Voice of OC54%
Judge Greenlights State Audit of Huntington Beach’s Controversial Pacific Airshow Deal 24%
By Noah Biesiada59%
8/4/2026, 2:39:02 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 9 faulty reasoning types, including Framing Effect, Anchoring Bias, and Tu Quoque, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 41.6% saturation with 296 hits. Analysis detected 687 faulty-reasoning hits from 712 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 30.7% and a BS Rank of 24% (21,016 of 27,322 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 76.90% of the article peer group.
State auditors could finally get a peek behind the curtain on how Huntington Beach leaders crafted a controversial deal with the operators of the Pacific Airshow that seemingly returns few benefits to the city .
It’s the latest in a long line of court losses for the city, with local leaders repeatedly arguing their status as a charter city exempts them from state housing law and a host of other Sacramento mandates.
OC Superior Court Judge Carmen Luege joined a slate of other local judges who’ve said that argument doesn’t hold up, ordering city leaders to let the state auditor move forward with the audit that was first ordered in 2024.
“The City and its responsible officers and employees shall comply … by permitting the Auditor and the Auditor’s authorized representatives, during regular business hours, access to, examination of, and reproduction of City records requested in connection with Audit No.
2024-103,” Luege wrote in her July 30 ruling.
“The Court declares that the City’s status as a charter city does not exempt it from Audit No. 2024-103 or its duty to comply.”
Questions about the contract have circulated for years after city leaders announced in 2023 they were settling a lawsuit with Code Four, the operator of the Pacific Airshow, for as much as $7.4 million after the airshow was forced to close early during a 2021 oil spill off the coast.
At the time, city leaders refused to disclose any of the details of that settlement aside from the price points until they were sued by Ocean View School Board Member Gina Clayton-Tarvin and a judge ruled they had to release the records.
The settlement showcased a series of provisions city leaders agreed to give up, including most of the parking revenue, space at the beach and covering the public safety costs of police and fire to manage the event.
City leaders then insisted that those deals were not binding and could be negotiated.
“To repeat, we do not have a long term contract with the airshow,” said then Councilman, now Mayor Casey McKeon, at an August 2024 council meeting.
McKeon was part of the 2023 council majority who voted for settlement.
“A long term contract for the airshow would have to be brought back to council, negotiated, costed, reviewed, presented to the public so the public can review, scrutinize, provide comments before a contract can be approved,” McKeon said.
But when it came time for city leaders to actually approve their contract with the airshow in September 2025, McKeon said most of the deal points were etched in stone by the settlement agreement when Councilman Chad Williams asked about renegotiating several deal points.
“You can’t go and like renegotiate on the fly,” McKeon said.
“If we don’t pass this tonight, he could enforce the previous settlement contract.”
In a statement on Tuesday afternoon, Williams – who wasn’t on the council when the lawsuit was settled – said the ruling was “another step in this process.”
“Last spring, Councilmember [Andrew] Gruel and I brought forward an item to pursue discussions with the State Auditor rather than continue prolonged litigation,” Williams wrote.
“My focus remains on transparency for residents and the responsible use of their hard-earned taxpayer dollars.
Those who truly have nothing to hide should have no problem with transparency and accountability.”
McKeon did not respond to requests for comment.
The city council majority has also faced questions about their connections with Kevin Elliott, Code Four’s CEO, who’s been one of their primary campaign vendors for signage since 2022, before they ever signed off on the settlement deal.
In May, multiple council members and former City Attorney Michael Gates, who negotiated the settlement agreement, were fined for failing to disclose they also got free tickets to the airshow.
This year alone, city council members have spent over $12,000 on campaign materials from Code Four, most of which came from Councilwoman Gracey Van Der Mark’s campaign as she runs for state assembly.
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter.
Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.
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Speakers
3speakers30%attributed speech497writer words
Selected voice
27%flagged-word coverageChad Williams
56 attributed words26% of attributed speech85% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
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