City Council Review - April 4 meeting

Here are some highlights from last Tuesday nights’ City Council meeting.

ANIMAL CARE

The new Director of Community Resources, Dylan Wright, came to the Council. He’s been in office for only 24 days, but he seemed up to date on most issues. Here are the highlights of his talk -

• He is seeking a strategic plan for delivering animal care services and is aware of the problems raised by the Grand Jury and others. He concedes that simply having a new building is not enough.
• He is aware that increasing the quality of services will mean an increase in the costs of care, and is working on budget projections to share with the cities. At this point he has no idea how much the increase will be. (Bear in mind we pay about $600,000 per year right now)
• He is aware that if Orange County Animal Care Services (OCAS) processes 20,000 or more pets per year they will have problems delivering a high quality of care. The new center is designed to handle this large number and to be the only county facility. Counties with fewer people usually have two or more centers.
• He is willing to consider a program in which owner requested euthanasia and owner surrender pets will be referred to the Lake Forest Adoption Center for counselling with the goal of keeping the pet in the home, or, if necessary, adopting the pet out rather than sending it to the shelter.
• He is willing to consider adding members of the public to the City Managers Association Animal Care Committee, but the decision will rest with the committee.
• He is willing to consider a program in which some stray pets that are picked up in Lake Forest will be diverted to the Lake Forest Adoption Center rather than going to the Shelter.
• Co-sponsorship of the Lake Forest Adoption Center will go to the Board of Supervisors next week.

All things considered it was a very positive meeting.

RESPONDING TO SPEAKERS

When Andrew Hamilton was Mayor he instituted a ridiculous system in which Council members or staff had to wait until all speakers had finished speaking before each Council member or staff would respond. Mayor Voigts sometimes follows this process, but often forgets, or instead allows himself the option of responding but refuses to let anyone else speak.

Last night the public comment section ended at 8:30 pm. There were 15 speakers. By the time we got the chance to address the issues raised, half the people who spoke had gone. This isn’t unusual. I’ve asked that we discuss changing this process and that will be on the agenda next time.

TRANSITIONAL HOUSING FOR HOMELESS VETERANS

The Council supported my initiative to discuss using excess City land to build transitional housing for homeless veterans. The item will be discussed at the next closed session meeting.

COOPERATING WITH SADDLEBACK VALLEY UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT (SVUSD)

The City and SVUSD have many issues to discuss –

• Overcrowding at Foothill Ranch and Portola elementary
• Traffic problems at Foothill Ranch and Madera
• Funding of crossing guards
• Spending Lake Forest developer money on Lake Forest schools
• Possibilities of building new schools
• After school programs

Since a new Superintendent has been appointed I suggested that the Council come to agreement on some policies and then meet with the Superintendent and the School Board. The Council suggested that Mayor Voigts and I talk with the City Manager and come up with some initial ideas.

REPLACING COUNCIL MEMBERS

I suggested that the Council develop a policy for what happens when a Council member resigns or dies. Right now there is no policy. The last time it happened the Council appointed someone. I suggested then, and will again, that the right thing to do is to appoint the runner up from the previous election. That could be done in 1 of 2 ways. It could be the runner up from the election in which the person was elected, or it could be the most recent election. For example, if Andrew Hamilton resigned, you could argue that the runner up in 2014 should be appointed. Or you could argue that since there was an election since 2014, the runner up in 2016 should be appointed. Personally I don’t have a preference for which way to do it, but I think we should respect the people’s wishes.

FWIW - when Peter Herzog resigned the Council could have appointed me to fill his seat, since I was the runner-up in the year that Herzog was elected. But they appointed Dave Bass, who ran against me in 2014, and despite Bass spending considerably more money, I got considerably more votes. This indicates that the peoples' wishes should be respected.

TWO ITEMS HELD OVER

It was another long night and at 11 pm the Council decided to postpone the last 2 items on the agenda – Elections by District and Campaign Finance Regulations

CONTEST FOR WORST LIAR

Having de-throned Scott Voigts as “Worst Mayor in Lake Forest History” (Click Here and Here), Councilman Andrew Hamilton now seeks to take Voigts' crown as “Worst Liar in Lake Forest History”. In responding to a resident’s inquiries about the Nakase nursery on Tuesday night, Hamilton said “No plans set before us.” By “us” he meant the Council, and since I’m on the Council, I know that the Council received plans from the Toll Brothers about how they would carve up the Nakase property. In fact, these plans are public and were received by the City months ago.

This same resident also chastised Hamilton for his claim at the last City Council meeting when he said “I haven’t voted on anything”, once again referring to the Nakase property which came under discussion at a closed meeting of the Council in March.

Taking away Voigts’ crown as “Worst Liar in Lake Forest History” (Click Here) will not be an easy task. We have documented more than two dozen lies told by Voigts, such as when he denied wearing a wire to entrap a fellow Council member, or denied a campaign contribution that appeared on state forms, or lied about how much he spent on his election.

Tuesday night Voigts had his own lies to put forth. Several times he claimed that Lake Forest has the lowest crime rate among our neighbors. In fact, of the 6 cities in South Orange County that are patrolled by OCSD, Lake Forest consistently has the second highest rate. Mission Viejo, RSM, Aliso Viejo, and Laguna Niguel consistently have lower crimes rates than we do. Why Voigts would lie about an issue like this is beyond my comprehension, but so are most of his lies.

Regardless of who gets the crown, it’s a shame when elected officials can’t speak the truth. In the case of Voigts, he refused to even be accountable for the truth when the question of his ethics (working for the mayor of Irvine) was on the table: When a resident asked him why he lied from the dais, and why residents should believe anything he says Voigts refused to respond because, he said, they wouldn’t believe anything he said anyway; when Mayor Pro Tem Basile asked for a response for her benefit, Voigts blew her off and said “thank you for your question.” Later on he murmured "Why should I answer these stupid questions?"

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 May.