The Stunning Conservative Flip at Huntington Beach

Conversations That Matter

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

Common sense approach to governing, putting Huntington Beach first for the people of Huntington Beach. It's not a tough math equation, but we worked hard and we ended up taking from a 6 -1 council, progressive, to a 4 -3 council in 22, and everything switched then.

00:24

♪♪ Welcome once again to the

00:40

Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris. We have a special guest today from across the country.

00:48

I am actually, for most of you, you know this, I'm sitting in the Hudson Valley region of New York, but I'm actually gonna talk to someone who's very close to where I was originally born.

00:57

I was born in Van Nuys, California. We're talking to someone from Huntington Beach, California, actually the mayor of Huntington Beach, California, Mayor Pat Burns, and he is going to share a story with us that I think you're gonna find encouraging.

01:08

I think that if you're someone interested in local politics, you don't wanna miss this episode. You've heard me talk a lot about localism, getting involved in your local communities, and it's in that vein and with that spirit that I want to introduce to you

01:22

Mayor Pat Burns. Thank you, Mayor Burns, for being with us and being willing to share what happened there in Huntington Beach.

01:29

Yeah, we were heading down the wrong direction, you know, going progressive and listening to all the mandates being sent down from Sacramento, the capital of California, and it started creeping personally into our lives.

01:46

We're trying to take over and then ruin our city with their mandates over building, over just really over mandating things in Huntington Beach from the state where we can govern ourselves.

01:59

And it started a movement when our council became 6 -1, which not, 6 -1 progressive, which is not representative of the people that live here.

02:09

Really, we're just pretty good down -home people that just wanna live our lives and keep our city the way it is, which is a good, good, stoked feeling that we wanna just live and peacefully and have a good time and really control our own lives.

02:26

And at that time, you could see the mandates with COVID and all that, Newsom shut down our beach for a day until our city attorney sued them and they opened them back right away.

02:37

And there was a lot of things like that going on. And then, well, the council turned 6 -1, we fought back, that was in 20, 2020.

02:49

And then in 2022, there was a group of us that got together, really formed a pack called, organically became the

02:58

Fab Four. And we put the work in, we all had similar interests as far as politics and putting

03:05

Huntington Beach in a conservative manner, keeping, putting Huntington Beach first in a conservative manner and keeping

03:12

Huntington Beach, Huntington Beach and fighting the state from their mandates. And like, cause they try to impose and mandate a bunch of housing on us, the

03:21

RENA, regional housing numbers. And it was crazy, the numbers they wanted us to add.

03:28

It was, it would have ruined our city. It would have changed Huntington Beach into a very urban rather than a suburban like city.

03:36

It would have been a very urban city and there's too much overbuilding already that they got through in those years.

03:42

And we're now, still fighting, we're in court with them. And I think when things sort out, that will prevail, hopefully,

03:52

I'm optimistic. Yeah, well, that's good to hear. I remember in 2020 seeing huge protests there right on the beach of people who were upset about the beaches being shut down and rightfully so.

04:06

And, you know, I mentioned originally I'm from California. I go back there all the time. So I've been to Huntington Beach and I thought of Huntington Beach as kind of your moderate,

04:16

I mean, people, people who are outside of California think that California is completely blue, progressive state.

04:25

And that's not true, obviously. There's some deep red areas. And Huntington Beach though, I thought, well, this is kind of your,

04:32

I don't know, standard suburban outside of LA fair. And, but then when

04:37

I saw, so the story came to me by someone who lived there. They sent me this whole thing. And the articles were all negative against you guys, right?

04:46

The articles were like, look at these horrible MAGA fascists who just took over the city.

04:51

The left control media. That's right, that's right. I mean, it's hard to find positive stories about this, which is one of the reasons we're doing this to get the truth out there.

