Newport-Mesa Unified appears to have a new trustee, while a grassroots effort looks to have succeeded in rescinding a City Council decision on who has ultimate authority deciding what books belong in Huntington Beach libraries, according to the latest results in ballot counting following two special elections Tuesday.
The OC Registrar of Voters is posting updates daily on the counting as it works its way through mailed-in and dropped-off ballots in the elections.
In Wednesday’s update, Andrea McElroy held on to her lead over Kirsten Walsh to fill the vacant seat on the Newport-Mesa Unified School Board.
The district’s board had appointed Walsh in January to the Area 5 seat, but a successful petition drive forced the special election.
Grassroots efforts had also successfully collected enough signatures to force the public vote held in Huntington Beach, with Measure A and Measure B both appearing to pass as of Wednesday’s update on ballot counting.
If Measure A succeeds, it would eliminate the law approved by the Huntington Beach City Council that creates a 21-member community review board that would decide books that should be relocated from the children’s section and require parental permission for checkout and could block the purchase of new books if a majority of the members feel a title doesn’t meet “community standards.”
The measure would instead make the director of the city’s libraries the person in charge of setting standards for what materials the library holds.
Measure A was succeeding with more than 58% of the vote as of Wednesday’s update of unofficial results.
If results also continue to return in Measure B’s favor, a public vote would be required if the city ever pursued privatizing operations of the city’s libraries in the future. The measure was passing with more than 60% of the vote as of Wednesday.
Carol Daus, one of Our Library Matters’ many volunteers who campaigned for the measures, and a longtime Huntington Beach Public Library volunteer, said she was ecstatic with the early results as they came in.
“You never know in a place like Huntington Beach, it’s a conservative city and they poured a lot of money into the campaign,” she said. “It was somehow complicated with the ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ We didn’t know how many we reached. I’m just grateful if it holds. Right now, it’s looking pretty good on both measures. I feel pretty confident.”
Councilmember Gracey Van Der Mark, who first raised the issue of screening out children’s books with sexually explicit material when she was mayor in 2023, said she and others on the “No on Measures A and B” team had been “swimming upstream” with their campaign, but still vow to remain committed to protecting the community’s children.
“This won’t change that we will continue to expose what is going on in our public libraries and protect our children from it,” she said. “What we were trying to do with these measures is to bring in the community and involve them in the process.”
McElroy had also partly campaigned on an issue of parental rights, saying she felt she most connected with voters over opposition to the state’s SAFETY Act, which prohibits school districts from requiring staff to disclose information about a student’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to parents without the student’s consent.
“Parents do not want secrets kept from them,” McElroy said.
McElroy, 55, held more than 54% of the votes as of Wednesday’s results update.
“This process has been about giving Area 5 voters a chance to speak and they have,” McElroy said. “My thanks to my husband, Thom, my campaign team and every voter in Area 5. Kirsten ran a spirited campaign, and it will be my responsibility to represent our entire community.”
The Registrar of Voters will update results daily at 5 p.m. at ocvote.gov. An estimated 3,360 ballots remain to be counted.
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Results of special election to decide new school board member in NMUSD Huntington Beach’s Measures A and B results: Both were passing in early returns Tuesday night Two candidates talk priorities, leadership in special NMUSD trustee election Kirstin Walsh is running for an open seat in NMUSD Trustee Area 5 Andrea McElroy is running for an open seat for NMUSD Trustee Area 5 Read More Details
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