Gracey Van Der Mark and Tito Ortiz are Powering the Wildest Huntington Beach City Council Race Ever

Following the sudden withdrawal of the anti-mask, the former UFC fighter city council member, Huntington Beach, California, is heading for a wild special election, which was highlighted by a candidate who filmed himself in protest with the men, who later went to the polls. attack the U.S. Capitol and drink the blood of the goats in idolatry.

From the end of December to June 1, Tito Ortiz served as a city councilor for Huntington Beach and a “major pro tem.” The months were worth it even for Ortiz, the former UFC champion. Before leaving last month, he claimed that the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol was a “false flag,” called for a boycott of the burger restaurant, asked for a face mask, and was stripped of the library (also over a masking dispute).

With Ortiz’s removal, Huntington Beach City Council was tasked with choosing his successor or otherwise sending the race to a special election. There is a chaotic process where the city is flirting with its most distant representative.

In a consecutive July 19 meeting, the council narrowed its selection to three candidates, out of a total of about 100 candidates. One, is Grace Van Der Mark heir to the Ortiz fan base, obtaining the approval of a former consultant. But Van Der Mark is also a well-known figure in the region’s far-right scene, dating back to 2017, when he and other marginalized figures staged an anti-racism rally in the Jewish center.

Neither Van Der Mark nor Ortiz declined to comment on the story.

Republican Surfing City, Huntington Beach Trump is friendly the territory of a short drive from the more liberal Los Angeles. Ortiz’s election in November was a testament to that Trumpist tendency; he previously competed (and lost) on Trump’s reality show Disciple, and seized conversations with the former president during a campaign rally.

“They want to go down and burn this city down,” Ortiz said call leftists in a speech in October. “They rape women and children. Bulshit, not to my watch! ”

He also insisted that he never wore a mask, spreading conspiracy theories about the “pandemic” spread of COVID-19, and suggested that a life-saving ventilator could actually accelerate the progression of the virus. In recent days, the pandemic has shown signs of a new rise, almost exclusively among unvaccinated individuals, both in Orange County and in LA.

Although Ortiz resigned in June amid media pressure, he then threw his support behind Van Der Mark, who won a fourth month in the top three city council elections. The remaining members of the city council are responsible for appointing Ortiz’s replacement.

During last week’s tumultuous meeting, consultants were unable to choose one. But Ortiz joined the high crowd with supporters of Van Der Mark, and nominated Eric Peterson, a current member of the council, to replace Van Der Mark as the MAGA illuminator. Peterson did not return a request for comment.

Young Clayton-Tarwin, a board member of the Pacific Board of Trustees in the High School Type District, is a high-profile supporter of Van Der Mark.

“This is an example of him,” Clayton-Tarvin, who previously worked with Van Der Mark, told the Daily Beast. “He is a violator, he is a fanatic and he has no place in public administration. Nothing. ”

Van der Mark’s online history shows long-term engagement with the right people.

In April 2017, according to a Facebook post reviewed by The Daily Beast, she shared a photo of it. an event with Kyle “Based Part” Chapman. Chapman, a fierce right-wing fighter and leader of the Alt-Knights boys’ militia, earned his nickname months ago when videos surfaced on the internet that he hit a left-handed fighter, causing arrest and final agreement on arms charges. (Chapman, who did not return a request for comment, later separated from the proud boys, claims to start its version with an anti-inflammatory name.)

“My son received some advice from Based Stick Man on how to protect himself against anti-masked cowards against patriotic rallies and events. [sic]”Van Der Mark wrote on Facebook.

The meeting was far from the only one of its kind. The Daily Beast took a selfie with Van Der Mark on a date Antonio Forman. Foreman, who did not return a request for comment, has his own true history of lies: In June 2017, he filmed himself reciting a neo-fascist slogan and marched in August 2017 at a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

It was an active month for the remote California scene in June.

On June 10, Van Der Mark attended an anti-Islamic event in San Bernardino. Photos of the day show him wearing a gun shirt and standing behind his right right “Johnny Benitez” wearing a Proud Boys uniform and holding a poster mem on the ethnic cleansing of Muslims. Couldn’t contact him.

