City Council Matters - The Police Debate (Part 1)

A few days ago I wrote an article about the police contract, drawing on the discussion at last week’s City Council meeting. Today I want to go into more depth about the details of the meeting, mostly to clear up some mis-information that was spread at the meeting.

Spreading mis-information about public safety is a long-standing habit in Lake Forest! For many years, the City Manager, former Police Chiefs, and former City Council members claimed that “we are one of the safest cities in the U.S.” That claim was patently false and was a distortion of the data which resulted from a statistical artefact that people used to promote the self-serving myth. After all, if you are the City Manager of one of the safest cities in the U.S. you look good when you ask for a pay raise or a bonus. If you’re a politician, you lead with that claim and voters follow with their vote. Who doesn’t want to be “one of the safest cities in the U.S.”?

After years of relentless writing and speaking on my part, the staff and the Council no longer promote this myth, and instead talk about how safe we are, which is true. Our crime rate, particularly our rate for violent crime, is nothing to be overly concerned about. OTOH, there are many cities, right here in Orange County, that have lower rates than we do, and most of our neighboring cities have lower rates than we do, so our crime rate is nothing to brag about either.

At the Council meeting this week, some more mis-information was spread.

(Note – The numbers in parentheses below represent the places on the video of the Council meeting where the relevant discussion can be found)

Councilman Nick and I asked that our colleagues (only Voigts and Robinson were there, Andrew Hamilton missed the meeting) join with us in creating an ad hoc committee to look into other options for providing Police services as a result of the enormous increase in the cost of the contract – nearly $900,000. Moreover, recent information indicates even more major raises may be coming in the near future. We felt it our obligation as fiscal conservatives to look at other options. Indeed, the City prides itself on being a contract city and we insist on getting 3 bids for every contract. How then can the most important and most costly contract go without any competitive bids?

We got no support from our colleagues. Councilman Robinson was particularly vocal in his insistence that he knew what we would find (“guarantee with absolute certainty” he said. See 49:52) and he didn’t want us to “waste our time” (52:49). When we assured him that we didn’t mind wasting our time in the service of our community (59:00), he was still adamant that we not explore this area.

Later on Councilman Robinson assured everyone that no one from the other City Councils in South County would consider any alternatives (1:14:10). He was surprised to learn that I was already in talks with Council members from several other cities, and they were very interested in exploring such a plan.

Mayor Voigts claimed that he lived here longer than anyone else on the Council and we have “always had Orange County Sheriff’s Department”. He claimed he felt safe walking our streets and that was reason enough for him to keep OCSD. Moreover he assured us that going forward he would keep his eyes on the raises.

Neither Councilman Nick nor I felt it was appropriate to approve the police contract beginning July 1, 2015 without doing some work to insure that in 2016 we would be confident that there were no other options that could provide an equivalent or better service at a lower price. We wanted the conversation to continue. Councilman Robinson was hot to trot (See 56:20) and wanted to move on, so he called for the vote on the contract, and Mayor Voigts quickly seconded it, cutting the discussion short. Councilman Nick and I voted “no” (1:05:40). We urged a continued discussion of the creation of the ad hoc committee to get competitive bids.

Both Councilman Robinson Mayor Voigts warned that Lake Forest would be without police services on July 1 (1:05:54). That was not true. The City Manager incorrectly told the Council that we would have to continue on a “month to month basis” (1:07:17). That also was not true. We were blamed for causing a major problem and I was called “childish” by Councilman Robinson (1:09:10) and “lacking common sense” (1:11:11) by Mayor Voigts. We were told that if we didn’t vote “yes” for the contract not only would Police services be in danger, when we finally did vote “yes” we were subject to the price of the contract going up and we would be starting negotiations all over again. Also not true.

During the break recommended by Councilman Nick I urged the Mayor to reintroduce both discussions, but he refused. It was within his power to do so and resolve the issue right then and there, but for some unknown reason he ignored my pleas and continued with the agenda.

At the end of the meeting, several concerned citizens came up to me and asked if they should buy guns. They were worried about what would happen to our contract with the Police. The fear mongering from the dais by Voigts and Robinson had succeeded in producing fear in the people who listened.

But the facts are very different. Section B of the current Police contract says that if the contract isn’t signed by June 30, 2015, it can be continued for a two-month period. So there is no fear of police walking off the job on July 1. Furthermore, Section B calls for the new increases proposed by the OCSD to kick in as of July 1, in order not to dis-advantage the OCSD by keeping the costs at the old rate. After all, at $900,000 per year increase, the OCSD gets about $75,000 extra every month, and this will kick in as if the new contact were in place.

The City has already executed the agreement and sent it to the Sheriff, long before the June 30 deadline.

Residents should have no fear that anyone will allow Lake Forest to go without police protection. Nor should there be any doubt that we will approve the new contract with OCSD. But the question remains, why won’t Council members Voigts and Robinson allow us to get competitive bids on the most important and costly contract they City has?

Tomorrow we’ll continue.

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 3 pm to 5 pm at the City Hall. In addition, he holds a mini town meeting every month. The next meeting will be on August 15 at 2 pm at the El Toro Public Library.