City Council D4: Tettemer Rhetoric Tries to Cover his Weaknesses

Where Lake Forest’s public safety is concerned, Jim Gardner is the clear choice over Mark Tettemer in the City Council District 4 race.

Two years ago, Gardner refused to sign the City contract with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department without receiving a competitive bid. That made sense: The OCSD contract, the City’s biggest expense by far, was increasing by about $1 million annually without ever providing an additional officer on the streets.

Yet fellow councilmen Dwight Robinson and Scott Voigts (and Andrew Hamilton) gave the contract the green light and spread the word that Gardner was anti-police; a couple of years later, in response to other cities who came to the same conclusion as Gardner (along with then-councilman Adam Nick), there was a light bulb that went on over Robinson and Voigts and they voted with Gardner to join a multi-city audit of rising police costs, essentially validating Gardner’s foresight.

Why is that important? Because two years ago, Robinson and Voigts were putting politics ahead of policy. They weren’t running the City like a business – certainly not their own business – but were instead running it like they wanted to get elected (and Robinson did, by 99 votes over Nick); blindly rubber-stamping every OCSD or Orange County Fire Authority contract that comes along is a great way to appease the Orange County Board of Supervisors and the unions for the sheriff’s deputies and firefighters. But it’s not in the best interests of residents. Those unions are voting with their wallets, and it’s the taxpayers’ money they want without a lot of push-back from the likes of Gardner.

So when the Tettemer mailer hit mailboxes last week in which he was “Endorsed by our Deputy Sheriffs” with the sub-headline “Public Safety Before Politics,” understand that the sheriff’s union political action committee was lying to your face.

Lake Forest crime was 31 percent higher during Tettemer's last year than it is today near the end of Gardner’s first term. Crime has dropped 19 percent since Gardner joined the Council in 2014. That statistic is even used by unopposed councilman Scott Voigts.

Gardner has initiated Neighborhood Watch programs, gone on ride-alongs, helped establish the First Responder Grab and Go program that provides healthy snacks for Lake Forest’s finest when they need a quick pick-me-up; the Grab and Go program has been expanded to Rancho Santa Margarita.

So where does the sheriff’s union get the “putting public safety before politics”? From a copywriter: it sounds good. Where was the sheriff’s union when residents complained about a dangerous street, Saddleback Ranch Road, that endangered pedestrians and made it difficult for emergency fire vehicles to navigate the streets? They were silent – until they opposed the recall of Robinson, Voigts and Andrew Hamilton.

Where was Tettemer? He was silent, apparently so unaffected that he never felt obligated to voice his concern on behalf of thousands of residents he hopes to represent. But Gardner was in there fighting for residents, and openly admitted he was in favor of a recall that would rid the city of impudent, arrogant and apathetic leaders who didn’t lift a finger to ensure public safety until they were faced with a recall.

Tettemer called the recalls wasteful, but what price does Tettemer place on good government? Tettemer was willing to let Andrew Hamilton continue to make policy with Robinson and Voigts at the exclusion of residents.

Where was Tettemer when Hamilton, Robinson and Voigts were pushing for residential development within a few hundred feet of a county jail that Tettemer agreed to have along the Lake Forest border?

Where was Tettemer when Hamilton, Robinson and Voigts were inciting incivility by failing to get the facts, and then condemning the wrong parties, after an attack outside Stater Brothers grocery?

Where was Tettemer when Hamilton was punishing residents attending council meetings by calling timeout for 20 minutes at a time because he had rabbit ears and spent more time listening to the audience than his colleagues? Where was Tettemer when Hamilton ended a meeting with no fewer than three items still on the agenda because he didn’t know how to run a meetings? Where was Tettemer when Voigts and Robinson made Hamilton the mayor in only his second year on the council?

Where was Tettemer the night Voigts moved Council comments from the end of the meeting to the beginning so that he could call on Nick to resign before a large audience in a clear show of political gamesmanship? (That was the night that Voigts lied about wearing a wire to entrap Nick for stealing, even though the investigation had ended and charges against Nick were dropped five days earlier)

Where was Tettemer when Gardner had to recuse himself but Nick was pleading with Robinson (while Hamilton and Voigts sat silent) to get a second legal opinion to uncouple unsanitary Village Pond Park renovation from a pending lawsuit? (An act that Robinson reluctantly agreed to because a week earlier he had said in his campaign statement he would work to expedite the park’s renovation, something Nick had to remind him of)

Where was Tettemer (or Robinson or Voigts) when Gardner was fighting against a 400-bed facility for the homeless that county supervisors wanted to put in Silverado?

Where was Tettemer when Hamilton, Robinson and Voigts failed to support the idea of paying off the City’s unfunded pension liability, which would have saved the City hundreds of thousands of dollars?

Tettemer was nowhere to be found. Tettemer likes to say he wants to put policy before politics, but he is closely aligned with Robinson, whose track record shows that he has placed politics before policy at the cost of his credibility.

Gardner has fought on behalf of residents from one end of town to the other, and when it comes to public safety, his track record is better than Tettemer's. Because public safety is more than writing a blank check to the police and fire services, even if the unions won't tell you that.