City Council - The Agenda is the Agenda

Last week I printed a long list of items that are waiting to be discussed by the Council, and for some unknown reason they don’t seem to appear (Click Here). Since that publication I got some additional insight on two of the items.

USE OF GARAGES (April 7, 2015)

A legal opinion about the ability of the City to inspect the garages of people who are asking to be given exclusive use of city streets was requested 6 months ago but never reached the Council. Our Attorney called me after he saw this item listed in my article and indicated that his opinion letter had been finished months ago, but was waiting for the next time that the issue came up. I said that if we waited for the next time the issue came up, we would already be behind, because the request (and paperwork and research) would already be in process, so the introduction of a new element would only disrupt everyone. Better to get it out of the way so that its inclusion was decided before the next group approached the City. The Attorney agreed and the item is on its way. One down, 14 to go!

WILDLIFE ORDINANCE EVALUATION (Mar 3, 2015)

During my Council Comments at the last Council meeting, I bemoaned the long list of items not being brought to the Council, and the City Manager disagreed with my conclusions about the evaluation of the effects of the wildlife ordinance prohibiting feeding waterfowl at Village Pond Park. I said that the “quantitative evaluation” of the effects of the Wildlife ordinance was long overdue and should have come to the Council before the Village Pond Park re-design was on the table. That way, we might save hundreds of thousands of dollars in unneeded design features if the problem was substantially solved by enforcement of the ordinance, something I believe would happen.

Mr. Dunek was confident that the results of the study of the ordinance’s effectiveness was not due until after the Pond was re-modeled. That position makes absolutely no sense, not only from the POV of the economics of saving money in the re-design, but from a research perspective as well. If you wait until after the pond is re-modeled, how could you possibly separate the effects of the ordinance from the re-model? But making no sense has never been a legitimate reason for the City to do something, so it was possible that Mr. Dunek was correct – the report was not due until after the park was re-modeled.

I hate making mistakes, but I do make them. I try to learn from them so that I don’t make them again, and so I hunted down the two Council sessions in which the issue was discussed, read the minutes, and also listened to the videotapes (Thank Goodness that we tape these sessions).

If you listen to the tape of the March 3 meeting, it is very clear that the “quantitative component” was separate from the ordinance, and that it was the ordinance that was scheduled to be reviewed after the Pond was re-modeled (which makes sense). The results of the study were due prior to the plans being reviewed. It was as I remembered it.

Apparently Mr. Dunek was holding off on the study because he didn’t think it was due for quite some time. How many more of the dozen plus issues are being held up because of a misunderstanding like this? And how do we even know that there is a misunderstanding?

THE NEED TO REVIEW

At the last Council meeting I asked my colleagues to agendize a discussion of the process behind our setting of the agenda, because I was upset that so many important items were not being dealt with. Councilman Adam Nick understood and seconded my appeal immediately. Our two colleagues, Scott Voigts and Andrew Hamilton, sat with blank stares (Dwight Robinson was absent). The motion failed and so we will continue on our merry way, leaving many important items on the back burner, hoping in vein that they will appear. Ultimately they will. Some might take as long as 29 months to see the light of day, but eventually we will get to them. But in the meantime, many of these items have financial consequences (e.g., wildlife ordinance, costs of July 4th parade, CDBG funding for seniors, police cost savings) and others have quality of life implications (e.g., improving the appearance of Whispering Hills, alternatives to animal care). There are few issues in front of us more important than improving the way we go about setting our agenda. At the next City Council meeting I will introduce this item again and I hope, with Councilman Robinson in attendance, we might have enough votes to place it on the agenda soon.

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 on Dec 12 at 2 pm at the Foothill Ranch Public Library.

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