05:01

But I love what you said, that putting Huntington Beach first, like just like America first, it's not just that, it's

05:07

California first, it's Huntington Beach first, and that's your home. You know, on a personal level,

05:14

I mean, what was it for you that got you motivated to go out there, get political? Well, I've always volunteered.

05:21

Like when my kids were in school, I was on their school board, finance committee and all that.

05:28

And then I volunteered with their soccer. Then I got into volunteering, like with the, or my,

05:34

I was a policeman in Long Beach for 30 years. So I got on the credit union supervisory board and then board of directors.

05:43

So I was always volunteering. And then opportunity came in to volunteer on a commission.

05:48

A board within the city, I got on that. And then I did that for eight years.

05:55

And then my buddy was on, he was on the council and he came to me and he said, hey,

06:03

I need somebody to take my place and I think you're it. And I told him, I'm no politician, find a politician.

06:11

You know, not ignorance, you know. And two years later, he came to me and said,

06:16

I haven't found anybody, let's go do your papers. Well, I'm not wanting to do things half level.

06:23

So when we did our papers, I was all in. I put in the time, we grouped,

06:28

I grouped up with three other like -minded individuals and we were kind of, we were very diverse in our backgrounds.

06:36

That's what is kind of cool about it. Very diverse. We had a very seasoned politician and a guy named

06:43

Tony Strickland, who has now left our council and he's at the state Senate. And then we had a

06:48

Gracie Vandermark, who was just a mama bear, just got into it, defending her kids' material in kids' schools.

06:56

And then a Casey McKeon, he's just a local kind of business guy. And then me, who was a retired cop and just, so very diverse, but yet we, common sense approach to governing, putting

07:07

Huntington Beach first for the people of Huntington Beach. It's not a tough math equation, but we worked hard and we ended up taking from a 6 -1 council, progressive, to a 4 -3 council in 22.

07:25

And everything switched then. And although Huntington Beach kind of is a moderate, you know, we kind of just want to live life.

07:33

We all stoked on life and just want to be peaceful and kind of control our own lives back then.

07:41

But I think since we got in, people have woken up even more that, hey, you know, if we want this life, we've got to kind of work to keep it too.

07:50

We can't just have it, we've got to work it. And we've got a lot of people supporting us throughout the community that very much is very supportive of a common sense,

08:02

Huntington Beach first, do what's, just, I always say, it's, for me, it's easy to do the right thing.

08:09

And I'll be the first to admit, I don't have any problem governing. I can make decisions, gather facts, look at the situation, look at the whole, all the things involved.

08:20

I can make decisions and govern. Politics, I'm not good at. I don't like politics one bit.

08:26

I think it's an evil, nasty game that I'd rather, I dread having to ever campaign again.

08:33

I don't want to really, I'm not in it for fortune or fame. I just want to, it's my hometown and that's how

08:39

I got in. I love my home for no reason. That's the right answer. I would just wish everyone was like that, right, in the political world.

08:46

But you might've mentioned it before, but now it's 7 -0, I understand, right? I think you said -

08:52

In 24, we followed that same model we took as far as getting the four of us in to turn that 6 -1 into a 4 -3 conservative.

09:02

Now we took that same model, those guys worked their tail off, the HB3, Butch Twining, Don Kennedy, and Chad Williams, and they all put their nose to the grindstone and had the same kind of attitude as up.

09:16

It's Huntington Beach first, common sense, and let people live. And so Huntington Beach first,

09:23

I can't say it any other way. And now it's 7 -0. And we still have, we have our differences of opinions.

09:31

It's not a totally smooth road, which is cool. I love differencing different opinions. I love cross -checking.

09:37

That's cool with me. But as long as it's kind of along with Huntington Beach first and not following every whim and want of Sacramento and Governor Newsom.

09:50

Right. Well, I think that's the thing that people are going to be the most curious about. So you took it from, I'm just gonna reiterate this again.

09:56

There was six progressives versus one conservative in 2020. And now there are seven conservatives.

