City Council Review

Dwight Robinson’s head turned a bright pink. His lips narrowed and his fists were clenched. He launched into a long explanation of why he mis-led the people of Lake Forest with a string of lies, mis-representations, and badly punctuated sentences on his ballot statement. “Blame it on the comma” was his explanation for misleading people to believe that he owned a Lake Forest business employing 100 people. “Maybe I should have put a period” he said.

Robinson owns a Lake Forest business that employs 2 people, not 100 people as his ballot statement strongly suggests. He says he is the major shareholder in a Long Beach company that employs 100 people from Southern California, yet his name doesn’t appear on the company’s website, and he now admits that the son of the founder of the company is his father-in-law. If people who read his ballot statement made the mistake of thinking that he employs 100 people in Lake Forest, that’s not his fault!

Robinson’s claim that he “eliminated” Mello Roos for the people in Portola Hills was delivered a major blow by the Treasurer of Orange County, who appeared earlier in the meeting on an unrelated subject. When asked if our Council could eliminate Mello Roos for Foothill Ranch, she made it abundantly clear that no one can “eliminate” Mello Roos. Mello Roos in Portola Hill was “dissolved” (her words) because the people in Portola Hills paid off their debt to the bond holders. Mello Roos in Foothill Ranch will be dissolved when the people in Foothill Ranch pay off their debt to the bond holders. Robinson’s claim that he helped “eliminate” Mello Roos was a shameless lie and a blatant attempt to conjure votes.

But Robinson was unrepentant. He blamed it on the word count. He only had 200 words to express himself so he didn’t have enough words to fully explain the situation.

Andrew Hamilton confirmed his position as “Worst Mayor in History.” He put the meeting in “time out” because someone in the back of the room made a comment. He claimed it disturbed him and interrupted the meeting. He threatened to do it again and again, but after a conversation with the City Attorney, and an admonishment by me, common sense prevailed and we didn’t have any more time outs. What Mr. Hamilton doesn’t understand is that the negative comments and the occasional hoots are a reflection of the things he does and says. Hamilton interrupted Councilman Nick several times. He agreed to allow Nick to speak, and then changed his mind. He interrupted me several times, and ordered me to stop talking about a subject I believed was germane.

When you behave as Hamilton does, people react. No one comes to the meeting with the idea that they are going to hoot and howl, moan and groan, but after a few minutes watching Hamilton, it’s almost inevitable. If I weren’t on the dais I would too.

On top of his poor performance, Hamilton bemoaned the “politics” involved in putting on the agenda the items concerning Scott Voigts missed meetings on Vector Control and Dwight Robinson’s lies on his ballot statement. Apparently Hamilton forgot that the reason this item appears now is because he postponed it from previous meetings.

Speaking about Voigts, he was once again in high gear with his never-ending series of lies. He started by saying, off topic, that Councilman Nick has “high jacked” the Lake Forest Elementary PTA meeting. Nick attended the meeting and sat in the back, and, uncharacteristically, never said a word. Nick said “I was there to listen and learn”. Afterwards Nick spoke with parents as they exited. Nick was doing what Voigts should have done. Voigts lives right next to the school and he is the Vector Control representative for the City. His daughter just graduated from the school. How is it that Voigts wasn’t there?

Then the discussion turned to the fact that since he was appointed last year to Vector Control, Voigts has only fully attended 3 out of 10 meetings. When he isn’t absent, Voigts has the indefensible habit of checking in so he can collect his $100 fee, and then leaving. Voigts claimed he did that only 3 times, but I had evidence with me that he had done it at least 5 times. Councilman Nick and I asked Voigts to step down so that someone who is competent and who cares could replace him and serve the needs of the people of Lake Forest.

When both the Voigts and the Robinson items came up for vote, the Gang of 3 prevailed. They saw nothing wrong with anything they did. Voigts can miss as many meetings as he wishes and lie about it until the cows come home. It’s OK. Robinson can lie, mislead, and otherwise misconstrue what he’s done and no one cares.

Andy Hamilton, whose 2014 campaign benefited from Robinson’s company ($1,000) and from Voigts’ boss Don Wagner ($10,000) saw no conflict of interest in voting on the issues.

Scenarios like this can change if you vote Dwight Robinson off the Council and replace him with Leah Basile.

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.

Dr. Gardner is not up for re-election this year.