after city officials used an outside contractor and cut down projected costs in half.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Campaign spending by outside groups is heating up in a handful of critical Orange County races ahead of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-328659","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\/328659","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=328659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}