10:05

That's incredible. That's insane. That's like a complete reversal from dominance of the progressives to dominance of the conservatives.

10:15

And I mean, you keep saying, well, we just did the same formula. We just did the same thing. Well, what was the thing? Like, what did you do that turned this around?

10:23

Because that's not a small turnaround. Well, our city council rotates election cycles every two years for one cycle, three the next, because there's seven members on council.

10:34

So one year, one even year, it's four. The next even year, it's three run.

10:42

So the first year we've got four of us. We're like -minded. We had the same direction and we got together.

10:50

We did a hundred plus meet and greets in the last six months of the campaign before voting.

10:56

We've worked our tails off, met out, met people. We've put out signs. We knocked on doors.

11:02

We really put the work in. And we got elected.

11:08

And it just blows me away that communities can't find people to run.

11:15

Because it's not that hard. It's not that demanding. It's your home. It's what you live for.

11:21

That's where you need to put the work in to secure. You mow your lawn. You trim your trees.

11:27

You got to put the work in where it really counts sometimes. And that's in governing. And it only takes one set of nefarious or very radicalized groups to completely screw your city up, your home, where it's irreversible.

11:44

Because they can do it in a heartbeat, make changes that affect your town forever.

11:51

And that's what's scary. That's one reason I got into it is like, I saw the fight and, well,

11:58

I don't mind fighting, so. Yeah, well, so it takes work. That's what I'm hearing you say. And that's what a lot of people might not want to put in or they feel intimidated.

12:05

But I think it's encouraging to know you can do this. It might take a sacrifice. But if you love your town, if you love your home, then you're gonna do it for the betterment of the people around you and especially your children.

12:19

So going from this progressive domination to now conservative domination in the city council, what kinds of things have you been able to accomplish as far as rolling back maybe some bad policies, but also instituting some good ones for your city?

12:35

One of my favorite, and it really kind of set the tone. We did this as a council pretty early on.

12:43

And I think it had great effect. And it really made some changes really across the country.

12:50

And just to put common sense into, no special interest, no special identity politics.

13:00

I don't like that. Governing is for everybody equally. If you're treating somebody special, you're demeaning somebody else.

13:08

You're taking away and you're not serving somebody else fairly. So everybody should be treated fairly.

13:14

And part of that was represented under that flag behind me, the red, white, and blue.

13:21

I love that thing. And I love it. And we passed a policy that just said, no government, nothing but government flags on government pull and property.

13:37

Displayed or anything, that's all, government flags only. And with the military branches and our city or county state, but government flags only.

13:49

Unless, and the only caveat is if there's a special occasion, there's a special dignitary or event, and all seven members, it has to be unanimous, all seven members of the council agree, we can fly one for a special event, different.

14:05

But no other flags. And that, believe it or not, something that simple, something that common sense,

14:14

I immediately started getting emails from other cities throughout United States and even some

14:20

Canada. And then our county did it, which our county isn't like staunch red.

14:29

So, but they did it. And then Florida did it. And the latest one who did it a couple months ago, just about verbatim to our policy is the feds.

14:40

Trump did it. It's a simple, government flags only. We're not flying something special.

14:45

We're not playing some game, treating somebody extra special and stuff like that. It's just, to me, it's a disservice to everybody in this country.

14:55

So yeah, that's, I mean, I'm assuming it's June right now as we're speaking. So in previous

15:01

June months, I'm assuming there are other flags flying on some of the buildings perhaps that were out of step with the people of Huntington Beach and maybe what they wanted presented.

15:14

So you have American flags everywhere now. So that's kind of cool. I mean, what - We always did. Yeah. We always did.

15:21

Yeah. We're good. I mean, that's how we've all grown up. We're a solid city, man. Yeah. What about some of the,

15:28

I mean, I know the COVID mandates, that was a state level thing. And there probably wasn't much. By the time you guys got in in 2022, that had all pretty much rectified itself,

15:37

I guess. One of our first meetings, one of the, I mean, I think our first full meeting, they tried to extend some of the

15:45

COVID conditions, like being able to video like we're doing kind of, but into council meetings, where either speakers can video in or even the council members can video in.

