The Huntington Beach City Council/Public Financing Authority met on Tuesday, May 20, 2025, at 6:00 PM in the Central Library Lower Level Theater. The meeting included a budget study session, adoption of labor agreements, public comments overwhelmingly focused on Measures A and B (library-related ballot measures), and a council item directing review of Ocean View School District actions. The meeting had 53 public speakers, each limited to one minute.
I'd like to reconvene the regular meeting of the City Council Public Financing Authority. City Clerk, can I have a roll call, please? Councilman Twine. Here. Councilman Kennedy. Here. Mayor Burns. Here. Councilwoman Vandermark here. Councilman Gruel? Here. Councilman Williams? Here. And I'd like to announce that pursuant to resolution number two thousand one dash five four. Mayor Pro Tem McKeon has requested permission to be absent from this meeting. And pursuant to City Charter Section Three Ten A, City Clerk Lisa Lane Barnes has also requested permission to be absent. If there are no objections, it will be reflected in the minutes. Bless our meeting this evening, and may your peace and wisdom guide all that occurs tonight. And we ask this in your wonderful and blessed name, Jesus. Amen. Share a little bit of some reflections on uh Memorial Day. And so I would say that you know, those of us here as Americans, the things that unite us are far greater than the things that divide us, and Memorial Day really is about remembering those that have gone before us and paid the ultimate pride. I imagine it's safe to say for all of us in the room and those watching right now that we're all proud to be Americans. And when you think about it, what's so great about being an American at the top of that list certainly is freedom. And then somewhere below that are things like Chick-fil-A and In and Out Barriger, but freedom at the top of that list. And really what makes freedom so great is the fact that it's not just some built-in to life default position. We remember the fact that it isn't free. In fact, John Adams, it was he that said, uh, your generation speaking to future generations like ours. Your generation will never know how much it costs my generation to preserve your freedoms. And it's hope, he says, I hope that you make good use of it. And so that's worth reflecting on. You know, when we wake up in the morning, are we living a life that was worth dying for? And if I could share just a couple stories of those that have paid the ultimate price, you know, unfortunately, sometimes it takes a funeral for you to really appreciate life. Sometimes it takes an attack on our nation like a 9-11 for us, you truly appreciate freedom. When I was a junior in high school, this is when 9-11 had happened. And I remember driving around Huntington Beach as a high schooler, looking around and seeing on the corners our community united together, standing firm. And it really inspired me, and that's sort of the seed thought uh to take that oath to serve. And I was introduced to a man by the name of Scott Helvinson, U.S. Navy SEAL, phenomenal, phenomenal human being, all kinds of records this guy holds. And he mentored me. And one of the last things he said to me on a phone call, not knowing this would be the last, he says, Junior, you know, I'm about to go do this thing, referring to going off to Iraq, and he says, I just want you to know something. I know you're gonna make it. And the next time I'd see him was just days later, hanging upside down from the Euphrates River Bridge in Fallujah, Iraq, as this vehicle was ambushed, and these insurgents had mutilated his body, dragged him through the streets, humma hung him upside down from the Euphrates River Bridge, and set his body on fire, chanting in Arabic, Belugus the graveyard of Americans, Belugus the graveyard of Americans. Another hero, really just a stone throw away in Garden Grove, Michael Monsour, he was a U.S. Navy SEAL. And when he's in a place called Ramadi Iraq, he's on top of a roof providing cover for other SEALs that were out on the road when from an unknown location an insurgent had thrown a hand grenade up on the roof, and of all places it bounced off of Mikey's chest and fell into the dark. And if you can imagine he had an exit just a step pivot turn away, he could have saved himself from this grenade. But the problem was there's other seals that were on the roof with them that didn't have time to make it out of their prone positions, and off to this exit. So Mikey's last words, he yelled to these men, grenade, so they could take some form of cover, as he jumped on top of the grenade and absorbed the blast of that grenade all on himself. He suffered and he died on that roof, but because of what he did, these others live.