Remote Surveillance Trailer in Huntington Beach, CA

April brings a fresh start to aspiring Championship Tour professional surfers.

The first event of the 2025-26 World Surf League Qualifying Series season, the Vans Jack’s Surfboards Pro presented by 805, launches Thursday morning on the south side of the Huntington Beach Pier.

The Jack’s Surfboards Pro started in 2017 as a men’s QS 1,000 event, and is now a QS 4,000 event for both genders as part of a new points system put in place by the league this year.

Past champions of the event include 2024 Championship Tour Rookies of the Year Sawyer Lindblad and Crosby Colapinto, both of whom call San Clemente home.

“We’re thrilled to kick off the 2025-26 season with the Jack’s Pro, and even more excited to host it right here in our hometown of Huntington Beach,” Jack’s Surfboards co-owner Jamal Abdelmuti said in a news release. “It’s a fantastic opportunity to support the young, up-and-coming surfers from our region. This year marks our eighth edition of the Jacks Pro, and thanks to our incredible partners in the surf industry, the event continues to grow and evolve.”

Lucca Mesinas of Peru won the men’s Jack’s Surfboards Pro last year and is back to defend his title. Kirra Pinkerton of San Clemente was last year’s women’s champion.

Mesinas, a former Championship Tour competitor, won four times on the North American QS during the 2024-25 season en route to his second QS regional title.

Huntington Beach High senior Sara Freyre is also confirmed for this year’s Jack’s Surfboards Pro. Freyre, who has been a U.S. Open of Surfing wild-card participant and competed on the USA Surfing Junior National Team, also seeks to begin the season with a good result.

“It’s so exciting to kick off a fresh season at home at the Jack’s Surfboards Pro!” Freyre said to WorldSurfLeague.com. “This is always one of my favorite events of the year because it’s right at my home break. It is so fun because my friends and family come down and support me. I am so grateful they put this event on and give this opportunity, especially now that it is a QS 4,000. This year I am going to take it one event at a time and focus on giving it my all.”

The Jack’s Surfboards Pro runs through Sunday at the south side of the pier, and admission is free. A live webcast will be shown at worldsurfleague.com, the WSL app and YouTube channel.

Staff Writer

An Orange County Superior Court judge ruled Monday in favor of Huntington Beach in its continued battle with the state of California over voter identification.

Measure A, an amendment to the city charter that states Huntington Beach may implement voter ID beginning with the municipal elections in 2026, was approved by more than 53% of the voters who cast ballots in March 2024. Its passage and the City Council’s subsequent adoption of the amendment led to a lawsuit by state Atty. General Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber, as well as by Huntington Beach resident Mark Bixby. They asked the court to strike down the provisions of the amendment because, Bonta asserts, “the Huntington Beach City Charter is preempted by and violates California law.”

Judge Nico Dourbetas originally ruled in November that the issue was not “ripe for adjudication” and that Measure A presented no conflict with state law. But, after Bonta and Weber appealed, the California Fourth District Court of Appeal disagreed with Dourbetas’ initial decision. In February, a three-judge panel ordered Dourbetas to issue an ruling on the merits of the case or the appellate court would take it over.

Dourbetas heard arguments from both sides on Thursday, before issuing his ruling on Monday.

“There is no showing that a voter identification requirement compromises the integrity of a municipal election,” Dourbetas wrote in his ruling. “Municipal election results do not lack integrity because only residents of a municipality who are eligible to vote participated in the election.”

In a statement, Huntington Beach Mayor Pat Burns called Monday’s ruling a victory, not only for his city, but charter cities throughout the state.

Bonta and Bixby’s attorney, Lee Fink, both said Monday that they will appeal the decision.

“While we are disappointed in the trial court’s ruling, all parties knew that the case would ultimately be decided at the appellate level,” Fink said in an email. “Aside from ignoring the Court of Appeal’s clear statement on the elections code, the trial court never addressed the constitutional issues involved, or even addressed the proper standard of review. We are confident that the appellate courts will reverse the trial court and stop the city’s unconstitutional and ideologically-driven voter ID requirements.”