16:00

And we nixed that at our first meetings and show up or don't participate, you know?

16:06

And if you want to wear a mask, you go for it, but it's by your choice. We're not mandating it. And that's another thing we've done, is we're not going to make anybody get, anybody, any of our people that work for us or anything wear masks or get shots.

16:23

So that was how we did that early too. Yeah, well, that's good. So there were some things actually, then they were implementing

16:29

COVID era stuff. Where's there, you said the DEI type things, and I know the government on the state and then the national level, they obviously were involved in pushing a lot of that, but on the local level where you are,

16:45

I mean, what did you do to, other than the flag issue, were there other things that were sort of pushing back on the

16:51

DEI initiatives that you were - We got rid of the word equity. I think, you know, equity and all our, like some of our government forms and stuff like that.

17:04

To me, you work for that. You want, what's fair is what you work for.

17:09

If you're being treated unfairly, then those people, they ought to be, the situation ought to be corrected.

17:16

But you don't get special favor and just because you're something else, you know, you want, whether you're a liberal, conservative, gay, heterosexual, or anything like that, you just get treated fairly, straight across the board, no special favor.

17:36

Like I say, if you're giving special favor to someone, someone else is getting not treated fairly, equally.

17:45

Yeah. And we got rid of that equity term. That equity term was, yeah, we got rid of that,

17:51

I think on just about all our government forms. It's a poison pill. It is.

17:57

It's there for a reason and it's not a good reason. Yeah. So when you, you know, this is the thing that boggles my mind.

18:05

You go from this progressive monopoly to now a conservative monopoly. There must've been people that were angry, right?

18:13

There must've been protests or hate mail, something, but it sounds like things have been going pretty good or am

18:19

I reading that wrong? Yeah, there's still some upset people. I mean, they still voiced their opinion, which is cool with me.

18:27

Let yourself be heard. But I just don't like, what kills me, what gets me is the lying.

18:36

When they misrepresent things to just make a point, try to convince their constituents and things that we're doing something, but they know it's a lie what they're saying.

18:47

And we're not doing those things. We're not. But that's the only way they can convince their people to maybe come their way is lie about it.

18:55

And to me, it's disrespectful to their constituents. They're treating them like idiots that they can't handle the truth or they are not gonna win their argument with the truth.

19:05

And that's the part of the politics that I have a big, like I said, I was a policeman for 30 years.

19:11

I got lied to for 30 years. I mean, people lie to you all the time. And this in the politics aspect,

19:18

I'm like, man, how do they get together as a group, formulate lies to present to their constituents for a cause?

19:25

And I just, that baffles the hell out of me. I just, it really kind of, I'm not used to that.

19:32

Well, I think it's important to talk about this because I think so many people avoid even local politics because they don't wanna deal with the grief.

19:39

They don't want people saying nasty things about them. They certainly don't want to be lied about.

19:46

But I think people need some encouragement that like, hey, you can do this. Like we're used to seeing national news stories of like Supreme Court justices with whole mobs outside of their house.

19:59

And that's not the average, that's not happening to everyone, right? Like you're gonna get opposition, but is it worth it?

20:07

I mean, I know the answer, but like maybe talk about that a little. Like, is it worth it to go through some of the things you've gone through to take this position to help the people in your area?

20:19

Yeah, you know, I'm a little different than some, like, cause if somebody,

20:28

I've never been accosted on the street. I mean, I get stopped all the time and very people, very, very supportive of what we're doing.

20:37

They are so supportive in our community that it blows me away. And I mean, from all over the place, they are very pleased with what we're doing.

20:47

I've never been stopped on the street and accosted. Nobody's ever come to my house or anything like that.

