City Council Review

Last Tuesday night the Council had another long session, going nearly 3 hours. In fact the meeting ended but we still hadn’t been able to cover a discussion of the interior design for the new Senior/Civic Center.

Here’s what happened –

AGENDA ITEMS

The issue was raised at Public Comments about why the items concerning Scott Voigts and Dwight Robinson were not on the agenda. The answer from the City Manager was that there wasn’t time. Apparently there was time for 17 items, and some of the items (e.g., Cancelling Council meetings, Closed Session Minutes) were not time-sensitive, while the idea that a City Council candidate lied on his ballot statement is time-sensitive, given that the absentee ballots may be out before the next Council meeting. The City Manager indicated they would be on the agenda for the next meeting.

CITY COUNCIL MEETINGS

The City Manager wanted to cancel two meetings next year. That’s a strange thing to do for a City of our size whose meetings go far longer than any other City. Despite their initial opposition, the Gang of 3 eventually agreed with Councilman Nick and I that it was better to schedule replacement meetings.

$42,000 PAT ON THE BACK

The Gang of 3, self-professed “fiscal conservatives”, voted to spend $42,000 so that a research company can tell us what a great job we’re doing. Turns out this company tells just about every City I could find what a good job they’re doing. When asked about what real benefit we had from surveys like this for the past 18 years, the City Manager could only recall one time when he learned that the City’s communication could be better. Otherwise no one could give me an illustration of anytime the findings were used, except to pat ourselves on the back. I patted Scott Voigts on the back and suggested that if we all took a moment to pat ourselves on the back, we could save the $42,000. They declined. I guess that’s ”fiscal conservatism” nowadays.

MORE BEER AND WINE

The Gang of 3 approved selling more beer and wine in Foothill Ranch in an area where they are already over-saturated by more than 3 times. This made the lobbyists for the 99 Cents Only stores very happy and they will continue to keep the money flowing, along with the beer and wine.

FWIW – alcohol is one of the chief contributors to crime, especially violent crime, and the more stores you have that sell alcohol, the higher your crimes rates are.

MORE BEDROOMS

The Gang of 3 approved allowing a developer to build 38 more bedrooms in the area next to the Sports Park, that previously was described by City staff as one of the prime commercial areas in the City. It’s now home to nearly 200 homes and 38 of them may get an extra bedroom and bathroom. No one knew what the impact of this would be on traffic, especially the new traffic standards. Developers were so sure that the Gang of 3 would give them the approvals they wanted that no one from the company spoke. The Gang of 3 did what they always do – vote for the special interests.

CLOSED SESSION MINUTES

After opposing the idea that closed sessions should keep minutes, the Gang of 3 changed their mind and voted to officially record all votes and consensus decisions made during closed sessions.

CIVIC/SENIOR CENTER

The review of the exterior Civic/Senior Center project went well with few changes. There wasn’t sufficient time to go over the interior details which I considered more important than the exterior. The next Council meeting will discuss the interior details. This is very exciting and everyone is encouraged to get involved.

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.