Council Preview - The New Mayor

The City Council will appoint a new Mayor on Tuesday night. In anticipation, a few days ago Portola Hills resident Leah Basile writing on The Patch gave us an excellent description of how a mayor should function – Click Here for that article. She followed up yesterday with an analysis of Scott Voigts’ current turn as mayor and everyone should read this article – Click Here. She gives us a devastating blow-by-blow sample of Voigts’ questionable conduct and failings and concludes “The list is quite sobering” which is an understatement. I won’t repeat her well documented points here, but you should read her article before going on.

In the next two articles I’m going to look at Voigts’ performance as Mayor in 2013 and in 2015 and see if there aren’t some lessons for us in picking a Mayor.

Two years ago I said that Scott Voigts was the “Worst Mayor in the history of Lake Forest”. Here’s why –

VOIGT’S VOID

At the time, Voigts was bumbling and stammering his way through his first term, allowing meetings to seemingly go on forever, letting Council members bicker and argue in ways never seen before in our City, and postponing so many agenda items that I came up with the name “Voigts Void” to describe the nearly two dozens items that kept getting continued. Many of these items had significant financial and quality of life consequences, so the never-ending postponements were harmful to the City’s wellbeing.

HERZOG’S RESIGNATION

Voigts’ stewardship of the Council was so awful that he was the prime cause behind two unprecedented events – the resignation of one Council member and a public effort at a referendum to knock down recently passed legislation.

Peter Herzog was a long term Council member and several times served as Mayor. But Herzog was unable to continue as a Council member because Voigts and his BFF Dwight Robinson had teamed up to defeat everything Herzog was trying to accomplish. On Oct 13, 2013 Herzog wrote

“Tragically, over the last 10 months, the City government has been turned upside down, and the people are secondary at best to the political interests…[they]… decided the new course of the City is to replace solid public policy based on facts, with politics. They appoint their friends to the City Commissions over those duly qualified, and put their own self-interests above the will of the people.”

“The instances of this behavior are too numerous to set out here, so I will provide just a few examples. First, is the land rezoning fiasco in Foothill Ranch for two developers; Brookfield and Trumark. These two developers laundered $65,000 through two PACS so their names would not be on the flood of campaign fliers that came out. Plus, they donated an additional $13,550 directly to candidates for a total of $78,550, effectively buying the last election.”

“Spending far more than double what any candidate in Lake Forest had EVER spent, these two developers became the largest campaign spenders in the history of our City. The impact was immediate. Within 25 minutes of being sworn in Robinson got the projects put on the City Council agenda. Then, the two developers requested a study be cancelled that City staff indicated would have answered “a key question” about the proposals….. Then, without any outreach to you, the community, and despite the objections of numerous Lake Forest residents who publicly spoke in opposition to the projects, [they] voted to shove homes into the middle of an area surrounded by commercial developments. Over 4,000 voters have already indicated their objection to what was done. Money, PAC’s laundering money from outsiders, and politics have overruled the people.

The impact of money, PACS and politics also creates a concern for the business community. [They] claim to be “pro-business” and “business friendly”. Yet, by rezoning the property they voted to throw out four successful businesses because their building will have to be torn down for the Trumark project….. It is clear that “pro-business” now means “pro-donor” in the City of Lake Forest.”

“Cronyism is now driving appointments made by the City Council, not the goal of choosing the best qualified people. The Planning Commission is the most glaring example. We had a very respected and highly functioning Planning Commission that was praised by both developers and the public. Quite an achievement. Yet, [they] proceeded to replace three Planning Commissioners with less qualified individuals who have connections to them. Newly appointed Commissioner Brower worked for Robinson’s Long Beach based company in 2012, was paid a small amount to help in Voigts’ election, and posted on Facebook during the Planning Commission interviews that “I count 3 of the 5 council members amongst my friends”.

“Probably the most alarming change is we now have councilmembers who show open disdain for people who speak on agenda items or under Public Comments…. The public has been told that speaking to their City Council “is not productive”; that it is “wasting everybody’s time…. Councilmembers have openly questioned the honesty and character of members of the public. Furthermore, on two recent projects, residents views were treated as irrelevant because they did not live within a 1/4 mile of the project. As you can see, your views are no longer important…”

SAVE LAKE FOREST

The other unprecedented event that resulted from Voigts’ behavior was the referendum spurred by the Brookfield and Trumark deal. Nearly 100 citizens took to the streets and gathered nearly 4,000 signatures in a little more than 30 days to try to stop the new homes being squeezed into the Auto Center. Never before had people been so angry about what their City Council members were up to. In fact, two City Council members and several Commission members signed the petition.

BROKEN PROMISES

Previously I noted that Voigts’ broken promises are legion. I listed 11 examples including promising to oppose Musick Jail and then endorsing it, promising to support competitive bidding and then voting against it, promising “citizen participation” and then voting against a traffic commission and a community foundation etc. etc.

CAN HE DO EVEN WORSE?

So that was the background to my declaration that Voigt’s previous turn as Mayor earned him the title of “worst Mayor in the city’s history”. Tomorrow I’ll see if he keeps the title, or whether he set new standards in 2015. On Tuesday I will comment on the qualifications of Voigts’ team - Dwight Robinson and Andy Hamilton.

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 Jan 30 at 2 pm at the Foothill Ranch Public Library.