Challenges Ahead for Lake Forest - Part 2

We're trying to focus on the issues that confront the City, rather than the never ending discussion about attack ads and fake news. Last time we talked about Public Safety, Finance, and Public Works.

TRAFFIC

Traffic is a major problem for us, and for just about everyone else in Orange County, though resident satisfaction studies show that our residents are more worried than our neighbors are. That’s because we have been building new homes at a rate significantly faster than any of our neighbors, and we have been placing these new homes right in the middle of the city, where the traffic problems bleed out into every direction. Other cities have focused new homes closer to the Freeway, but developers are more interested in land that allows for more expensive homes where they can make more profits. I’m not criticizing the developers who are in business and want to make a profit. The problem comes when they “buy” City Council members who are supposed to look out for the interests of the people, but because developers are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to elect these people and keep them in power, developers get whatever they ask for.

For years I tried to get a Traffic and Parking Commission (TPC). Voigts-Robinson-Hamilton opposed it. Funded by developers, they didn’t want any scrutiny of traffic and parking problems. Finally, with Hamilton out of office, we approved a TPC and they started just last month. I have high expectations from this group – 4 out of 5 of them have no history of taking developer money.

With our TPC now in place, we should be able to address our traffic problems in a more efficient and effective manner, but the challenges will remain.

HOMELESS

The “homeless challenge” needs to be addressed, but bear in mind that the homeless in our city are only a few dozen people and represent less than 1% of 1% of the population. I’ve written extensively about this problem. Click Here to get started.

THE POLICE CONTRACT

The costs of contracting with the County for Police services keep increasing every year. It’s grown not merely in money but also as a proportion of our budget, going from about 30% to nearly 40%. In some cities it is more than 50%. If these increases continue, at some point we will have to cut services. Many cities have already done this.

To try to get a handle on costs, last year I pushed for a multi-city analysis of costs. A few years earlier, Councilman Adam Nick and I asked for our own analysis, but the Voigts-Robinson-Hamilton dominated Council said "no". I expect the multi-city analysis will be in our hands by the end of the year and we can then begin to look for ways to save money.

Meanwhile, I have already launched several initiatives that will help save us money. Bear in mind, when it comes to public safety, maintaining the high quality of service is paramount. I'm only interested in cutting costs and not cutting quality. During my tenure on the Council we achieved the lowest crime rates in the history of the City. I'm not about to spoil that record.

Here are some of the initiatives in motion -

• Online Neighborhood Watch. At my initiative we met last week with the major supplier of front door monitoring equipment and we are trying to partner with them in a system that will not only protect homes, but also monitor streets, and assist law enforcement. This should lessen the time it takes for Police to respond to crimes as well as increasing the chances that we solve crimes, which means freeing up Police time for even more effective enforcement. I am really excited about this program.
• Homeless Case Management. You probably know that our Homeless Liaison Officers (HLO) have done a great job over the years, achieving nearly 30% successes every year getting people off the street. But the costs of having a Police Officer do what is basically social work creates financial problems. We are moved to engage a well-respected agency to do case management, and as we do this we will get better coverage (24/7) and our costs will go down as the HLO has time freed up to perform normal Police work.
• Parking Enforcement. Right now we use Police Officers to perform routine parking enforcement. The costs of having Police vs. civilians do this work are nearly double. We've been exploring the possibilities of adding civilian personnel and reducing the number of Police handling these routine activities. Cost savings may exceed $300,000 per year.

Tomorrow we'll discuss some other issues that await the City.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest where he serves as Mayor. 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 January.