City Council Review - July 5

At the City Council meeting this week the Mayor literally phoned it in. Mayor Hamilton was in the desert and couldn’t attend. He’s missed City Council meetings in the past, but at least this time he was available by phone.

The meeting itself was pretty inconsequential despite the fact that some major issues (e.g., Village Pond Park, design for the new Civic Center, needs assessment for city-wide parks/recreation facilities, re-thinking our permit parking process, etc.) remain on the sidelines.

Most of the excitement came from the public comment section, rather than the formal agenda.

DOES ALF HAVE ALS?

One resident complained about all the requests that the City has been slow to respond to. For example –

• · An apparent violation of health code by a Foothill Ranch restaurant was reported but after a month nothing has changed.
• · Sports Park lights on in the daytime, but still not corrected after 3 weeks.
• · Problems with illegal signs not solved after a month.

FWIW - The City is required to respond within 10 days to requests for public records, but the City doesn’t actually have to do anything else. The law doesn‘t say the City has to go a good job, or even do any job at all – simply respond to the request and turn over the documents.

RUDE TO RESIDENTS

Another resident complained about Mayor Hamilton’s nefarious practice of cutting people off in mid-sentence when they reach the 3 minute limit of public comment. The resident had just attended the Mission Viejo Council meeting and found it far more efficient and friendly to the public. The fact is, no other City Council in Orange County treats their citizens as shabbily as Mayor Hamilton treats our residents. No other Council cuts people off in mid-sentence and uses the “time out” to stifle public comment. At least this week none of our residents were subject to Mr. Hamilton’s whims since he was not present.

VILLAGE POND PARK

A third resident complained about the Village Pond Park and brought 15 pictures showing the presence of lots of geese and ducks and the walkways filled with feces. Mayor Pro Tem Voigts was shocked when he looked at the pictures. The City Manager claims that the City is working on keeping the park clean, but the last time we got any information, it turns out the City has issued only 3 violations in the year since the ordinance was passed. The resident said he saw 3 people feeding the geese that day, so handing out 3 violation notices in a year hardly seems like a genuine attempt to deal with the problem.

The City claims that Village Pond Park is part of litigation with the HOA that is responsible for maintaining the water quality in the Pond. But the HOA has no knowledge of any litigation and the City refuses to discuss the issue, claiming that there is litigation (Catch 22). I asked that the issue be put on the next agenda and Councilman Nick was kind enough to second my motion. Mayor Hamilton was adamant that he would not support discussing Village Pond Park, and neither Voigts nor Robinson supported the idea. But thanks to Councilman Nick we will at least get the chance to discuss the issue.

MORE DECEPTION FROM OC ANIMAL CARE

If you recall, last year we revealed that OC Animal Care (OCAC) was putting deceptive data on their website, exaggerating their license compliance figures and under-stating their kill rates. The result was OCAC re-did their euthanasia statistics but pulled down their license compliance data. It magically re-appeared recently, and long-time resident Randy Johnson reported that once again they are exaggerating their license compliance data. OCAC reports that Lake Forest had 80,070 people on 12/31/2015, but in fact the real data was 83,910. By reporting the lower figure, OCAC managed to produce a compliance rate over 50%, but the true figure, using the real population data, was 48%. Even Councilman Robinson admitted that OCAC should be using up-to-date figures and the Council asked our staff to insure that OCAC did a better job in the future.

WATCH IT YOURSELF

You can watch previous Council meetings by going to the City's website and looking under "Agenda".

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 August 13 at 2 pm at the Foothill Ranch Public Library.