20:54

Like once after a council meeting, we were adjourned, we're all leaving, a big group of the left and us, and they start attacking me.

21:07

Well, I don't need to be that person who's silent like I am on the dais.

21:14

If I'm not on that dais, you better be ready for an argument back. And I let them have it, you know, in no certain terms,

21:21

I wasn't very like polite about it either. Like I told them, hey,

21:26

I'm not on the dais. I don't need to take your stuff right now. So you better be careful what you say cause

21:31

I'm gonna give it right back full barrel. And cause people think that because you do this, that you're open game and that's not true.

21:41

And for the amount of, like you see on the news, like you said, the Supreme Court, for as many people who's gone through, been on the

21:49

Supreme Court or been in Congress, been in the Senate, state level, every, very few, very few judges, very few politicians, anybody gets like their home attacked and things.

22:06

At a local level, I haven't seen it too much.

22:11

You know, there has been cases, but it's worth still defending your town from being misrun and possibly ruined at a group of people that really aren't representative of the community.

22:27

I really urge people to get involved. How come that is so often the case that guys like yourself who are, have a stake in the local area, who are salt of the earth people, common sense, all of that, they don't tend to,

22:43

I mean, maybe I've given some reasons, but they don't tend to be as involved sometimes. Like it seems like you had a good situation with four of you who decided to support each other.

22:54

That was big. It wasn't just one person going alone, but there's so many communities and people

22:59

I talked to in those communities, they say they don't have three other friends that are like this. And then the people in those positions are just, they're terrible people.

23:08

They don't have virtue. They don't care about the local area. Those are the people that get into this. Why do you think that is?

23:15

You know, I don't know, but a lot of these people that get into it,

23:22

I understand them like, because they're kind of of that mindset of, they want power and absolute power is their goal.

23:33

You know, they want to be able to rule. They want to be the shot caller in their way, not the people's way.

23:40

And that's what bugs me too. Is they want to do it for themselves. They want to, it's self -service over community service.

23:47

And that is really the more of the left's thing, but why do more people, and they just want to live.

23:55

They want to, like I said before, they want to just live their life, go on vacation with their family. They don't want, like I'm putting, as a mayor,

24:02

I'm putting in over 40 hours a week. I was retired for 10 years. You know, I was living a good life.

24:08

I mean, I never wanted for anything. But yet I don't mind doing the work either, because like I say,

24:13

I know it's temporary. I'll go back to being just regular councilman next year. I won't have the demands, such the demands

24:20

I do have this year, but I don't mind doing it because it's an investment in my home. I love this place.

24:26

And - I love how you keep saying that. It's your home. It's, and people, I think overlook that quite a bit, that this is, it's just not what's, you know, behind your sidewalk or in your driveway.

24:41

It's your community. It's where you go to dinner. It's where your whole, all the people that you live around, you see at the stores.

24:47

I mean, that's part of the home and I'll protect it. I'll, you know,

24:53

I don't mind working for it. It's an investment. Yeah. Any encouragement you can give people about California?

24:59

I know the reputation is that it's just a, it's a blue stronghold. There's no going back to any kind of common sense, anything there.

25:07

But I mean, that's your home too, right? And I mean, and that's a lot of my family still lives in California.

25:12

And I think it's a beautiful state. It's a, I have a lot of pride, even in the fact that I'm from there originally, but it's just kind of sad to see what's happened.

25:21

And so, I mean, what can you say about just the state of California? If you look at a map, you know, red versus blue, very, most of California is red and even more than before.

25:34

I think it's becoming more red all the time. But we have lost, you know, we've lost, is it one or two

25:41

Congress positions because we've lost so much population. And it's anticipated next census that we're gonna lose four more because of population loss, because people are leaving.

25:54

But we're still, if you look at a map, you'll see the San Francisco, LA, San Diego, the real urbanized areas are red.

26:06

They're solid red. And that's where a lot of the people live.

26:12

And, you know, the majority in a sense, those urban areas, and that's what screws up California.

