Council Runs Misdirection Play in Plain Sight

You would think that having upset thousands of voters so much so that they signed a petition to have them recalled, Andrew Hamilton, Scott Voigts and Dwight Robinson would do their best to win back the voters’ trust.

Judging by what happened at the Lake Forest City Council meeting over the past month, you’d be wrong.

Given an opportunity to show some accountability and make sure the record was correct, the three councilmen who were subjects of a recall effort managed to play loosey-goosey with the truth in an effort to mislead the people of Lake Forest once more.

The scene could not have been more ripe for revealing the true nature of those involved. Jerry Verplancke—the most senior member of the city’s Planning Commission—stood before the council on May 17 during the public comments portion of the agenda and asked about the validity of some comments attributed to Hamilton, Adam Nick and Jim Gardner. It was clear that Verplancke, reading from a flier from the Committee to recall Hamilton, Voigts and Robinson (who have collectively become known as the “Gang of 3” or HVR) was trying to assess the validity of the flier’s content by getting some questions answered. And he got answers, but not all of them straight.

Here’s what the flier (pictured above) said:

Robinson, Voigts & Hamilton: On June 2, 2015, they voted against Lake Forest hosting “Meals On Wheels”, a program that would have cost no tax dollars. “Too much trouble”, they said. “I don’t feel particularly charitable today.” Councilman Hamilton was overheard mockingly saying after his vote.

In fact, there was no official vote—a point made by Verplancke, who listened to the meeting on the internet. The council majority had changed the rule for items to be placed on its agenda. The new rule required three council members sign off on an item; previously, consent was needed from only two council members. If three council members don’t agree an item is worth discussing, it will never come up for an official vote during a meeting; this means the council is essentially voting no, but voting unofficially. On June 2, 2015, Nick and Gardner wanted to discuss Meals On Wheels and consider the service organization’s request; Hamilton, Voigts and Robinson did not. Because there weren’t three votes of consent, the matter never had a chance and died.

Verplancke asked Hamilton if he was responsible for the “too much trouble” quote.

Hamilton eventually responded, “I am not the one who said that.” And Hamilton was correct. Verplancke had misread the flier which, despite a punctuation mistake, made fairly clear that Hamilton had said the second quote in the flier, “I don’t feel particularly charitable today.”

The person who said “too much trouble” was Robinson. Instead of making sure that Verplancke walked away from the podium with a clear answer, Robinson didn’t speak up and explain that he was the one responsible for the quote in question. Verplancke walked away under the impression that “too much trouble” was a fabricated quote because Hamilton said he didn’t say it.

But before walking away, Verplancke asked Nick if the quote attributed to him was correct: “The dissenting vote by Robinson, Voigts and Hamilton was unconscionable and defied common sense.” Nick promptly said he was quoted “precisely word for word.”

Verplancke asked Gardner if he said, “Their vote was typical of how the three almost always vote in lockstep and against the interest of the people.” Gardner confirmed.

Yet there was another element to Verplancke’s three minutes he was afforded in public comments (same as all residents who are interested in confronting the council).

“There was no such vote on Meals on Wheels … and so I was kind of wondering how did we get a piece that was so egregious in its falsehood out in the public,” Verplancke said. “And it disappoints me because you five gentlemen are charged with the responsibility to lead this thing.”

The facts in the flier were correct. The “vote” was for consent, and Hamilton, Voigts and Robinson clearly indicated their lack of interest in providing support for Meals On Wheels when given the opportunity. By withholding consent, they effectively voted against it.

But now the story takes a turn—for the worst.

Voigts chimed in as Verplancke was walking away from the podium, “For the record … I support Meals on Wheels.”

Actually, for the record, Voigts does not support Meals on Wheels. He had an opportunity to put the item on an agenda so that his city could provide an unused room at no taxpayer expense for the program, but he would not even give the motion a required third (after Nick’s proposal and Gardner’s second) in order for the council to be able to discuss the item.

Voigts doesn’t support Meals on Wheels, Voigts supports soccer. That’s why there are, what, about a dozen soccer fields in this city and he wants the proposed site of a community garden to instead be an indoor soccer park. If Voigts supported Meals on Wheels, volunteers would today have access to an empty room in which they could prepare food for the elderly in this community. All Voigts had to do was consent and then vote for it. Instead, he’s a do-nothing member of a do-nothing council.

Just mark “I support Meals on Wheels” as another mile logged on the Voigts fib-o-meter.

At least Voigts told his lie quickly and then got out of it. Robinson, on the other hand, went on and on about how he supports Meals on Wheels, and that he has volunteered with Meals on Wheels (at least once, conveniently, right after the Meals on Wheels proposal was turned away).

But at the conclusion of the public comments, Robinson went over the top in his explanation to Verplancke about Meals On Wheels: “I have a fiduciary responsibility to make sure I take care of your tax dollars and make sure that we focus on our No. 1 priorities, which for the most part for local government revolves around public safety and infrastructure … I haven’t been supportive of spending city dollars [for Meals on Wheels], but I’ve definitely advocated both personally as well as through social media for people to get involved in this very valuable organization.”

Robinson’s claim of “fiduciary responsibility” as a reason for not providing consent to discuss whether to allow Meals on Wheels to use an empty room at City Hall at no cost to the taxpayers is laughable. What did he want, Meals on Wheels to pay for use of a vacant room?

Playing the Fiduciary Responsibility card is abominable. Meals On Wheels was just asking for an empty room, of which there are many at City Hall.

Robinson also indicated in his response that “public safety and infrastructure” were the most important elements of local government. Yet back in October, when the public safety of the community of Portola Hills was at risk over the construction of Saddleback Ranch Road (which falls under the infrastructure umbrella), Robinson, Voigts and Hamilton refused to give consent—just as they refused to give consent to Meals on Wheels—to place the item on an agenda to discuss it. It wasn’t until after they were served with recall papers that they were willing to discuss it, which resulted in the road being fixed. Had they discussed it before, the road would have been fixed before.

At the most recent city council meeting, on June 7, Verplancke returned to the podium and asked council members to apologize to the other council members they may have injured with their words, and to forgive each other, and to work together. Verplancke apologized to Nick and Gardner for having spoken ill of them, and they graciously accepted. Meanwhile, neither Robinson nor Hamilton—who’s the mayor, by the way—never corrected the record with Verplancke from the previous meeting. Robinson and Hamilton continued to let Verplancke think the political flier, which was essentially accurate, was “egregious in its falsehood.” Imagine, they allowed a sitting planning commissioner to remain in the dark. Verplancke didn’t deserve to have the wool pulled over his eyes, and neither do the other residents of Lake Forest.

Verplancke had said that if he had a problem with a council member, he should have confronted the council member -- a reference to his apology to Nick and Gardner. It will be interesting to see if Verplancke confronts Robinson and Hamilton for their misdirection play. It will also be interesting to hear their response.

It has never been more important to listen to the rhetoric of Hamilton, Voigts and Robinson as they try to spin their way past criticism. For four months, they refused to account for their actions and voting record and instead tried to smear the other two members of the council.

Now, they want to rewrite history one misdirection at a time.

About the author: Martin Henderson won several Los Angeles and Orange County press club awards while an editor at Patch in 2012-13.