At a local forum, City Council candidates debated solutions for Huntington Beach’s business landscape, from rental costs to crime and community events.
In a critical forum ahead of the upcoming election, candidates for three seats on the Huntington Beach City Council and one city clerk position shared their strategies to strengthen the local economy. The event, hosted Thursday by the Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce, drew about 50 attendees to the Senior Center. Moderated by Chamber board member Sheik Sattaur, the two-hour discussion featured eight council hopefuls who addressed key economic concerns facing Huntington Beach businesses.
Candidates at the forum included incumbents Rhonda Bolton, Dan Kalmick, and Natalie Moser, along with challengers Amory Hanson, Marissa Jackson, Don Kennedy, Butch Twining, and Chad Williams. With seats on the council awarded to the top three vote-getters rather than by district, candidates presented distinct visions on how to address the economic and social hurdles impacting businesses.
Bolton, Kalmick, and Moser, who identify with the council’s liberal-leaning bloc, defended their seats against conservative candidates including Jackson, who campaigns for religious and family-oriented policies, and Twining, Kennedy, and Williams, who advocate for a unified, business-friendly council aligned with Huntington Beach’s existing conservative majority.
Candidates identified rising rents as a major obstacle for local businesses, with Bolton, Jackson, and Hanson highlighting this as a leading factor driving companies out of Huntington Beach. High housing costs were also flagged by Bolton, Kalmick, and Moser as a barrier for talent retention, limiting companies’ ability to attract skilled workers.
Public safety emerged as another priority. Jackson, Kennedy, Twining, and Williams linked homelessness with public disturbances, stressing the need for policies to address homelessness, especially around popular tourist areas. Moser, in turn, raised the issue of significant vacancies in the city’s police department, which has struggled to fill 27 positions. She pointed to the broader shortage across city roles, attributing it to “chaos” within local government.
“I think one of the biggest challenges is going to be what the city can control,” Moser stated, “which is a lack of stability in the whole [city] government, lack of functional government [and] the chaos that’s been created here with recent culture wars. We’ve lost our workforce in City Hall.”
Throughout the forum, conservative candidates Twining, Kennedy, and Williams labeled their liberal counterparts as the “Newsom Threesome,” referring to California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, and argued that replacing the incumbents would foster council unity. Williams criticized incumbents over the 2021 closure of Ruby’s Diner, previously located on the Huntington Beach Pier, citing the restaurant’s exit as a failure of local leadership.
In discussing broader economic support, candidates shared common ground on expanding events outside the popular downtown beachfront, proposing that other city venues like the sports complex and golf courses could host festivals, athletic competitions, and other attractions to diversify revenue streams for local businesses.
