What’s more interesting than what’s on the agenda for this week is what isn’t. The City Manager was instructed to:
“agendize a discussion regarding the City’s appointed representative to the Mosquito and Vector Control Board” and also to:
“agendize a discussion regarding Council Member Robinson’s candidate statement for the upcoming election, with potential censure of Council Member Robinson.”
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Neither of these items appeared. Because they were “minority consensus” no staff report was required. In the past, such items appear at the next meeting, since there is nothing for the staff to do except put the item on the agenda.
Let’s discuss both of these items before we turn to the actual agenda items.
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The residents were alarmed that Scott Voigts missed more than 20% of the meetings for Vector Control, produced not a single report to the Council, and was discovered to leave the meetings after roll call, collecting his $100 per meeting fee but failing to be there for information and the votes. Recall that Voigts fought strongly to get appointed to Vector Control even though there was a more experienced person available for the position. The purpose of the discussion was to see whether or not Voigts should be replaced as the Vector Control representative.
DWIGHT ROBINSON – CENSURE
There is some concern that Dwight Robinson has not been entirely truthful with his ballot statement. In fact it appears that he may be downright deceitful by, among other things, claiming his Lake Forest business employs 100 people (it doesn’t) and that he was responsible for eliminating Mello Roos (he wasn’t). The County has no ability to determine whether or not ballot statements are true, but the City’s code of ethics does require it. Section 2.5 of the Conduct in Office says –
“Deter rumors and misunderstandings by making factual information available, answering questions directly, telling the truth, and admitting a lack of knowledge if one exists.”
Robinson is up for censure for creating “misunderstanding”, to say the least. The chances are good that this is a futile effort. Last year Robinson was up for censure charges for having called his Council colleagues “moron”, “imbecile”, “liar” and other superlatives. Here he violated the “Leadership Principles” which require him to “…promote and maintain the highest standards of personal and professional conduct in the city's government.”
The Gang of 3 failed to support the censure and it died. Which is probably what will happen now.
CLOSED SESSION MINUTES
This item appears on the agenda and was held over from last time. Briefly, the Council meets in secret during closed sessions but never takes minutes. Major decisions are made and millions of dollars are spent and there is no record of this, apart from what ultimately is revealed in open session. But what happens when what is agreed to in closed session doesn’t happen? Without minutes there is no way of knowing. Hence this discussion.
CANCEL COUNCIL MEETINGS
For 2017 the City Manager is recommending that we cancel the first meeting in July and also that we cancel the first meeting in August. The first meeting in July will be July 4, and the Municipal Code calls for us to have a meeting on the next day. Instead the City Manager wants to cancel. The first meeting in August conflicts with “National Night Out”. Rather than pick another day, the City Manager wants to cancel.
If as a result of the election the Gang of 3 turns into a Gang of 4, we can cancel all the Council meetings. If however, two independent people get elected to the Council, there will be a lot of work to do, so cancelling even one meeting, and not rescheduling it, is out of line.
FWIW – Adam Nick and I have 100% attendance at Council meetings. The rest of the Council doesn’t.
SUMMARY
As noted above two items were not included in this week’s agenda. The City Manager will probably say that he excluded them because the agenda is full. It’s true that the agenda is full. In fact I suspect it is bursting at the seams and I doubt we can finish it in the allotted time. Only a few weeks ago I lamented that the Council agendas were too light with meetings ending at 7:38 (Aug 2), 7:51 (July 5), 8:40 (June 21), etc. Last meeting went to 11:37 pm. This coming meeting will probably last as long. I don’t understand why we have super short and then super long meetings. I offered a solution in the past but the City Manager and the Mayor didn’t like the idea. I will offer it again.
Tomorrow we’ll go into more detail about the meeting.
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 November at the Foothill Ranch Public Library.
