Here’s what happened Tuesday night –
DEBT-FREE DAY
What a great celebration. We had representatives from Congress, State Senate, Board of Supervisors, Cal Pers, the League of California Cities, and Board of Equalization
PUT LAKE FOREST FIRST
I have been arguing for years, long before I was elected to Council, that our City needed to give our residents and business owners a preference in getting city contracts and business. As difficult as it may be to believe, each time I managed to get the issue on the table, I was out-voted. Just as I suspected, Councilmen Voigts and Robinson tried to scuttle the program once again, but this time they lost. The idea will move forward.
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Councilmen Robinson and Voigts take almost all of their money for their campaigns from companies in Irvine, Huntington Beach, City of Industries, Stanton, etc. Having a local preference would not be seen as friendly by these businesses.
GENERAL PLAN UPDATE
The City is engaged in a general plan update. Our current general plan is more than 20 years old, and some people thought it was time for a new one. This evening we had an update on how they have been spending our money. We are on time and on budget and moving along. I initiated quite a discussion on what I thought the General Plan should concentrate on and we agreed that this was the direction to proceed with.
Find out what's happening in Lake Forestfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
I will be meeting with the consultants (and the City Manager) in the next week to insure that the General Plan is going in the way we discussed. Right now the draft report is lacking in most of the details we identified at the Council meeting and I want to be sure we get onto the right track as soon as possible.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest where he serves as Mayor. 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 Oct 18 at 7 pm at the Lake 1 Clubhouse (Ridge Route).
