Huntington Beach City Council members are set to be among the founding members of a new group of charter cities forming around one purpose: to grapple with the state over more local control for city leaders.
It’s not a new approach for Surf City, who are currently locked in litigation with state leaders over a series of issues including housing development, immigration and voter ID requirements.
Most of their legal arguments rest on the city’s status as a charter city, which the city’s legal team has repeatedly argued grants them certain powers and even the option to override the state’s rules on local issues like voting and zoning.
[Read: Will Huntington Beach’s Legal Argument of Limited Independence Hold up in Court?]
Over the past couple of years, city officials have insisted that many Golden State cities are behind them, despite Huntington Beach officials largely challenging Sacramento on its own.
“We always champion our charter city status …We always go like ‘Who’s with us?’” said Councilman Casey McKeon at Tuesday’s city council meeting
“Other cities go ‘Oh we got your guy’s back. Way back,’” he said.
But now, the City of Porterville has reached out to Huntington Beach and other charter cities about setting up a group to advocate for similar measures as a group.
Greg Meister, Porterville’s mayor, said the group would function similarly to the League of California Cities, which lobbies state leaders on behalf of cities across the state.
“It would unite charter cities to fight for local control,” Mesiter said in a Tuesday interview. “Our contributions would then hire lobbyists and lawyers who represent charter cities.”
Meister argued that while the League of Cities is tailored to support larger cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, the new group will focus on expanding rights for all charter cities.
“The state takes a one shoe fits all approach and we’re all different,” Meister said. “Small cities like Porterville get left in the dark.”
So far, Surf City officials lost most of their lawsuits using the charter city argument, except for the move to implement voter ID in local elections.
But California Attorney General Rob Bonta has said will be heading back to an appeals court over that issue.
[Read: OC Judge Greenlights Huntington Beach Voter ID Rules for Local Elections]
Local control and charter city exemptions was an argument city leaders repeated at their meeting on Tuesday night, with Mayor Pat Burns saying judges have “under credited” the powers of a charter city.
“We should be able to run our own city,” Burns said. “I want to be able, for any of our governing bodies in the future, to be able to run our city best for Huntington Beach.”
The move got unanimous support from city council members, with Burns and McKeon saying it was long overdue.
“It will do all of us better,” Burns said.
“I love this,” McKeon said.
“This is just long overdue,” he continued. “This makes so much sense to unite with charter cities.”
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.