City Council at 100 Days - Part 4

We started this series by looking at what was accomplished in the first 100 days last year (Click Here) and then examining what’s been happening this year. We began with a discussion of some general projects (Click Here), then looked at projects involving the Police Union who’ve been a major contributor to the campaigns of 4 of the people sitting on the new Council (Click Here).

Here’s what we learned so far

• We are still on budget for the Civic Center. That's good.
• We did manage to get the Ring rebate established, even though it was two months late (better late than never).
• The much needed fee schedule study has yet to emerge, meaning we will probably not meet the desired goal to thoroughly evaluate this program prior to opening the Civic Center, which means a loss in revenue due to the fact our fees were generated 10 years ago.
• Our street sweeping program that could save us $100K a year has been pushed back for more than a year
• The opening of the Civic Center has been delayed from Summer to Fall. This will mean more than $1 million in extra costs.
• The much needed Performing Arts Director position has yet to be filled, meaning we miss out on hundreds of thousands of new income.
• After a very promising start, our two mobile apps have languished
• Transitioning the homeless program from Police services to social agency services could save $200K per year, but has not been discussed.
• Transitioning parking enforcement from Police services to civilian enforcement could save us $250K to $500K per year, but has not been discussed.
• Analyzing the results of the multi-city study to reduce the costs of Police services while maintaining the existing quality could save us untold millions of dollars per year, but has not been discussed.

Today our focus is on other projects which impact the companies or organizations that support the Do Nothing Council.

Affordable Homes

In 2017 we engaged an agency to help us develop more affordable homes. They spent a year and came up with nothing. For some reason, their contract was extended. As of today there is still nothing constructive happening.

(A skeptic would say that the hundreds of thousands of dollars being contributed to the “Do Nothing” Gang come from developers who build upper and high priced luxury homes, not affordable homes. There isn’t much profit in building affordable homes, and the developers who line the pockets of the “Do Nothing” Gang are adverse to building affordable homes because the space that builds affordable homes could better be used to make more profitable luxury homes. Given the enormous influence that developers exert over 4 of the Council members, affordable homes will be difficult to create.)

Local animal shelter

Tettemer, Voigts, and Robinson were big supporters of the County shelter. They supported it even when the shelter was under continuous investigation by the Grand Jury, and the kill rate was in excess of 50% and among the worst in the nation.

In 2018 we had to push the staff into trying to get agreements with other cities to partner with us in creating our own local shelter. The City of Irvine refused to partner with us (FWIW – Scott Voigts’ day job is working as an assistant to Irvine Mayor Don Wagner) and we are still waiting on a response from Mission Viejo. Even for government work this is painfully slow.

(A skeptic would say that the “Do Nothing” Gang is part of a cabal that includes the Board of Supervisors and the Gang relies on their endorsement and their funding to get elected. Is it any wonder why Tettemer and Voigts voted to allow maximum security prisoners to be placed in Musick Jail that borders on Lake Forest? So when the Board of Supervisors wants them to stick with the County, they stick with the Country, regardless of the interests of the residents.)

Street Sweeping

Last year we considered dropping the street sweeping schedule from 52 times per year (once per week) to 39 times per year (every week during the busy time of the year, and every-other week during the slow time). Many cities in Orange County have street sweeping 26 times a year, so 39 times is a good compromise that promises to save us hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The issue came to the new Council in February and for some unknown reason the project was put off until mid-2020, at the earliest.

(A skeptic would say that the money that Athens Services gives to the campaigns of the “Do Nothing Gang” is the major reason to delay this project. Right now Athens has the city’s street sweeping contract, but if the contract is re-bid Athens stands a good chance of losing the project. With Athens out of the picture, the campaign contributions would stop; reason enough to delay the project as long as possible.)

The Big Stink

Anybody who ever walked or drove down Muirlands Blvd. between Lake Forest Dr. and Bake Pkwy. and past the IRWD Muirlands Water Recycling plan knows what the “big stink” is. Some days the stink is so bad that you can literally taste it in your mouth. Some days it is so bad that it extends all the way from Bake to Lake Forest Drive. As if the stink isn’t problem enough, the plant generates insects that spread beyond the area covered by the stink.

Last year we met with IRWD who claimed that there was nothing they could do because the equipment and resources were outdated and they didn’t want to spend the money to upgrade the plant because they were not convinced that the location warranted a long term commitment. FWIW – Mayor Tettemer’s day job is to manage this plant, among his other duties.

Summary

Here's today's summary of the progress on projects that were well underway last year and by now should either have come to fruition or at least been discussed -

• We should have started creating affordable homes with the $4 million plus available to us, but we haven’t even started the discussion.
• For a local animal shelter we should have either partnered with a neighboring city or started our own analysis yet we have made no progress since last year.
• We could have renegotiated our street sweeping contract from 52 times per year to 39 times per year and saved money, but we put this off until mid 2020
• After failed negotiations with IRDW something needs to be done about the stink from the water recycling plant on Muirlands, managed by Mark Tettemer, yet nothing has been done.

Next time we'll summarize and explore the situation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner was on the Lake Forest City Council from 2014 to 2018 and Mayor in 2018. Under his leadership the City became the first debt free city in the U.S. with a population over 25,000 people and the first city to live broadcast City Council meetings that allowed residents to participate online (Click Here). Dr. Gardner is one of the organizing members of Lake Forest Community Action Network. 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