City Council Candidate Preview: Tom Cagley

There are six candidates lined up to replace Andrew Hamilton on City Council should voters in Lake Forest choose to recall him on Jan. 2, 2018. The primary reasons for the recall of Hamilton are his commitment to development in Lake Forest, his commitment to the high-kill Orange County animal shelter that locked the City into a 10-year contract that will cost millions extra, his decision to ignore the dangers of Saddleback Ranch Road until he faced a recall, and instances of unethical and just plain rude behavior.

Candidates vying for the available council seat are Tom Cagley, David Glick, Neeki Moatazedi, Mark Tettemer, Frank Wagoner and Stan Yombo.

First up in the series: Col. Tom Cagley (ret.)

Cagley is a retired Army colonel who is used to making big decisions with the personal safety of his constituents -- U.S. soldiers and, for that matter, American citizens -- at stake. If elected, he would be the most accomplished military figure in Lake Forest City Council history; if my research is correct, Richard Dixon achieved the rank of private.

Given El Toro’s legacy as a military town, and with the development of the veterans cemetery near the border with Irvine, Cagley would be a terrific representative on such a stage, and there are no other current Council members with a military background.

Notably, Cagley was permanently stationed in Europe to set up the bivouac training area in northern Germany for some 35,000 soldiers in 1987, and he traveled to more than 200 remote sites in western Europe to assess the quality of living for soldiers and assisted in improving their facilities when possible. His greater role might have been as Soviet Union Order of Battle specialist in which he literally made a career of tracking Soviet military forces, determining their training, and learning their habits and methods of deployment. This was no small responsibility.

In civilian life, he served on the Orange County Grand Jury, and worked as a Disaster Mitigation Specialist for Texas Hurricanes and Wildfires, and as a construction liaison for a Fortune 500 company in Irvine. He has managed annual budgets of $50 million. Clearly, Cagley has demonstrated a level of decision-making and responsibility that seems unmatched among this field of candidates and current Council members.

For years he has been a regular fixture at Council meetings and provided his opinion on various matters. He has, during these Council meetings, disagreed publicly with Councilmen Jim Gardner, Hamilton, Dwight Robinson and Scott Voigts. He has made clear that he’s opposed to the lack of independent thought that seems to have guided the votes of Hamilton, Robinson and Voigts, which prompted previous allegations of collusion. Critics think he will be a puppet of Gardner’s, but they thought the same thing about Basile, and that hasn’t been the case; she and Gardner have disagreed more in 11 months than Hamilton disagreed with Robinson and Voigts in his first 26 months.

In addition to City Council meetings, Cagley has attended many regional and county meetings on issues impacting Lake Forest (e.g., water, homelessness, affordable housing, military cemetery).

Cagley volunteers his time in the community with the Kiwanis Club, the USMC Support Committee, at events for the Lake Forest Sun & Sail Women’s Club, the planning of the re-branded Veterans Park, various events for Marines and their families at Camp Pendleton, etc.

Cagley ran for Council in 2014 and finished runner-up to Hamilton for the third available seat; Hamilton had 6,292 votes to Cagley’s 5,637, a difference of 431 votes. Unlike Hamilton, Cagley’s campaign didn’t benefit from any special interest money -- notably developers -- and Cagley has gone on the record that he will not accept any special interest money while in public service. Cagley was one of three candidates (Glick and Yombo the other two) who responded to a request by Councilman Gardner to make clear their stance on whether they would accept special interest money in an election or going forward; each of those three said they would not, and Cagley and Yombo said they would support a City ordinance forbidding companies seeking City contracts from making campaign contributions.

Cagley also made that vow on his Candidate Statement; he is one of three candidates who provided such statements, the others being Moatazedi and Tettemer.

In his candidate statement, Cagley says his focus is to maintain and improve the quality of life for residents, and has pointed to:

• Alleviating traffic and parking problems
• Providing quality Police services while controlling escalating costs
• Ensuring only responsible growth
• Making our [City] budget more efficient

He says: “It’s time for non-partisan representation; let’s take back our city together.”

Next in the series: David Glick

About the author: Martin Henderson won several Los Angeles and Orange County press club awards while an editor at Patch in 2012-13.