Council's 'Gang of 3' Under Fire for Voting, Decisions

You can see Adam Nick seething at the end of the dais of the Lake Forest City Council. The most popular candidate of the last two elections—he garnered 22 percent of support from voters in 2012—Nick has been frozen out of the mayorship for four years while less popular men held the gavel that controls the five-man council.

He has offered up proposals for more transparency among his colleagues, a government that isn’t bound to special interests, and a process that’s more resident-friendly—all of which have been defeated even though those ideals were part of the platform that got him elected.

Instead, Scott Voigts (twice), Dwight Robinson and Andrew Hamilton have all taken their turn in the center seat at City Hall, but being mayor isn’t the only thing they have in common: There is a petition to recall each of them, and they have increasingly come under scrutiny for their voting record—to the point some think there is collusion among them.

The previous council, at the request of Robinson, removed restrictions that guaranteed Nick would take his turn as mayor in 2015. At the next meeting, the first with Hamilton and the newly reelected Voigts in attendance, Voigts was chosen mayor for the second time in three years and Hamilton the mayor pro tem; neither could have happened under the previous policy. Last month, Hamilton was tabbed mayor, a selection that belied the opinion of voters; he received fewer votes than any elected council member this century.

At their second meeting on Dec. 16, 2014, Robinson sought to change the city policy to place an item on the council agenda for discussion and vote from the required consent of only two council members to three. Once that passed on Jan. 6, 2015, essentially only those items appealing to Voigts, Robinson or Hamilton became relevant as they could control what appeared before the council.

Nick called it “a betrayal to representative democracy … a slap in the face to the thousands of voters” who elected himself and Jim Gardner.

In October, when neither Voigts, Robinson, nor Hamilton would consent to place on an agenda the discussion of a dangerous road in Portola Hills that locals feared would lead to an inevitable tragedy, those neighborhood residents began the recall process. Signature gathering began on Dec. 22.

The recall is something Nick clearly supports, as does Gardner. They were the two who voted to put Saddleback Ranch Road on the agenda last October, but they couldn’t get support from even one of the other three.

Split Decisions

Under the current council, there have been 18 votes that have been decided 3-2; in every one of them, it has been Voigts, Robinson and Hamilton voting in lockstep.

Whenever there’s a split decision—either 3-2 or 4-1—the three men vote together 82 percent of the time.

Gardner has taken to calling them the “Gang of 3” as they consolidated control of the city’s government over the last 14 months; at least two of them have been on the winning side of every vote since December 2014.

Nick and Gardner are clearly frustrated, and just as the numbers in the election don’t lie, they claim the council voting record doesn’t lie either. They are routinely on the losing end of the split votes that don’t pass unanimously: 100 percent of the time when it’s a 3-2 split, Nick and Gardner are losers.

“These numbers clearly show bloc voting by Voigts, Hamilton, and Robinson,” said Gardner, who finished ahead of Hamilton in the 2014 election. “It suggests a level of agreement that can’t happen randomly. Whether or not this violates the Brown Act is for the District Attorney to determine. Elected city officials are supposed to be non-partisan and this bloc voting violates that spirit.”

He and Nick are among those who think the voting history isn’t just a coincidence.

“I can’t even agree with myself 100 percent of the time,” said Nick, who has voted with Gardner on split issues on 22 of 38 occasions. In other words, 42 percent of the time they don’t vote together even though they are often at odds with the other three. Nick attributes this to his and Gardner’s “independent thinking.”

If Voigts, Robinson and Hamilton are colluding, they would be breaking the law. The Brown Act prohibits three members from privately discussing agenda items together; in other words, if Voigts tried to privately sway Robinson on an issue (perfectly legal) and then either of them made contact with Hamilton—or Nick or Gardner—the person making the second contact would be violating the law.

Although most agenda items pass by a 5-0 vote, those are comprised largely of city business such as paying the bills, commending local residents, and signing off on issues that are no-brainers.

On matters that aren’t unanimous, a pattern has emerged in the 41 split decisions on the council; 100 percent of the time, two of the so-called Gang of 3 voted together to form a majority (sometimes there were only three or four council members voting). On the 33 occasions in which all members were present, Voigts, Robinson and Hamilton voted together 27 times. Remarkably, Voigts has never voted separately from either Robinson or Hamilton. That relationship, Nick and Gardner say, is further proof that independent thinking isn’t taking place.

On the Same Side

Adding some muscle to their claims are two peculiar campaign contributions that appear to connect Voigts, Robinson and Hamilton at the hip regardless of their denials. Assemblyman Don Wagner, for whom Voigts works, and Meritage Homes each contributed $10,000 to a political action committee called Restore California that spent $16,609 on a flyer to get Voigts and Hamilton elected in November 2014; Robinson penned the text for the Restore California flyer that supported Voigts, Hamilton and incumbent Dave Bass and attacked their opponents, including Gardner.

Subsequently, Voigts was selected mayor for 2015 by his colleagues, and by year’s end, Voigts, Robinson and Hamilton were giving Meritage the final green light to build their development, which included rezoning land from industrial to residential. They maintain their vote is not for sale.

“They gained the public’s vote based on disingenuous smiles and insincere handshakes,” Nick said. “It’s a shame we must tolerate self-serving policy makers who have denied the city a more transparent government and left open the door for special interests: 3-2 doesn’t lie.”

About the author: Martin Henderson won several Los Angeles and Orange County press club awards while an editor at Patch in 2012-13.