{"id":52126,"date":"2025-11-14T00:38:27","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T00:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/52126\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T00:38:27","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T00:38:27","slug":"huntington-beach-state-of-the-city-address-airs-antipathy-toward-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/52126\/","title":{"rendered":"Huntington Beach State of the City address airs antipathy toward state"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Max Daffron, in his first week on the job as president and chief executive of the Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce<\/a>, was put to work right away as the emcee of Wednesday morning\u2019s State of the City breakfast at the Huntington Beach Senior Center.<\/p>\n

Daffron and the other breakfast attendees listened as city officials not only tackled business issues, but played hardball against state policies they consider to be at odds with the conservative Huntington Beach City Council, such as housing mandates<\/a> and voter identification<\/a> laws.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe state, I make no bones about it \u2014 I hate Sacramento,\u201d Huntington Beach Mayor Pat Burns said in his address. \u201cI think they\u2019re pieces of crap, I think their intent is definitely party before people. Their agenda is before service, and I think it\u2019s a dangerous existence in any level of government.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re really overreaching; we have little control over our zoning. I believe in local control.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Huntington <\/p>\n

Huntington Beach City Councilman Andrew Gruel and his wife, Lauren, were featured in a video presented at Wednesday\u2019s State of the City event.<\/p>\n

(Matt Szabo)<\/p>\n

That theme was highlighted throughout the 90-minute event. Orange County Supervisor Janet Nguyen, a Republican like Burns, thanked the all-MAGA Huntington Beach City Council for making her life \u201cless hectic.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a state senator last year, she said all her bills were killed \u201cbecause I represented Huntington Beach.\u201d<\/p>\n

The event included a presentation of a video in which members of the City Council highlighted various aspects of the city.<\/p>\n

Councilmember Andrew Gruel, a restaurateur, told the story of how it took him two years to open Calico Fish House in Sunset Beach. He said that experience led to the council\u2019s seeking to better streamline permitting services within the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to become the Silicon Valley of Southern California, the economic hub of Southern California,\u201d Gruel said in the video. \u201cEverybody\u2019s going to want to do business in Huntington Beach, because of these procedures and mechanisms that we\u2019ve put in place. It\u2019s a white-glove service. We\u2019re looking at bringing in some of the best business minds, having conventions and bringing them all together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fire Chief Eric McCoy highlighted that for the first time in seven years, there have been no ocean or pool drownings reported<\/a> in Surf City. Police Chief Eric Parra discussed how new drone usage<\/a> could cut down on crime.<\/p>\n

City Treasurer Jason Schmitt and City Clerk Lisa Lane Barnes, among others, also led presentations in the video.<\/p>\n

\"Huntington <\/p>\n

Huntington Beach Mayor Pat Burns, Mayor Pro Tem Casey McKeon and City Manager Travis Hopkins, from left, are featured in a video played at the State of the City event on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

(Matt Szabo)<\/p>\n

Burns said he was \u201cnot heartbroken\u201d about passing the mayor baton on to Casey McKeon next month, calling it a lot of work.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of our electeds are dialed in to serve the people the best we can, and we don\u2019t need Sacramento to sit there and come up with crap,\u201d he told event attendees. \u201cIn every session, they come up with more and more stuff to invade us on local control. I\u2019m telling you right now, it\u2019s costing us. \u2026 I really, truly believe that we\u2019re trying to do our best for all you guys in our business community and our residents.\u201d<\/p>\n

McKeon said an update on a newly created Business Development Task Force would be presented at Tuesday night\u2019s council meeting, as part of a strategic plan update.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve fulfilled our campaign promise of cutting the red tape and rolling out the red carpet for businesses,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Daffron, in his first week on the job as president and chief executive of the Huntington Beach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[387,1409,33120,2323,33122,1043,33119,33121,32531,121,123,122,4747,1009,225,5050,72],"class_list":["post-52126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-business","tag-city","tag-city-address","tag-council","tag-crap","tag-event","tag-huntington-beach-state","tag-max-daffron","tag-presentation","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news","tag-service","tag-southern-california","tag-state","tag-video","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52126","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=52126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}