26:18

The rest of us, we're pretty, we're red. And like I say, unfortunately people want it.

26:28

And I don't blame them in some ways, but in this day and age, it's hard to put your head in the sand and ignore what's going on.

26:34

Oh, I just don't, I don't wanna get involved. I don't wanna be involved. I don't wanna know about politics. I don't watch the news or anything.

26:40

So they stick their head in the sand and just wanna live their life, you know. Well, in this day and age, you better be careful because you're gonna lose it.

26:47

I mean, as close as Huntington Beach was to being lost, it's pretty scary.

26:53

And it didn't take that, it wasn't that hard to find a group of people and take back the council so you can run it as the people want your city to be run.

27:04

It could be done and it's not that hard. You know, I'm not a fundraiser. I hate, oh man, the politics again.

27:11

That's the politics. Fundraising and, I mean, knocking on doors. Hi, I'm Pat, can you fill for me?

27:18

Yeah, that wasn't one of my favorite things, man. You had to just suck it up and just do it. And, but I was also amazed how many people were very welcoming.

27:27

I only had a couple of people slam doors in my face in hundreds, maybe thousands of doors. And most everybody was very interested in learning what in the heck has happened to our city?

27:39

What is going on? You know, they were starting to wake up that their home is being, their community was being threatened.

27:47

And that's what helped push us over. And it wasn't just a, it wasn't just a win.

27:54

We, our lowest number four, he had like 33 ,000 votes.

28:02

And the next one behind him had number five, which was a progressive, had 21 ,000.

28:10

So over 30, you know, 30 something percent he won by. It was a mandate.

28:15

And that was even worse this time that with the Huntington Beach three, they haven't won by,

28:23

I mean, well, no, they won like 3 ,000, 4 ,000 votes each. They won by quite a bit.

28:30

It was a clean mandate. And so the people spoke, you know, a lot of the left still doesn't respect that.

28:40

They think their voice should be the primary voice to listen to and no other voice, you know, because they are loud.

28:48

You mentioned to me off camera, you're a Christian. I was just wondering, a lot of the audience is listening, they're

28:55

Christians too, and that motivates them for their lives. I mean, did that play into your decision here to get involved and become the mayor?

29:04

That is this something before God that you see as a responsibility you have? And did that just factor in?

29:12

Well, you know, it made me more resolute and peaceful with my decision to get into it because we started going, talking at churches and meeting people at the churches.

29:24

And it really set the tone of how many people actually really, really were concerned and cared for their community.

29:32

And we're looking for somebody to, like looking for a group of people to help them secure their home as like a

29:41

Christian loving community, conservative community. And that makes it, made it very easy to just say, you know what,

29:51

I know I'm doing the right thing. I mean, I knew I was doing the right thing before. And like I say, I have no problem doing the right thing.

29:58

Even a hundred people come to our council, I mean, they're screaming how screwed up we are. But if I know we're doing the right thing for the best of the city,

30:07

I don't, I swear my pulse goes from about 65 to 65 in making that decision.

30:12

It's, you know, it's like I say, I don't have too much problem making decisions and no decisions often worse than a bad decision.

30:27

And it could be fixed, but it's serving the people has to come first and self -service, which is the left,

30:38

I think is more into like self -promotion.

30:45

I'm not a big fan of our governor. I think the guy is so disingenuous and he's borderline evil in the way he just is really trying to take over full power of all the state, the cities.

30:57

He's disrespecting cities as a governing unit to be able to govern their own cities.

31:03

He's not a nice guy. He's a power monger and it's scary. It's funny that he's,

31:09

I think, shifting though. I mean, what do you think of that? Do you think - He's rebranding, he's rebranding to make himself a national figure.

31:16

That guy, he's almost completely ruined this state. He, you know, there's $26 billion unaccounted for in homelessness, which is an industry in itself, which it wasn't, homelessness wasn't that bad until Newsom came into power.