Huntington Beach City Atty. Mike Vigliotta, appointed in February after Michael Gates took a job with the U.S. Dept. of Justice, said Monday he believed the court came to the correct conclusion that the state Constitution gives charter cities the authority “to make and enforce all ordinances and regulations in respect to municipal affairs.”

In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board that a photo ID requirement in Indiana was legitimate to help the state prevent voter fraud, a decision that Dourbetas referenced in his ruling.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has already determined that voter ID does not violate the right to vote,” Vigliotta said in a statement. “While we anticipate this fight isn’t over, we are pleased with the court’s fair and just evaluation of the weakness of the state and Bixby’s legal case. I am honored that the [City] Council chose me to continue to fight for Huntington Beach, for the integrity of our elections systems, and for just outcomes under the law.”

Bonta noted Monday that no evidence of voter fraud has been presented in Huntington Beach, also arguing that state law overrides Measure A.

“Yet again, we believe the Orange County Superior Court got it wrong,” Bonta said in a statement. “Earlier this year, the California Fourth District Court of Appeal wrote that Huntington Beach’s argument that ‘it had a constitutional right to regulate its own municipal elections free from state interference ... is ... problematic.’ We agree. Now that we have a final order from the Orange County Superior Court, we look forward to moving on and appealing the decision. We remain confident that Measure A will ultimately be struck down.”

Weber added that she believes that Huntington Beach’s charter amendment is against state law, and that voter ID will result in the disenfranchising of voters.

California is one of 13 states nationwide that doesn’t require identification when voting in-person. However, a grassroots conservative group called Reform California is seeking to pass a statewide voter ID initiative in next year’s election.

Topline:

An oil company that owns 92 acres of beachfront real estate in Huntington Beach is taking the first steps to redevelop it for housing and commercial uses.

Wait, undeveloped land on the O.C. coast? Yep. The strip of land along Pacific Coast Highway between Goldenwest Street and Seapoint Street, just south of the Bolsa Chica wetlands, has been dedicated to oil and gas production for close to 100 years. Now, the company that owns the land wants to redevelop it.

Could 800 homes be headed for this coastal stretch of Huntington Beach?

The bigger picture: Huntington Beach, like many Southern California coastal cities, is under state pressure to help alleviate the housing crisis by zoning for more units. The conservative beach city is fighting those mandates in court. But last year, the previous City Council — in a rare unanimous vote — approved a plan to build 250 residential units plus a hotel and retail space on another piece of former oil land near the coast.

What’s the first step? The company, California Resources Corporation, has submitted an application to the city to have the land rezoned for residential as well as commercial uses. They say that would allow them to develop up to 800 homes on the property, plus up to 350 hotel rooms, and some 23 acres of parks and open space. To move forward, they’ll have to get approval from the city’s planning commission and then the City Council. They’ll also need the city to amend its Local Coastal Program, and they’ll need approval from the California Coastal Commission.

What’s the timeline? Don’t expect to see homes there anytime soon. A spokesperson for the landowner estimated the City Council could consider the proposed amendment in mid-2026. If they get approval from the council and the Coastal Commission, there are dozens of active oil wells and other oil production facilities on the land that would have to be phased out and cleaned up.

SANTA ANA, Calif. (CN) — A California state court judge on Monday denied efforts to prevent Huntington Beach, a conservative bastion in the left-leaning state, from requiring voters to present a government-issued identification before they cast their ballot.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Nico Dourbetas rejected both the bid by California Attorney General Rob Bonta and by Huntington Beach resident Mark Bixby to invalidate the city's charter amendment that imposed the voter ID requirement because, they argued, it would conflict with state law and burden citizens' right to vote.

"There is no showing that a voter identification requirement compromises the integrity of a municipal election," Dourbetas said. "Municipal election results do not lack integrity because only residents of a municipality who are eligible to vote participated in the election."

It was the second time the judge rebuffed the efforts to block the politically controversial voter ID requirement. Last year, he dismissed the two lawsuits because the city hadn't yet implemented any ordinances for its voter ID requirement.

