City Council Preview for April 18 - Part 2

Yesterday we looked at Campaign Finance Reform, District Elections, and City Hall Hours. Today we focus on the young and the old.

BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB

The Boys and Girls Club (BG) of Lake Forest currently operates out of Laguna Beach. It serves about 300 kids from Gates and Olivewood elementary schools, most of who are bused to and from Laguna Beach. The BG is sponsored by Kiwanis International of Lake Forest.

The BG is seeking to use city owned property to operate inside Lake Forest. After touring several properties, the BG selected El Toro Park where they propose to place a portable trailer from which they will operate after school programs, M to F from 2:30 to 6:00 pm, mostly for children grades 1 to 6. They estimate serving between 100 and 200 children each day.

In addition to the trailer there would be a small parking lot (10 spaces). The kids will make use of the recreational resources already in the park. No new resources are proposed.

El Toro Park is their preferred location as it is close to Gates and Olivewood.

BG proposes to pay for all the construction expenses.

Some of the issues identified by staff include –

• The overlap “between the existing City funded “Kids Factory” afterschool program and the Saddleback Valley Unified School District’s “The Learning Connection” Daycare Program.”
• “…the precedent of providing [city owned] space to a nonprofit organization to operate in a City park.”
• Increased maintenance costs of equipment in El Toro Park as a result of increased usage
• Opinions of neighbors

If the Council decides to proceed, staff will be tasked with preparing a detailed proposal, with costs estimates. Once that is done, the matter should be represented to the Parks and Recreation Commission who would undertake public hearings, and eventually come to the Council.

CIVIC CENTER UPDATE

We are moving along on schedule. Ground breaking is due May 12, utilities are due by the end of 2017 and the parking garage is due by early 2018. Buildings should be done by May 2019 and the move in date is mid-2019.

In addition to moving forward, seniors have been asking to give the new Senior Center a name.

CDBG ACTION PLAN

Tuesday night the City will hold a public meeting to discuss our 2017-18 action plan to administer the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program that was approved a few weeks ago (Click Here).

NEW CITY MANAGER

Hopefully we will be able to announce the new City Manager. I’d like to take a moment to thank Debra Rose and Keith Neves for the work they did running the City in the absence of the prior City Manager who left at the start of the year. Quite frankly I believe the city has never functioned as well as it has these past 4 months and it’s a tribute to those two individuals and to our staff who stepped up when it was needed. In addition to all the normal City functions, we’ve had the Village Pond Park re-modeling, the Civic Center planning, and a whole host of new challenges before us (e.g., districting, getting better service from the County for our pets), including a recall of Councilman Hamilton. Despite all this, we have persevered and even thrived.

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 May 20 at the Foothill Ranch Public Library.