31:35

And so much money, it's become an industry. I say it all the time from my experience, because I ran a task when

31:44

I was a police, a Lieutenant downtown Long Beach. I had guys on a homeless task force and you can control them.

31:52

They were respectful as long as you gave them rules. But if you take away rules, like Newsom was trying to do for a while, in dealing with homeless, like the camping laws and things like that, they took away all municipal powers to affect no camping laws, like on our beaches.

32:09

And well, if people don't have rules, what are they going to do? Human nature, whatever they want.

32:17

That's what was happening. You know, they were sleeping where they want, urinating where they want it, using their drugs where they want.

32:23

And it was disgusting. And it's not what people want. It's not what people want to see or live around.

32:28

I was there maybe two years ago. I think we went to Santa Barbara for a weekend, my wife and I. And I noticed they were tapping into somehow like the lights to charge their cell phones, the lights along the beach.

32:41

I'm like, so they know how to do that. And they have a cell phone, but they don't have a home. But so was that happening?

32:47

And not that specifically, but were these things happening in Huntington Beach, homelessness becoming an issue? And were you guys able to do something about that?

32:55

Oh, absolutely. Oh my gosh. That's one of our biggest running issues was that we were going to deal with the homeless.

33:04

We were going to actually enforce laws. The council before us kind of laid down a law or a kind of a,

33:13

I'll say an order to the police department. Hey, leave them alone. They, you know, respect them.

33:19

Don't touch them. Don't enforce what laws you can. They deserve to, you know, they're unhoused or whatever.

33:26

And they have a whole list of names somewhere. I have a list of about eight names for homelessness, you know, and so they were sleeping on our beach and sleeping in our, like under our pier, on our pavilion right by the pier.

33:42

People didn't feel safe. It was a mess. It stunk. The businesses had people that get to work and people would be sleeping in their doorways.

33:50

And we said, no. And I mean, within a very quick time, when we got on, the police knew they had their, we had their backs.

34:01

We asked them to enforce the laws and they, we did build what's called the navigation center by law that we had to do it.

34:08

We were court ordered or something. And where there's 174 of them in a facility called a navigation center.

34:19

And that helps us control the homelessness on the street. Yeah. So you, you've actually met this problem.

34:27

This problem can be solved. That's a lot of the, I think half the problem is trying to convince people that you can actually do something about this.

34:34

I can't make it too easy on them either. I mean, I hate to say it, but again, that's where I say people want to live their lives and live it as they choose.

34:43

These homeless, this is the way they want to do it. And I equate a lot of times homeless to a drug addict.

34:53

You're not going to help them unless they want to help. They're going to do what they do until they want to not do it.

35:00

And if you're going to feed them, house them, give them whatever they want, they'll take all they can until you decide not to.

35:08

And then they'll figure out something else to do. And it kind of, I hate to say it, but drug addicts, they'll take and take and take until something happens where they can't anymore.

35:19

And then they have to make a different decision. And a lot of times it's not until they hit the bottom before they make a decision that really helps themselves.

35:27

You're not going to give them, I don't believe you're not going to give them into curing their situation.

35:37

Yeah, well, that's interesting. Yeah, we probably should have started with that, the homeless thing, because I totally forgot that that's probably one of the big issues and maybe one of the reasons you all got elected, it sounds like it is, was to deal with that and to help the beaches and stuff.

35:53

Were there any other issues that were big items? I mean, we talked about COVID, we talked about DEI, homelessness.

36:00

I mean, were there other things that, you mentioned also the, I guess, the state wanting to change the zoning in the town as well, which would change the character of it.

36:13

Yeah, the state was trying to mandate 13 ,386 unit leases low income units in our city.

36:21

And to get that, it was going to mean that, because you can't do it all in one, like in 15 buildings, 15, 100 unit buildings, whatever.

36:33

You're going to have to do it at 20 % at a time. So it really meant that we were going to have to build like 42 ,000 more units in the city.