In February, the California Courts of Appeal reversed him, saying that his decision that the controversy wasn't ripe was "problematic" and sent the case back to him to rule on California's facial challenge, as opposed to an as-applied challenge, that the Huntington Beach voter ID requirement is preempted by state law.

Lee Fink, Bixby's attorney, said in an email that he plans to appeal the decision.

“The court of appeal made clear last month that the city’s voter ID charter amendment was a clear violation of state law that could not stand," Fink said. "While we are disappointed in the trial court’s ruling, all parties knew that the case would ultimately be decided at the appellate level."

Bonta also vowed that he'd appeal the ruling.

"Now that we have a final order from the Orange County Superior Court, we look forward to moving on and appealing the decision," the attorney general said in a statement. "We remain confident that Measure A will ultimately be struck down.”

At a hearing last week in Santa Ana, California, the judge had expressed some reservations with the plaintiffs' argument that a voter ID requirement would make it harder for some people to participate in elections. Dourbetas noted at the time that there would seem to be a need to make sure that only eligible voters cast a ballot.

"Even if there's only one incident of fraud in an election, isn't that an attack on democracy?" he asked.

The same judge in 2023 declined to block the city's referendum on adding the voter ID requirement.

Bonta and California Secretary of State Shirley Weber sued Huntington Beach last year, claiming that the amendment was preempted by state law and invalid.

Anthony Taylor, an attorney for the city, argued at Thursday's hearing that a recent executive order by President Donald Trump on "preserving and protecting the integrity of American elections" supported Huntington Beach's voter ID requirement and preempted California's election laws.

"We are confident that this one will be upheld," Taylor told the judge, referring to various legal challenges that the president's executive order tends to face in federal court. "It's not for a state court to invalidate it."

The city's voter ID requirement, which applies only to voters who show up to vote in person, is aimed at cutting down on voter fraud, which conservatives have long argued is an ever-present danger.

But most evidence points to voter fraud being a rare occurrence. Progressives have argued voter ID laws have the effect of suppressing voter turnout, particularly in low-income and minority communities. The evidence for that argument is mixed.

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Additional Reads

A judge has sided with Huntington Beach, for a second time, in a legal challenge to the city’s new voter ID law.

Huntington Beach Mayor Pat Burns issued a statement calling the ruling “a huge victory not only for our City but charter cities throughout the State … We will not back down in our efforts to secure local control over our local issues and will continue to fight for the City.”

The backstory

Huntington Beach voters approved a measure last year allowing the city to require people to show ID when casting a ballot. State officials say that contradicts California law, which asks voters to provide ID when they register to vote, but generally not at polling places. The state and a Huntington Beach resident subsequently sued the city.

What did the judge rule?

Orange County Superior Court Judge Nico Dourbetas ruled that, as a charter city, Huntington Beach is allowed to set its own rules for municipal elections. He also cited a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, which concluded that requiring voter ID does not violate the constitutional right to vote.

More Orange County news

President Trump’s plans for Voter ID

During a hearing last Thursday, lawyers for Huntington Beach asked the judge to take into consideration President Donald Trump’s recent executive order on election integrity, aimed at strengthening “voter citizenship verification.” The city said its voter ID rule would ensure its elections don’t run afoul of that order and a Congressional bill that aims to tighten requirements on voters to prove their citizenship.

What does the state say about the setback?

Both Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Attorney General Rob Bonta issued statements blasting the decision.

“The Court got it wrong,” Weber said. “Access to the ballot box is a key component of our democracy.” Bonta added that “we look forward to moving on and appealing the decision. We remain confident that Measure A will ultimately be struck down.”

What’s next?

More of those appeals. In fact, the state appellate court has already weighed in on the case, sending it back to Dourbetas earlier this year to issue a ruling for one side or the other — which the judge did today — so that the case can be appealed.

When would Voter ID start in the city?

Huntington Beach’s voter ID rule is set to go into effect in 2026, but the city has yet to specify whether or how it would implement it.

How we got here

Updated April 7, 2025 at 3:16 PM PDT

This story has been updated to includes comments from city and state officials.