Andrew Hamilton and the Recall - Part 3

We’ve been discussing the recall of Councilman Andrew Hamilton. We identified several aspects of his behavior which disturbed people to the extent that they are asking to have him removed from office. These behaviors included –

• Worst attendance at City events (Click Here)
• Worst participation in legislative process (Click Here)
• Meagre list of accomplishments (Click Here)
• Do nothing approach to government (Click Here)
• Group-think mentality when voting (Click Here and Here)
• Back-tracking on promises to constituents. (Click Here)
• Record of taking money from special interests and then voting 100% of the time in their favor. (Click Here)
• Questionable behavior as Mayor (Click Here and Here)
• Questionable behavior during recall of 2016 (Click here)

There appear to be so many reasons to recall Hamilton. But let’s look at the arguments not to recall him.

ALLEGATIONS ARE NOT TRUE

Hamilton argues that the allegations him are untrue. He calls them “whoppers” and “falsehoods”. If you’ve done your homework and read the past few articles, and especially if you’ve read the links, you know that everything printed here is true, and many of the items are not merely true, they are quantifiably true.

REPLACING HAMILTON WILL PRODUCE A NEW GANG OF 3

Hamilton argues that there is a grand conspiracy afoot to replace his Gang of 3 with a new Gang of 3. But all the evidence we have is that when Councilman Adam Nick and I served together, we voted together about 50% of the time. Now that I am serving with Mayor Pro Tem Basile, the agreement is still about 50%. Contrast that with Hamilton who agrees more than 90% of the time with his Gang members.

Basile, Nick, and I are independent thinkers who agree and disagree. What distinguishes us from the Gang of 3 is that we take no money from special interests and are free to vote for what we think is best for the residents. Hamilton and his Gang owe their allegiance to developers, builders, politicians, political action groups, and companies that do business with the City. They voter 100% of the time to give these people what they want, and because all 3 of them take the money, all 3 of them vote together on the issues.

Replacing Hamilton will not give us a new Gang of 3. It will give us a Gang of 2 (Voigts and Robinson) and 3 honest independent voices that represent the people.

HAMILTON ONLY HAS 2 YEARS MORE TO SERVE

Hamilton argues that he has a little less than two more years to serve, so why not wait until November of 2018 to vote him out of office. What harm can he do?

The answer is he can do a lot of harm. He’s already done a lot of harm. Here are a few examples –

Because he shares a “do nothing” attitiude with fellow Gang members, we are without

• A no kill animal shelter
• A Meals on Wheels program operating out of Lake Forest
• A nonprofit Community Foundation
• A dedicated Traffic Commission

These are just a few examples. Click Here for the full picture.

Because he masquerades as a “fiscal conservative” but in reality is a liberal spending, he has

• Refused to “cut the fat” from our $40 million + annual budget which could have saved us $2 million per year
• Voted for a $25,000 bonus to the City Manager (who received $300,000 in compensation)
• Voted to spend $1.5 million on a General Plan re-write when more than 85% of the City is already fully built-out and occupied.
• Voted to push through an expensive street sweeping contract so that his campaign contributor (Athens Services) could get the contract, instead of re-bidding to save $250,000.

By his votes, Andrew Hamilton has cost the city more than $4 million and if he stays in office he could cost us even more.

RECALLING HAMILTON WILL COST THE CITY

It’s true. Recalling Hamilton will cost the City about $30,000 when the Registrar of Voters certifies the 9,000 signatures to have him removed. This should be the only cost to the City. Once the writing is on the wall, Hamilton should save everyone the expense and stress of remaining in office. At that point he should resign. He only got 6,000 signatures to get elected, and last year even more people asked to remove him. Now that people know him better, he’d be lucky to get 100 votes.

In fact, in 2016 when the first recall was active, Hamilton spent thousands of dollars (of contributor money) top ask people to rescind their votes. How many people changed their minds after Hamilton’s plea? About 40! Of the nearly 7,000 people who asked to remove him, only 40 rescinded their vote. That’s how strong Hamilton’s support it.

BOTTOM LINE

There are many reasons to recall Hamilton and no reasons not to do it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest. You can check him out on LinkedIn and/or Facebook and you can share your thoughts about the City at Lake Forest Town Square on Facebook. His comments are not meant to reflect official City Policy.

Dr. Gardner has office hours every Tuesday from 4 pm to 6 pm at the City Hall. In addition, he holds a Town Hall meeting every quarter. The next meeting will be in May.