At another point of the day, Van Der Mark took group photos with the exhibitors. The photo included several men dressed as Proud Boys, a man holding a “death of a sick Islamic dog” sign and members of the Upper Movement, a violent group of white nationalists who clashed with leftists at the event. Violence of the day was brought later in a criminal case against four RAM members, although Van Der Mark had nothing to do with the case.

In July 2017, Van Der Mark joined a number of celebrities and toured the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Santa Monica, where he held a seminar on white supremacy. During the show, other members of the rebel group shook hands with Black seminar participants and shouted and “deported” him to a Latin woman who was arguing with them. Also with Van Der Marc Benitez, Vincent James Fox, Tim “Cooked Alaska” Gionet and Augustus Sol Invictus, OC of the week reported.

Foxx was a vlogger that with Move from the top. Meanwhile, Gionet and Invictus will become famous when they are listed as performers at the deadly Charlottesville rally. Zionet has been accused of allegedly spraying spores on an Arizona bar in December 2020. while in that case the hostage was pledged, pressed himself directly and on January 6 entered the U.S. Capitol and shouted at the police inside. (Gionet claims he only took part in the riot.) Invictus (who changed his name from “Austin Gillespie”) is a former libertarian senator who has long-held political dreams when it is revealed that he killed a goat. and drank its blood in an idolatrous ceremony. It is Invictus now in prison awaiting trial at one of his many allegations of domestic violence.

Van Der Mark has uploaded videos of the Simon Wiesenthal Center show to YouTube. “The meeting was presided over by Jewish elders who were there,” she wrote in a deleted video. OC of the week. “People of color were there, and the Jewish elders gave them orders.”

Van Der Mark, who is Latina, told the store in 2018 that he doesn’t have “paint” as a slander. But as Weekly noted that his commentary used old conspiracy theories about Jewish people secretly with people of color in order to destroy the white community. In the Weekly also reported that Van Der Mark had a YouTube playlist called “Holocaust Scams?” by showing anti-Semitic videos and he advocated the burning of a neo-fascist book as “burning magazines and literature using our children”.

Van Der Mark’s right-wing relationship was not discovered until he took over the role of local government.

MediaNews Group / Orange County Registry via Getty

Clayton-Tarvin, a trustee of the local school council, said she hired him in 2017 when Van Der Mark was the only candidate for a tax control position on the school board. Van Der Mark soon took a second role on the Huntington Beach Financial Commission. And although Van Der Mark missed his school concert in 2018, after the samosas flagged his right contact with Clayton-Tarvin, Van Der Mark retained his role on the city’s Finance Commission.

A city consul who led the investigation into Van Der Mark said Los Angeles Times in 2018 that he did not see sufficient evidence to exclude him from the commission.

“From this process, I will find insufficient evidence to find a fair argument for his removal from the voluntarily appointed position,” a council member who is no longer performing his duties told the publication. “I have full confidence in Grace’s ability to serve in the Finance Commission and look forward to her continued service to the community.”

Van Der Mark then started a school request, lost, started a city council proposal, and was defeated again, despite support from the local GOP and then-Rep. Dana Rohrabacher. Now, Ortiz’s departure and the new enthusiasm of his fans for Van Der Mark’s latest campaign has probably hit him hard.

Earlier this month, Ortiz said on Facebook that city council members “intend to elect your next deputy through a secret debate – without debate and public input in a closed session last Monday night. I urge the council to reconsider this method of dealing backwards and instead choose the people from the previous election – Grace Van Der Mark. ”

Monday night’s meeting was not, in fact, a “behind-the-scenes deal,” but a crowded public event with supporters of Van Der Mark, who said his fourth term in the November election should elect him for Ortiz’s seat. Ortiz himself attended the meeting with a Van Der Mark shirt. If city council members do not elect Ortiz by July 31, the race will go to a snap election. The other two remaining candidates for the race are Rhonda Bolton, a local MP who is on the city’s human rights working group; and Jeff Morin, who runs the disaster planning business and is deputy chairman of the city’s air traffic commission.

Despite Van Der Mark’s right-wing support, Clayton-Tarvin looked at his city council with skepticism.

“He’s not a representative of Huntington Beach citizens,” Clayton-Tarvin said. “He wore Tito Ortiz’s shirt to get that position. So he got there. If he hadn’t been in the race, he would have been at the bottom, as it was when he ran for the Ocean View School District Board in 2018. ”