Tonight’s City Council agenda includes a discussion of the “City Council Policies” which I covered last week. In addition the agenda includes appointment to various committees and boards, including the TCA and Vector Control.
MERITAGE APPROVAL (Items 6 to 9)
Find out what's happening in Lake Forestfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Having spent $10,000 to elect Scott Voigts and Andy Hamilton to the Council, Voigts and Hamilton joined Dwight Robinson, a man who has received help with more than $70,000 from developers, in approving the Meritage plan to convert commercial land into residential and significantly increase profits for everyone concerned, except for the residents of Lake Forest who get fewer opportunities for jobs and more cars, more people using water and electricity, more kids in the schools, more people using the library, etc. Click Here to learn more
Find out what's happening in Lake Forestfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
MASSAGE PARLORS (Item 11)
The City seeks to regulate where massage parlors can be located. Staff is operating under the assumptions that (a) massage parlors are places where crimes occur and (b) by forcing massage parlors to be in retail areas (instead of office and commercial areas) the potential criminals will be deterred from visiting the parlors and hence the crimes will be reduced. No data has been provided to support either assumption, but it is a good thing that the Police are looking for ways to reduce crime.
WATER EFFICIENCT LANSACAPE (Item 12)
The City will try to come into compliance with State law regarding how to provide water efficient landscaping. Generally speaking this will not impact existing systems but will apply to new developments (500 square feet or more) and major remodels of existing systems (2500 square feet or more).
APPOINTMENTS
Scott Voigts comes up for appointment to the TCA and also to Vector Control. We discussed the Vector Control appointment a few weeks ago, when Voigts’ colleagues (Hamilton and Robinson) voted him the $100 per meeting appointment over a resident who appeared to be far better qualified. My objections to Voigts’ appointment at that time were (a) we should defer to residents whenever possible, (b) the resident seemed to be better qualified than Voigts, and (c) Voigt’s record of attendance at Council meetings and at TCA meetings was relatively poor.
Since that time I started a series on Voigts that demonstrated his propensity to deviate significantly from the truth.
If I were a betting man I would bet that Voigts’ buddies on the Council, Hamilton and Robinson will vote him in again. After all, not only do they vote in lock step on nearly 100% of the votes, Voigts has also been a generous financial friend to his colleagues. Voigts’ campaign committee gave Robinson $500 on 8/16/12 and Voigts’ “boss” Don Wagner’s campaign gave Robinson $2,000 only a few weeks later. Wagner was more generous with Hamilton. He spent $10,000 to help Hamilton get elected using an independent expenditure. My honorable colleagues, Robinson and Hamilton, have assured me on many occasions that receiving money does not influence their votes, yet I’ve failed to find a single case in which Voigts, Hamilton, or Robinson voted in a direction opposite to the one being promoted by someone or some company who have them money for their campaigns.
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 Jan 30 at 2 pm at the Foothill Ranch Public Library.
