Huntington Beach, the Orange County city known for its sharp political divisions, delivered a rare show of unity in a June 2025 special election. Nearly 60 percent of voters—including conservatives, moderates, and progressive activists—rejected city council efforts to restrict access to library books and privatize library operations.
The vote followed a three-year conflict over censorship and library governance, as residents mobilized across party lines to defend what many described as one of the city’s most important community resources.
“The public library is the heart of the community,” said James Davis, a Huntington Beach resident. “When I bought my house eight years ago, I couldn’t afford Wi-Fi, so I went to the library. That’s where I found the resources I needed.”
The local controversy began in 2023, amid a broader national surge in book censorship, when that trend reached Huntington Beach after City Councilmember Gracey Van Der Mark called for restrictions on books she described as containing “pornography in children’s sections,” aligning with a broader conservative movement seeking to limit access to books addressing sexuality, gender identity, and puberty.
According to the American Library Association’s 2024 annual report, government entities and elected officials had become the primary drivers of book censorship efforts in public schools and libraries nationwide.
Years prior, and before being a Councilmember, Van Der Mark successfully moved Gender Queer, a memoir frequently targeted in national book bans, into the library’s adult section. Other titles—including Will Puberty Last My Whole Life?, Sex Is a Funny Word, and It’s Perfectly Normal—were also moved into restricted areas accessible only to patrons 18 and older, without public announcement. Educators widely regard these books as age-appropriate health and development resources.
In 2023, elected Van Der Mark proposed the creation of a 21-member “parent-guardian review board” to evaluate library materials that might contain sexual content. The board would be appointed by city council members and did not require professional credentials in library science or education, but with a minimum age requirement of 18 years old.
City officials said the board was intended to “protect children” rather than ban books. Many residents disagreed, arguing that the proposal undermined the expertise of trained librarians and duplicated existing review procedures already in place.
Among those who opposed the board was Sue Welfringer, a 29-year Huntington Beach resident and Republican voter, as well as longtime volunteer with the Friends of the Children’s Library, and member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.
“I know how to read a book to a kid, and there is so much more to it,” Welfringer said. “The council doesn’t understand the industry, or the art and science of creating literature that is meaningful and diverse.”
Numerous community members expressed their distrust over the competence of a council-appointed review board, citing years of trust in their local librarians.
Lucinda Mroch, an activist who had spent her parenting years going to the library’s storytime with her children, echoed this sentiment, “These [librarians] are professionals. They have master’s degrees in library science….but nobody showed up for them because they were afraid of their jobs.”
At a June 20, 2023 city council meeting to vote on the review board, hundreds of residents gathered to oppose it. But despite public opposition, the city council approved the board, formally establishing it in April 2024. However, it was never staffed and remained inactive.
The board’s approval had galvanized community residents, along with members of Protect HB, a grassroots volunteer organization focused on transparency and civic engagement, to launch a year-long campaign against the board. The group garnered over 600 volunteers to organize marches, petition drives, and “read-ins” at the Central Library to raise awareness and get the issue to be voted on in next year’s ballot.
Around the same time, the city council issued a bid to outsource library staffing to Library Systems and Services, a private company that had previously employed former Mayor Mike Posey, with no wrongdoing alleged.
The privatization proposal expanded the campaign into two ballot initiatives:
- Measure A, to dissolve the review board
- Measure B, to prevent the city from leasing library operations to a private company
By summer 2024, Protect HB had collected more than 19,000 signatures—well above the threshold needed to qualify for the ballot.
The pressure from the community was clear, as residents were strongly vocalizing both in the petitions and in council meetings, to preserve the library’s already well-resourced services and respect the expertise of its credentialed staff.
Months leading up to the election, city council meetings continued receiving hundreds of residents opposing the council’s initiatives. At some meetings, it was reported that Mayor Pat Burns had reduced public comment time from the standard three minutes per speaker to as little as 30 seconds.
“It was very tense,” said Paula Jean Lazicki, a Democrat and Protect HB advocate. “It felt like they had already made up their minds and we were just cardboard cutouts.”
Joining forces with Protect HB, Diana Blotzer-Zimmer, a longtime conservative voter and community volunteer, got involved in the campaign after hearing defamatory statements made about librarians from opponents of the measures, “a line was crossed when they were calling library staff and volunteers pedophiles and groomers.”
After months of frustrated responses from the community, the city council didn’t back down from their efforts, but instead voted unanimously to accelerate the vote on the ballot measures in a special election almost a year sooner than expected, setting the date for June 10, 2025, a decision projected to cost the city between $1.2 and $1.3 million.
“They decided very late to do a special election,” Jean said. “Special elections usually have low turnout, and they thought they could win that way.”
In early 2025, Protect HB collaborated with the Friends of the Huntington Beach Public Library to form the political action committee Our Library Matters as the campaign for ‘Yes on Measures A & B.’
The months leading up to the election saw the city flooded with campaign signs. Supporters posted signs reading “Don’t Privatize Our Libraries,” while opponents warned voters to “Keep Porn Away from Kids,” messaging many residents criticized as inflammatory and misleading.
“To me, it’s not a partisan issue; it’s a community issue,” Blotzer-Zimmer said. “I don’t agree with everything the Democrats in Protect HB believe, but we agree on one thing: the library needs to be protected from political interference.”
Despite expectations of low turnout, Measures A and B passed decisively, each with a nearly 60% majority, ending the review board and blocking library privatization.
For many residents, the result represented more than a political victory.
“The library has always been the heart of the city,” said Blotzer-Zimmer. “We can’t let it be dismantled for political points.”
In an era of deep political polarization in the nation, Huntington Beach residents showed how local organizing and cross-partisan collaboration can protect public institutions—not as political symbols, but as shared spaces that serve the entire community.
Margarida Costa is a Huntington Beach resident and political advocate focused on national and community issues. She graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2023 with a bachelor’s degree in Sociology.
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