Challenges Ahead for Lake Forest - Part 3

So far we’ve been discussing issues that the next City Council will have to deal with. They include public safety, finance, public works, traffic, homelessness, and the police contract. Here are a few more -

NEW HOMES

From the entire time that Lake Forest was created until 2018, the majority of the Council were elected by using money from developers. Sometimes the entire Council took special interest money - Tettemer, Herzog, Dixon, McCullough, and Rudolph all accepted thousands of special interest dollars. In 2018, when Col. Tom Cagley joined the Council, it was the first time EVER that 3 of the 5 people on the Council didn't take money from special interests. Sitting out there is a proposal from Toll Brothers to build 800 new homes in the Nakase Nursery area. Toll Brothers spent $68,000 trying to keep Andrew Hamilton in office so that he could vote for their project. They lost.

Now developers and special interests are spending more than $100,000 to kick me out and replace me with Mark Tettemer, a man who took developer money in the past and always voted to give them what they asked for. Just in case Tettemer doesn't get in, they are spending money for Neeki Moatazedi to replace Tom Cagley. If either Tettemer OR Moatazedi get in, the Council will once more belong to the developers and you can be sure that Toll Brothers will get the votes they need. 800 new homes will generate more than 6,000 extra vehicle trips per day, all of them in an area of the City that already saw 4,000 new homes.

Most people agree that the City should grow, but the question is what kind of growth and where should the growth be? Last year the Council asked Toll Brothers to undertake an independent study to answer this question. They declined. It was reminiscent of the 2012 Council that asked Brookfield to undertake a similar study. Brookfield refused, then spent $60,000 to kick out Marcia Rudolph and replace her with Dwight Robinson, giving Brookfield the majority they needed to build their homes.

EL TORO

The on and off ramps at El Toro and the 5 Freeway are under consideration for major changes. The off ramp is in Laguna Hills so the construction there is not going to impact us greatly, but the on ramp may have great impact on the businesses on Bridger Road, depending on which plan is adopted. So far the CalTrans officials have been wavering between a series of plans, but eventually they will come up with a plan and then the City will have to respond.

RISING EXPECTATIONS

Two factors are converging to make life more difficult for City employees. First, the 5,000 new homes are bringing a better educated and higher income population into the City, and their expectations for the quality of services are higher than normal. Second, for decades the City performed poorly and no one expected much. Recently we have been performing much better, so the level of expectation has risen organicly.

Rising expectations will require quicker and more effective responses, and this will require either more staff, better staff, or technological innovations. Regardless of the solution(s) chosen, meeting rising expectations will challenge the new Council.

ANIMAL CARE

For years I fought with the Supervisors to give us a better animal shelter and better care. This year we finally got the new shelter, but I'm not sure we're getting the better care we asked for, although we are getting hefty increases in our costs of care. The solution is to have a local animal shelter and I initiated contact with Irvine and Mission Viejo for them to partner with us - we're waiting their response. If they say "no" or if the costs quoted are too high, we have the additional option of creating our own local shelter. I've already done the numbers and I am convinced we can do this with better care at a lower cost. Getting this done in the next year will be a major challenge.

A FULL PLATE

Because we have done more in the past year than any Council did in any comparable time, or in fact in any time, we now have a very ambitious schedule. At the start of the year I told the City Manager that I would be pushing a great many things her way, and I wanted her to yell "Stop" when the plate was too full. She has, but to her credit, an awful lot of innovation and advances have been started. Here's a partial list -

• Finishing the Civic Center and keeping it on time and on budget
• Getting the 10 neighborhood parks updated on time and on budget
• Stopping the wildlife problems at Veterans Park
• Getting Portola Park built on time and on budget
• Getting our new mobile app up and running
• Getting our Online Neighborhood Watch up and running
• Changing our street sweeping policy and adding enforcement
• Continuing our progress with the homeless

Keeping these projects moving forward will be a major task for the next Council.

Having reviewed some of the challenges facing the Council in the next few years, I want to see which of the Council candidates is up to the task. That will be next time.

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.