In one of Orange County’s most crowded and hotly contested local elections, 11 candidates are vying for four open seats on the Huntington Beach City Council.
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Incumbents Pat Burns, Casey McKeon and Andrew Gruel are looking to hold onto seats, but with Councilmember Gracey Van Der Mark running instead for state office, there is at least one new face guaranteed from the field of challengers: Brian Burley, Ben Davis, Brenda Glim, Amory Hanson, Taryn Palumbo, Rosalind Price, Erin Spivey and Brian Thienes.
McKeon and Burns were elected in 2022 as part of a conservative slate with Van Der Mark and Tony Strickland. Gruel, a celebrity chef, was appointed in March 2025 after Strickland was elected to the state Senate. The Republican Party of Orange County has endorsed the three incumbents, as well as Thienes, a small business owner.
Taking a page from the playbook of the conservative slate, a quartet of first-time candidates are running as a progressive block called the Surf City 4. Spivey, Palumbo, Davis and Glim are all endorsed by the Democratic Party of Orange County.
“We want to balance our budget, infrastructure, restore our reputation and leave national politics and culture wars out of it,” Spivey said. “We want a return to common sense governance.”
Spivey, who successfully sued Huntington Beach over the council’s library book restriction policy, said she didn’t initially want to run for City Council because she didn’t want to partake in the “toxic, extreme divisiveness” that she said has permeated the dais. She said she felt compelled to campaign for office after the city appealed the court’s ruling on the book restriction case, which she saw as an attempt to subvert the will of the people.
“There’s a lot of libertarian undercurrents in Huntington Beach, and right now that’s not being represented by the City Council,” Spivey said. “There’s only one viewpoint being represented.”
The Surf City 4 largely want to comply with state laws on housing, voting rights and other issues Huntington Beach has gone to court over as the city confronts a major budget gap. Candidates answered questions for the Orange County Register’s voter guide or were interviewed.
“I’d apply one test before this city spends another dollar on a lawsuit: what’s our real chance of winning, what does losing cost us, and does this protect a genuine city interest or just fight a political battle for its own sake?” said Glim, a medical education actor. “Ideological fights we’re likely to lose aren’t. Every dollar spent losing in court is a dollar not spent on police, roads, or parks.”
Palumbo, an attorney and nonprofit leader, said her priority is investing taxpayer dollars into infrastructure, libraries and parks instead of ideologically driven legal fights.
“Residents deserve a full public accounting of how much we’ve spent on lawsuits and why,” she said. “I’m not against defending the city when the law genuinely warrants it, but that decision should rest on cost-benefit reality and legal merit, not headlines.”
Davis, a civil rights attorney, said rebuilding Huntington Beach’s image as a welcoming, immigrant-friendly and business-friendly city will naturally boost the local economy.
“Fixing the city’s reputation is what will ultimately bring in tourism and business revenue, and that, in turn, will help ease the budget woes,” he said, adding.
The incumbents disagree with the narrative that Surf City’s reputation is in tatters.
“I just think that’s a completely false statement,” McKeon said. “People saying those things are from the other side of the political aisle. Data and facts refute that.”
Crime has dropped by 27% in four years and homelessness has fallen by the largest margin in the city’s history, McKeon said. He noted that the city also won a $38 million settlement against the state in 2023, which he said the council doesn’t get any credit for compared to the disproportionate amount of media coverage on all the lawsuits it’s lost.
“I want Huntington Beach to be like it was when I was a kid: clean, safe and prosperous,” McKeon said. “We’ve made great strides these last four years.”
Regarding the housing element lawsuit, McKeon said the cost of compliance would have exceeded the court-ordered penalties. Given the high affordability requirement, he said, “We’d have to increase housing supply by 50%. That’ll break our infrastructure and resources.”
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Gruel said the city should not shy from challenging the state or another government entity “when our charter authority, local control, or residents’ interests are genuinely at stake.”
In addition to preserving the city’s charter authority, Gruel said he’ll continue to prioritize public safety by supporting the recruitment of experienced police officers as well as attracting visitors to support local businesses.
“If we get these fundamentals right, we protect both our residents’ quality of life and Huntington Beach’s future,” he said.
Hanson, a historian who’s running for City Council for the sixth time, also said he opposes high-density developments and supports the city’s litigation against state housing mandates.
“I believe I can be a unifying and historic councilman who is respected by many,” Hanson said. “I have had a front-row seat to government by attending 12 years of City Council meetings as well as numerous board and commission meetings.”
One point nearly all candidates agree on in answering the voter guide questionnaire is the need to increase revenue to address the city’s structural budget issues.
Burley, a system administrator at USC, ran for council in 2020 and 2022 and is also vying for California’s 42nd Congressional District against incumbent Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Long Beach.
“The city needs a comprehensive financial plan that honestly accounts for rising costs and pension liabilities while steadily rebuilding reserves,” he said. “I would scrutinize spending, reduce unnecessary administrative costs, end costly and frivolous litigation, and protect frontline services such as police, fire and infrastructure. We must also pursue new revenue through responsible economic development, grants, and increased tourism revenue.”
Burns, a retired police officer, said the city needs to find ways to generate non-tax revenue and keep expenditures reasonable.
“We need to take an aggressive approach to dealing with pension liability. This is the anchor weighing us down,” Burns said. “Basic accounting would help and a commitment with all involved to be reasonable in addressing the issue.”
Price, an operations manager, said the city must prioritize restoring long-term fiscal stability while protecting essential municipal services, public safety and aging infrastructure.
“Relying solely on cuts damages community services, while relying only on taxes places a heavy burden on residents,” Price said. “The solution must pair fiscal discipline with proactive economic growth to protect essential municipal services and ensure long-term financial stability.”
Thienes, a planning commissioner, said he would focus on finding ways to generate revenue for the city without introducing new taxes.
“Rising costs, pension obligations, and slow revenue growth are squeezing the budget, and how the council responds will shape every other issue,” he said. “My approach is to grow the local economy so revenue rises with the city rather than on the backs of residents, budget over multiple years so problems are solved instead of deferred, review non-essential spending before front-line services, and fund public safety first.”
Read more of the voter guide, including what the candidates said would make them good leaders and how they would represent the city’s diverse community at ocregister.com/voter-guide.
Ballots may be returned by mail (must be postmarked by Nov. 3 and received within a week of Election Day) or to the OC Registrar of Voters’ drop boxes around town now. The first vote centers will open for casting ballots in person on Oct. 24.
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