City Council Review for Feb 16

A few months ago I commented on what I believe to be a reactionary philosophy being practiced by my three colleagues who have come to be known as the Gang of 3 (i.e., Voigts, Robinson, and Hamilton). This “do nothing” philosophy is manifest in almost everything they decide to do, or more appropriately, not do–

· Let’s not look for alternatives to using OCSD

· Let’s not look for alternatives to using OC Animal care

· Let’s not allow AgeWell Senior Services to use vacant City Hall space to help needy seniors

· Let’s not change Saddleback Ranch Rd (unless we get recalled)

· Let’s not ask the staff to cut the fat from their budgets

· Let’s not save $200,000 by asking for a new street sweeping contract

· Let’s not have a Community Foundation, a Traffic Commission, an Animal Welfare Commission, etc.

You get the point. Almost all the decisions that are not routine have been made by the Gang of 3 in the direction of not doing something. For people who sent out hundreds of thousands of mailers telling us what they were going to do, this list of what they don’t do and don’t want to do is astonishing. Two long-time residents, Andy O’Connor and Tracey Tingley, are fond of showing up at Council meetings and reading from my colleagues’ campaign literature, and then asking them why they haven’t followed up on what they promised to do.

At our last meeting, the “do nothing” reactionary philosophy was on display again. We were talking about spending $60,000+ to make the Whispering Hills site more attractive, and I worried that after spending $60,000 we could decide to put something in place on that site, and it might mean that the $60,000 investment would be wasted. I asked that we do some planning to decide which of our needs (e.g., a municipal swimming pool, another dog park, a community garden, a community park education center, a soccer arena, etc.) would best fit in that space, and then go ahead with that plan, instead of putting in something we might have to take out. But no one wanted to do any planning. God forbid we do any planning.

We also discussed the report on cost savings for the $14,000,000+ police budget, a report that offered no cost savings suggestions, but rather simply relayed what was being done. Imagine spending $14,000,000+ and no one has any ideas as to how we could shave some money from that. Once more my colleagues said “No”. They didn’t need any changes. Everything was fine. Our costs are going up every year (over $800,000 last year) and we have one of the highest crime rates among all of our neighbors, but no one wants to take a closer look at what we are doing. Indeed, Scott Voigts took the occasion to rant on about how great the Police are (I guess he’s getting ready to run again), and Andy Hamilton worried about the costs of Police services in Irvine. Dwight Robinson continued to spread the false figures for which I had to correct him nearly a year ago, demonstrating that Robinson’s ability to learn or remember are impaired. The per capita costs for Lake Forest, according to our City Manager, are $189 and the costs for Irvine are $298. Robinson continues to claim that the costs are $170 vs. $320. When he made the mistake, I corrected him, but he continued to claim he was right. Mr. Dunek, the City Manager, remained silent. Was his memory impaired too?

Bottom line – Council decided to do nothing about cutting the costs of Police services.

Then we came to the animal care proposal that I introduced at the last meeting. I asked that the Council instruct the staff to bring the report back by the first meeting in March so that we could review it then, and any questions could be resolved for the second meeting. Staff claimed that the report would have to be done in a few days in order to have it on the schedule, but I countered that they could give us what they had and then provide the final version at the meeting itself – a common practice with many projects I managed in the past working with multi-billion dollar companies. Once more, the Gang of 3 was frozen. No. Let’s wait until it’s done, even if by that time it’s too late to do anything about it.

Why would people want to get on a Council and then, once on the Council, do very little? Why would they promise to cut government waste and then refuse to look at cutting government waste? Why would they talk about improving Police services and then vote against a Public Safety Commission?

When I ran, I had a whole list of projects I wanted to see get done, and pretty much I have pursued that list, achieving some successes and some failures, but always consistent with what I promised. My colleagues, on the other hand, seem content to vote for any project put forward by the people who gave them thousands of dollars in campaign contributions, but apart from that, there are very very few things they advocate or want to accomplish. Right now they are vigorously fighting the efforts to recall them, and you have to wonder why. If there is very little they wish to accomplish, why do they cling tenaciously to the power of the office. If the purpose of the office is to promote the quality of life for 80,000 people, why not step aside and let some people do the job who have projects they wish to accomplish and a mandate from the people to get those things accomplished. It seems to me that the best place to do nothing is at home in front of your TV, not holding office in City government.

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 on March 26 at 2 pm at the Foothill Ranch Public Library

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