Breaking: HB City Councilmember Will Replace Hoskinson Tonight
Note: This story was first posted December 19, 2016, and is re-posted at this time for perspective.
By John Earl
Surf City Voice
Huntington Beach Council-member Erik Peterson confirmed to the Surf City Voice by email this morning that Michael Hoskinson, his representative on the Planning Commission for the past two years, has resigned and will be replaced at tonight’s city council meeting.
Rumors of Hoskinson’s resignation have circulated since December 13 when he announced that he would not attend a Planning Commission meeting scheduled that night.
But Hoskinson told the Voice by Facebook Messenger that he did not resign.
“Good morning, I wasn’t aware I had resigned, do you know something I don’t or has Connie Boardman’s ‘Gaming the Ref’ insanity gotten to you as well ?”
Boardman is a former Huntington Beach mayor who openly called for Hoskinson’s resignation after publication of the Voice story.
When told that Peterson had confirmed his resignation by email, Hoskinson replied that, “He’s the boss, if he says i’m out I’m out, I serve at his pleasure.”
No reason for the “resignation” was given by Peterson, but calls for Hoskinson’s firing or resignation have steamrolled ever since the Surf City Voice wrote about anti-Semitic and racist undercurrents in lectures he gave on “political correctness” to local Tea Party gatherings in recent months.
Those comments were accompanied by what the commissioner later called “metaphorical” threats of violence, including assassination, made to alleged “cultural Marxists”, i.e., feminists, environmentalists, and advocates of “multiculturalism” –who he believes are part of a Jewish-Marxist originated conspiracy to destroy Western culture.
Hoskinson and his supporters defended him, claiming that the Voice article was part of a smear campaign by progressive practitioners of political correctness to silence him.
When contacted by the Voice this morning, Hoskinson blamed this writer for “stirring up a hornet’s nest” about his anti-Muslim views and warned that he would hold me accountable for any blow-back.
“On another subject, as you stirred up the hornet’s nest with the misdirection about Islam and it was written about on the front page of the Pilot, if any harm comes to my family, friends or me from it you will answer to me, are we clear ?”
Actually, my story didn’t mention any of the numerous instances of Hoskinson’s well-known anti-Muslim bigotry.
And when I asked Hoskinson if I should contact the police about his threat, or if it was only metaphorical, his reply was indicative of the paranoid ideation that I did, in fact, describe in my original story:
“I’ll be writing a letter to the editor of the LA Times and CCing it to the city attorney and Chief as well. I remember Charlie Hebdo and take these folks seriously.”
Tonight’s city council meeting begins at 6 p.m. at City Hall.
Note: This story was updated within minutes of first publication to include Mr. Hoskinson’s response.