The City Council Candidates - Francisco Barajas

As the election season has begun I intend to do a profile on each of the candidates. Four of the candidates have a “public face” because they have been involved in civic affairs, but the other two have not. I’ll save my comments on the other two as long as possible and begin with the four for whom we have public knowledge, beginning with the person with the lowest public profile - Francisco Barajas.

Though Barajas has been in the City for the briefest period of time, he got appointed to the Parks and Recreation Commission about 16 months ago, and so we can examine his contributions to that Commission and his public appearances on their behalf.

MISSING FROM COMMISSION MEETINGS

When I heard last month that Francisco Barajas had decided to run for City Council I thought I would pop in to the Parks Commission and see him in action. I popped in but he wasn’t in action. He even wasn’t there. I did some digging and found that he missed 4 meetings in his brief tenure, which are more missed meetings than every other Commissioner combined. The Parks Commissioners are pretty diligent. Only two of them missed one meeting in the past 16 months and two of them didn’t miss a single meeting. Barajas missed 4!

Barajas’ record for missing meetings is not merely the worst on the Parks Commission. It is the worst in the City, including the City Council and the Planning Commission. Only Mayor Hamilton and former Commissioner Brower come anywhere near Barajas’ record. Brower, in case you forgot, is the disbarred attorney who was a campaign supporter for Scott Voigts.

(Missing meetings seems to be a characteristic of the Gang of 3 and their sycophants. Councilman Adam Nick, on the contrary, has had 100% attendance for regular and special Council meetings for the past 4 years, a record equaled by no one).

If you can’t even show up for meetings of the Parks Commission, how are you going to perform on the City Council, where there are more than twice as many meetings? Barajas tells us he is supported by Mayor Hamilton, the man who is also known as “Mayor M.I.A.” for missing so many Council meetings and City events. That makes sense “Birds of a feather…”

MISSING FROM CITY EVENTS

This led me to investigate Barajas’ Facebook page to see how often he attends City events. Personally I attend almost all of them, and I don’t recall seeing Barajas at most of them, including some events you’d think he would be at because he is a Parks Commissioner. His Facebook page contains not a single Lake Forest event, so that tends to confirm my memory of his absence. But Barajas has managed to attend several political and developer sponsored events and here are the comments from his FB page -

“Thanks Orange County Association of Realtors and Building Industry Association - Orange County Chapter for the legislative update and the free lunch!” July 20, 2016

“At Moorlach's fundraiser at The Pacific Club. OMG! They literally have a treasure trove of cheesy bread” July 13, 2016

“Beautiful view outside of today's South OC Economic Coalition's 2016 South OC Economic Report luncheon. Also there's lunch, which is always a win.” Feb 5, 2016

Hmmm.

Lake Forest events don’t seem to attract him, but apparently a free lunch works!

We have some Commissioners like Jim Rosenberg and Loretta Herrin who are at almost every Parks event and many of the City events. Victor Scherr is right behind them in terms of being actively involved in our community. To my mind that’s what a Commissioner should do. Barajas’ many absences from civic events may be in keeping with the role model of his supporters Scott Voigts and Andy Hamilton, but it’s not what I call a good job.

UNINVOLVED IN PARKS ISSUES

So if Barajas doesn’t attend Parks Commission meetings and rarely attends Lake Forest events, what is he doing with his time when he is on the Parks Commission? I went ahead and read the minutes from all the Parks Commission meetings since he joined in March 2015. As best as I can determine, Barajas did not make a single motion. Not a single motion.

Making a motion is not a difficult thing to do. They make them all the time on the Parks Commission, as we do even more frequently on the City Council. In the last 10 meetings, from Oct 15, 2015 to July 21, 2016 the official minutes list 13 motions along with 11 seconds. All the Commissioners participated in this except Barajas. He did not make a single motion or a single second. In fact, if you read the minutes, he is rarely quoted as contributing anything despite the fact that the Parks Commission has some lively discussions about items such as Senior citizens, the Healthy Cities initiative, the Skate park, Whispering Hills, etc. etc.

The official minutes also quote from the Commissioner comments made at the end of the meetings. Here are some of Barajas’ recorded comments -

“Commissioner Barajas mentioned an article in the O.C. Register regarding Lake Forest Parks.” July 21

"Commissioner Barajas asked about the date for the Parks Safari tour this year.” April 21

“Commissioner Barajas thanked Chair Scherr for a wonderful tour of Heritage Hill.” Nov 19

This is not very impressive. In fact it’s downright disappointing. It leads me to believe that Barajas was never really interested in the Parks Commission or really anything to do with Parks. He was simply using this as a stepping stone to reach for higher office. So he took the place of several more qualified candidates and the City has been deprived of real representation for the past year and a half.

TIES TO THE GANG OF 3

Barajas’ candidate statement says that he is endorsed by Andy Hamilton (aka “Mayor M.I.A.”). His application to be on the Parks Commission revealed his work to support Scott Voigts, another member of the Gang of 3. So the election of Barajas could conceivably give us a Gang of 4. Look at how much harm has been done with a Gang of 3.

• · More special interest money in the past few years has poured into Lake Forest than all special interest money combined in the history of the City. The Gang of 3 has used more than $250,000 in special interest money and voted 100% of the time to give the special interests what they asked for.
• · More new homes being built in the past few years than the prior 15 years. The impact on traffic and schools has yet to be fully felt as there are still 2,000 more homes approved and not yet built.
• · Converted so much commercial space to residential that our sales tax revenue has grown less than 2% per year despite the dramatic improvement in the economy since 2011, and in marked contrast to the 4% to 5% sales tax growth in neighboring cities.
• · Citizens are harassed when they speak at Council meetings, abused from the dais, and ordered not to applaud, laugh, and even speak. Citizens are placed in “time out” if they disobey the Mayor, and meetings are abruptly cancelled. We have become the laughing stock of the County.

SUMMARY

Francisco Barajas is running for City Council. His record shows that he misses more official meetings than anyone in City government, that he hasn’t made a single motion or seconded a single motion in the past year, that he rarely attends City events, and that he has close ties to the Gang of 3. Elect Barajas and we’d have a Gang of 4. Could Lake Forest really survive?

Up next, Leah Basile.

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 is not running for election in 2016.

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 November at the Foothill Ranch Public Library.