City Council Preview - Jan 3

The City Council meeting this week should be mercifully short, despite the fact that there are a large number of issues that have not been dealt with and we just came off a year in which, under Mayor Hamilton, we spent more time in meetings and accomplished less, thus giving us a long list of items that are being carried over. Being appointed Mayor doesn’t necessarily mean you know anything about organizing or managing an agenda, much less running a meeting, and Hamilton’s turn as the worst mayor in the city’s history has only proven this point. (Click here and here for more information). Here’s what’s on tap for Tuesday night.

RULES OF DECORUM

On the agenda, at my request, is a discussion of the “rules of decorum” and the “public comment policy”. The “rules of decorum” apply only to residents, and not to Council members, so the common practice by Council members of lying, making false claims, making false promises, providing inaccurate information, and being rude to speakers and fellow Council members is not under scrutiny. Only with people like Andy Hamilton and Scott Voigts at the helm do we need to have a rule that says “Booing, hissing, foot stomping…or other similar behavior that impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of the meeting…” is prohibited. (Click Here for more information) In the past 2 years, almost all of the negative comments have been directed at the Gang of 3, either because of their personal behavior or their votes.

Instead of looking at the behavior of the residents, we should be looking at the behavior of the Council members, especially the Mayor. Since most of the unhappiness displayed by residents is caused by the Council members’ actions, perhaps we should look at the causes of the problems rather than the symptoms. Maybe we should call this

THE RESIDENT’S BILL OF RIGHTS

Here are some suggestions –

• Residents should not be cut off immediately when the red light comes on after 3 minutes. They should be allowed to finish their sentence. (Both Voigts and Robinson display this ugly habit which I have not seen elsewhere)
• Residents should not be subjected to argumentative comments from the dais when they cannot reply without threat of being ejected from the meeting. (Particularly bad from both Voigts and Hamilton).
• All residents are entitled to the same treatment. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. The rare resident who says something favorable about the Gang of 3 should not be entitled to more time than anyone else.
• When residents speak, Council members should show them the courtesy of listening and looking at them, not pretending to be taking notes or refusing to look at them (as Robinson often does).
• Council members should not be having private discussions while on the dais (Voigts and Hamilton are notorious for doing this).
• If residents ask a question, they are entitled to a reply. (All 3 Gang members avoid doing this).

LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLES

The Council will also discuss “leadership principles”. The leadership principles per se are OK: what is missing is the enforcement. There is no procedure for identifying breaches of the principles or for punishing the breachers. Nor is there any protection from the current policies being abused. For example, Councilman Robinson got the Gang of 3 to censure Councilman Nick for Robinson’s claim that Nick made a racist remark – a claim denied by Nick and by the two people to whom Nick supposedly made the remark. On the other hand, the Gang of 3 refused to censure Robinson even when there was proof that he called fellow Council members “imbecile”, “moron”, “vengeance seeker” etc. Similarly, Mayor Voigts has been shown to be a proven liar, but that didn’t stop the Gang from electing him as Mayor. And neither Robinson nor Voigts sought censure of former Councilman Peter Herzog after he pleaded no contest to DUI after running into a curb -- the only thing that prevented him from running into the back of Councilman Nick’s convenience store.

PARKS COMMISSIONER APPOINTMENTS

4 people are seeking 2 seats. Victor Sherr is seeking re-appointment and 3 others are seeking to fill the seat vacated by Jeff Werkmeister. Click Here to see a summary of the candidates’ qualifications.

CHANGE OF GUARD

The last item on the agenda is the changing of the guard from Andrew Hamilton to Scott Voigts. By my calculations (and others as well) we are replacing the worst Mayor in the City’s history with the second worst Mayor in history (Click Here). Both of them share a marked disdain for the people, an inability to carry out meetings efficiently and effectively, a long list of unresolved issues that don’t get handled, incredible mistakes in major projects (e.g., Saddleback Ranch Rd., Tamarisk Park), and an unwillingness or inability to innovate. As good as it is to see Hamilton go, one can hardly look forward to another year with Voigts, who will take his third term in five years as mayor while Nick just finished four years without any term -- the first elected councilman in history to serve at least one complete term without getting a chance to be mayor (and I’ll probably be the second).

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 in February at the Foothill Ranch Public Library.