Why Lisa Barnes is unfit to be Huntington Beach City Clerk

First person experience that disqualifies her.

We recently had a deep conversation with Annette Eliot, President of the Huntington Harbour Republican Women’s Federated, a respected nonprofit group in HB for over 50 years, about Lisa Barnes and her fitness for office.

Carla Strickland, Kelly Gates and Lisa Barnes

During her tenure as President of Huntington Harbour Republican Women Federated, Annette Eliot had the following experiences working with Lisa Lane Greer Barnes, candidate for Huntington Beach City Clerk.

As president of Huntington Harbour Republican Women Federated, Eliot appointed Lisa Barnes as their club Treasurer in September is 2022. Ms. Barnes assured her that she had a background in business and could do the job. Barnes told Eliot her experience was in Industrial Cleaning Products as a sales rep. Although Ms. Barnes's work background was not as a Treasurer, Eliot knew the skills needed for Treasurer were at most an understanding of entry-level Bookkeeping 101. A skill that every business major possesses. Ms. Barnes also seemed willing to put in the time to do the job and was overtly interested in getting involved. 

However, early on after Ms. Barnes took the position, Eliot observed the club’s deposits were not being made on a timely basis due to Ms. Barnes not making enough trips to the bank to adequately make deposits to keep up with the job. In addition, and most disturbing, was that Ms. Barnes demonstrated to be overly challenged by the job procedures. Barnes often became flustered at board meetings because she wasn’t grasping the job. Barnes demonstrated frustration at the learning curve and the amount of time needed to do the job of Treasurer.

In May 2023, under the direction of Tony Strickland, several of HHRWF’s board members left HHRWF to join a PAC (Political Action Committee) called Huntington Beach Republican Women (HBRW) that was deceptively disguised as a club that Strickland, his wife Carla Strickland and Michael Gates’ wife Kelly Gates started. This new PAC seemed as an extension of Strickland's other fund raising PAC's focusing on increasing Strickland's power in Huntington Beach, generating personal income and raising money for candidates who he was supporting. Lisa Barnes followed Carla Strickland to the new PAC.

Upon leaving Huntington Harbour Republican Women's Federated, evidently to gain power and enable them to steal members away from HHRWF, Carla Strickland along with Lisa Barnes started spreading untrue rumors, lies and negative rhetoric about Annette Eliot and the Republican Women Federated organization. Eliot consulted with other political Republicans about what Carla Strickland was doing by spreading untruths and they assured her, “This was all political corruption, they try and tear down their opponents that threaten them. Strickland is trying to gain power, that’s what political hacks do."

After badly losing Measure C in March 2024, the Strickland anger continued towards Eliot because she did not support their 2 year budget measure that was defeated. Carla Strickland and Julie Guite, both supporters of Measure A,B, and C, decided to file a police report against Ms. Eliot stating HHRWF had 25 missing memberships from March of 2023. Eliot had not spoken to these people in over a year nor did they have any contact with anything related to Huntington Harbour Republican Women Federated in that time.  

Ms. Eliot was shocked and knew nothing about what she was accused of. To her knowledge no money was missing from HHRWF accounts. Eliot immediately went and spoke with the HB police detective, taking HHRWF records for his review. After her discussion with the detective, he concurred that there was nothing substantial to the complaint. The filing was nothing more than political hijinks using law-fare as political retaliation that Tony Strickland and his wife Carla were using against their opponents. HBPD saw that there was no evidence to support the claim and closed the case.  

Why are these political hijinks important and how does it implicate Lisa Barnes?   During the time stated by Strickland when these memberships went missing, the Treasurer of Huntington Harbour Republican Women Federated was Lisa Barnes. All the mail containing checks was collected by Lisa Barnes who had the post office key to the HHRWF mailbox. As club Treasurer, Ms. Barnes was on the bank account, she collected all the checks and made all the bank deposits. That was not Ms. Eliot’s job as President.  If checks were missing, the person responsible was Lisa Barnes. Therefore, according to Strickland, since Barnes was in charge of HHRWF deposits and finances, it is Barnes herself who is culpable and the is real suspect of the missing memberships stated in Carla Strickland’s charges.

In conclusion, the position of City Clerk is far more demanding than being the Treasurer of a little nonprofit club. After reviewing Ms. Barnes's abilities, it is clear that Ms. Barnes does not possess the skills needed to adequately fulfill the duties of City Clerk. The workers in the City Clerk's office will then be unduly tasked to pick up Ms. Barnes's slack. Overall, the requirements of the Clerk’s job are far above Lisa Barne’s abilities, competency level and pay grade. 

Lisa Barnes must not be allowed to turn the City Clerk's office into a calamity of political hijinks and law-fare. She is not competent or trustworthy to do the job as Huntington Beach City Clerk.