36:43

Well, the city's 95 % built out. Okay, now listen, 95 % built out.

36:50

And we already have 82 ,000 housing units in the city.

36:55

That's what we're made up of. So we're at 50 % more in a city that's 95 % built out.

37:02

They said, we'll rip out some of your industrial, we zone it to build in high density apartments and units.

37:10

It's like, no, we don't want it. I mean, well, then where are they going to work? And then our city is going to demand more traffic, more infrastructure, more people, more everything, but yet we don't have places for them to work.

37:23

It was like, the whole plan is a scam to me. It's a progressive scam.

37:29

One, to urbanize all these cities. So then it becomes blue. And then, yeah, and then what happens?

37:40

They get more power. They get more power over the cities and the state.

37:45

And at some point, it's too much for a city to go back.

37:53

Can't retreat from that. The damage is so entrenched. Yeah, I was going to ask you next, why would they do this?

38:01

But that makes sense. It would make it more blue. Yeah, the urban sprawl being,

38:06

I mean, Los Angeles County, I think already has more people in it than something like 12 other of the states in the country.

38:14

Like it's the largest, it's incredible how many people are in that area. And just controlling that county alone, you can practically control the state.

38:25

But yeah, if you can spread that out and make it bigger and more expansive, then that just increases the control.

38:32

Yeah, I've heard all kinds of reasons. Like Barstow and stuff said, bring it here. You can put all the low -income, you can put all, please build here.

38:40

We got all the land, we got plenty of room for it. And they said, no, no, poor people belong, deserve to live by the beach too.

38:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then they want to build these big places with no parking off what they call transportation corridors, self -imposed, progressively imposed or titled transportation corridors.

39:06

And we say, well, they're gonna need to park someplace. They said, no, they're gonna use the mass transit and e -bikes.

39:14

Yeah, yeah, e -bikes and what is the bullet train that goes nowhere?

39:20

Train to nowhere or whatever. Works back to Bakersfield. Yeah, for a billion.

39:26

That's one of the weirdest things to me given that there's so many, I don't know. Just the earthquake thing alone,

39:32

I just was like, really? But yeah, California, that's

39:37

California for you. The list goes on. At least you have In -N -Out Burger so you can eat some good lunches there and some beautiful beaches and great weather.

39:47

I miss it, I really do. And even when I go back, I went back there last year. My grandfather died, he lived in LA and it was so green at that point.

39:55

I was like, oh man, I'm thinking in my head, I could probably endure the progressive stuff.

40:01

I just, you pay a little more but you enjoy the weather but it really is an amazing place and I think that's the motive.

40:10

That's what people need to hear from your message is that, hey, if it's your home, if you love it, if you love the people there, the weather, the topography, the cuisine, all of the stuff, you gotta fight to maintain that.

40:22

It doesn't just stay the way it is because it's always been this way. It can change very quick so thanks for that reminder.

40:30

Gary, how quickly it can. And we've gotten some good people to get on boards and commissions, planning commission, finance commission, community and library services commission, good people from the city we've recruited to be on those and they help us out immensely.

40:48

We can't do it all, we can't know everything in state. We need help like that and we've been lucky to see some, people see what we're doing and say, you know what?

41:00

I need help and they've helped. And we're always trying to recruit people to maybe get into, because all it takes is a bump on the head and I'm out and then they're gonna have to find somebody.

41:14

And we gotta always have somebody in reserve that can step up and be like -minded to serve.

41:20

All right, well, if you're listening and you're in Huntington Beach, contact Mayor Pat Burns and say, hey,

41:26

I'd love to serve. And if you're somewhere else, then I would just encourage people, do what

41:33

Mayor Pat here has done and take some responsibility for your community if you have the bandwidth for it and God's given you the resources to do it.

41:42

So with that, thank you, Mayor, we really appreciate it. Yeah, God bless. God bless.