City Council at 100 Days - Part 5

We’ve been spending the week looking at the new Council’s performance in their first 100 days. We began (Click Here) by summarizing the first 100 days last year to give us a baseline against which to evaluate the Council’s performance this year. To summarize briefly, last year we established more than three dozen new and effective ways to better communicate, to improve our quality of life, and to make government work better. Most of these innovations continue to this date.

Here in 2019 the new Council has initiated not a single new project.

Putting aside their inability to initiate any new projects, we looked at how far they’ve progressed on more than a dozen projects that were still in various stages of completion last year (Click Here and Here). Here are the results –

PROJECTS IMPACTING OUR FINANCES

1. We are still on budget for the Civic Center
2. The start of the Civic Center has been pushed back from Summer to Fall, meaning we will have at least $1 million in extra costs.
3. 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 loss of revenue since our fee schedule was set 10 years ago.
4. Our multi-city street sweeping program that could save us $100K a year has been pushed back for more than a year
5. The opening of the Civic Center has been delayed from Summer to Fall. This will mean more than $1 million in extra costs.
6. The much needed Performing Arts Director position has yet to be filled, meaning we miss out on hundreds of thousands of dollars of new income.
7. Transitioning the homeless program from Police services to social agency services could save $200K per year, but has not been discussed.
8. Transitioning parking enforcement from Police services to civilian enforcement could save us $250K to $500K per year, but has not been discussed.
9. 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.
10. We could have renegotiated our street sweeping contract from 52 times per year to 39 times per year and saved money, but the Council put this off until mid-2020

PROJECTS IMPACTING OUR QUALITY OF LIFE

1. We did manage to get the Ring rebate established, even though it was two months late (better late than never).
2. After a very promising start in 2017 and 2018, our two mobile apps have languished
3. We should have started creating affordable homes with the $4 million plus available to us, but we haven’t even started the discussion.
4. For a local animal shelter we should have either partnered with a neighboring city or started our own analysis yet we made no progress since last year.
5. 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.
6. A planned summer recreation program was supposed to be started but the City Council punted and won't consider until the budget hearings (so there is still time to get this done)
7. The Community Choice energy program was to be finalized but the Council punted and delayed any movement in this area.

SCOREBOARD

On only 2 of the 17 items was there any progress, and on one of these items (staying on budget) there really isn’t any “progress” – we’ve merely maintained the status quo.

Looking at the financial implications of the lack of progress, on a one-time basis, it looks like we are losing the opportunity to gain more than $1 million in new revenue (e.g., filling the Performing Arts Center position, setting a new fee schedule) and spending more than $1 million than we should (e.g., delaying the opening of the new Civic Center). On a recurring basis, we are spending more than $2 million per year than we should spend if we addressed the issues (e.g., Mercy House for homeless services, civilian parking enforcement, reduced street sweeping, multi-city Police study).

It's not merely a poor record, it is a harmful record.

Looked at from another perspective, it's clear that of the 17 issues/projects nearly half involve special interests, including Police unions and developers. Of those 9 issues that are not coveted by the special interests, in 2 instances (Civic Center on budget, Ring rebate) we did make some progress. Of the 8 issues coveted by special interests, no progress was made.

It's not merely a poor record, it is a shameful record.

Next time we'll go beyond projects and look at the atmosphere being created.

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