City Council Preview - Mar 6

Here's what's coming up Tuesday night...

PRESENTATION BY LAKE FOREST POLICE CHIEF

In the past few weeks the City Manager and I have been speaking with Police and School authorities to insure that we are doing everything possible to prevent school shootings as well as deal with them in the unlikely event we have an incident in our City. Because I know this issue is on people's minds, I've asked the Chief to brief us about some of the things we're doing. Obviously the Chief cannot reveal everything that's being done, but he can give us an overview.

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Councilman Robinson and I have been meeting with our Economic Development team and members of the Chamber of Commerce over the past half year, trying to come up with ways in which the City can be more effective in promoting businesses. Tuesday night we'll review the report and hopefully adopt the recommendations which include

• Block parties at major shopping centers should occur, one per month.
• Create Mayor’s Business Council for quarterly meetings with major business executives.
• Focus retail re-vitalization on General Plan update.
• Consider business registration as means to increase interaction with businesses
• Regional workshops – work with the cities to create co-sponsored workshops so that our city doesn’t bear the brunt of educating the region.
• Consider topic-focused special events (Health, Child, Business Services) promoting businesses.

CITY COUNCIL POLICIES

Earlier this year I introduced a number of ways to improve the way the Council works. Some of these initiatives were designed to prevent any type of "group-think" from dominating the agenda, and other initiatives were simply to improve the process. The Council discussed the issues and now we are going to vote on those that are best suited to guide us in the future.

MID-YEAR BUDGET REVIEW

On Tuesday we'll take a look at the budget and make adjustments based on the past 6 months' experience. According to the staff report, we are planning to increase General Fund revenues by $3,105,600, and increase expenditures by $1,668,400 - so that's good news. Some specifics

• Property tax receipts at this point are estimated to be 3.6% higher than staff’s budget estimates. That added $175,000.
• Sales and Use tax receipts at this point are estimated to be 3.3% higher than staff’s budget estimates. That added $500,000.
• Hotel tax added an additional $175,000.
• Building permit fees added an additional $755,200. Plan checks added $115,400.

If you can't make it to the meeting, you can watch us live on FB.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest where he serves as Mayor. 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 Twitter handle is @DrJimGardner. 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 May 17 at 7 pm at the Lake 1 Clubhouse (Ridge Route).