Council Preview - Jan 16

Here’s what’s on tap for the City Council meeting on January 16 –

RECALL CERTIFICATION

The special election is over and the Registrar of Voters has certified the results (Click Here). It remains for the Council to recognize the results.

• Total Ballots Cast - 7,701
• Shall Andrew Hamilton be recalled? 5,514 Yes (72.1% of total votes)
• Succeed Hamilton? Tom Cagley - 3,401 (51.8% of total votes)

At this point, Councilman Hamilton will vacate his seat and Councilman Cagley will take his place.

Councilman Cagley will offer his remarks at the Feb 6 meeting.

ELECTION OF NEW MAYOR AND MAYOR PRO TEM

The election of the new Mayor and Mayor Pro-Tem was postponed from the first meeting in December until now, by a 3:2 vote of the Council, because the 3 members voting for the postponement wanted the election results to be in, so that a new Council member could participate.

All members of the Council are eligible for any of the positions.

The new Mayor’s remarks will be given at the Feb 6 meeting.

APPOINTMENTS TO BOARDS, ETC.

In a similar fashion, appointments were deferred for the new Council member to participate.

For Vector Control, resident Bob Holtzclaw and Mayor Scott Voigts have applied.

NAKASE EIR

In a similar fashion, the decision to appoint a company to conduct the EIR for Toll Brothers purchase of the Nakase Nursery to create 800 new homes was deferred for the new Council member to participate.

LSA Associates was chosen by staff to prepare an environmental document, at a cost of $233,670 (paid for by Toll Brothers). LSA received the highest points on the city’s evaluation, but they were more expensive than the other 2 highly regarded companies ($209,003 and $232,910). FWIW – LSA Associates is a generous donor to City Council campaigns, having given $500 to Andrew Hamilton (3/2/17), $250 to Andrew Hamilton (9/30/15), and $250 to Scott Voigts (10/5/2015). As far as I can confirm, the other two companies have not given any money to Council members.

This is the first step in the process of Toll Brothers trying to get approval for their project. Once the report is finished it will come back to the Council.

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 twitter handle is @DrJimGardner. 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 Thursday Feb 15 at 7 pm at the Beach and Tennis Club on Ridge Rte.