Dwight Robinson's Broken Promises

On Monday we looked at claims made by Councilman Adam Nick (during his Town Hall meeting) about fellow Councilman Robinson. Nick and Robinson have been on the Council since 2012 and are running for re-election. On Tuesday we examined the veracity of some of those claims. Wednesday we looked at Nick’s claims about Robinson’s voting record and today we’ll focus on Robinson’s 2012 promises and see whether or not he did what he promised.

Bear in mind that Robinson has been the leader of the so-called Gang of 3 (Voigts-Robinson-Hamilton) who control Lake Forest politics and who vote together almost all the time. 100% of the time their decisions become law or policy. So when we examine Robinson’s promises, there can be little reason why he didn’t follow through, since he has had the votes to be able to do whatever he wanted. If he wanted a Traffic Commission, he and his Gang could have created one. If he wanted a local animal shelter, his crew would have made it happen.

In any event, here are Robinson’s promises in 2012. Adam Nick claimed that Robinson did not fulfill any of his promises. Let’s see if that’s accurate.

ROBINSON’S 2012 CAMPAIGN PROMISES

I’ve included copies of the literature from Robinson’s 2012 campaign. Here’s what he promised. I’ve used the exact quotes from his literature, which you can view attached to this article. I’ve listed everything he said that could be interpreted as a promise.

PROMISE - “…create a Traffic Commission”

REALITY – Robinson voted against a traffic commission on Dec 17, 2013.

PROMISE – “…ease traffic congestion…”

REALITY – Robinson voted for not a single program to reduce traffic congestion. Instead, he did the opposite, by voting for every single development project that crossed his path. Here’s a list –

• · 58 new homes in Portola Hills – May 17, 2016
• · 52 new homes along Alton Pkwy – Jan 5, 2016
• · 250 new homes across the street from the Sports Park – May 19, 2015
• · 72 new homes in Auto Center – Sept 3, 2013
• · 147 new homes in Auto Center – Aug 20, 2013

These projects put nearly 600 more new homes in the City which means at least 1,200 more cars which will contribute to traffic congestion, not alleviate it.

FWIW – The developers behind these projects (Brookfield, Trumark, Meritage) funneled tens of thousands of dollars into electing and supporting Robinson and his Gang.

PROMISE – “…open more schools to lower class sizes”

REALITY – Not a single new school has been opened despite more than 2,000 new homes being built and 2000+ new homes being approved. In fact, one school has even closed.

PROMISE – “…make Lake Forest friendlier to businesses, creating more jobs.”

REALITY – He’s voted against giving preferences to Lake Forest businesses. He’s voted to eliminate hundreds of acres of commercial property, removing jobs from the City. Before Robinson took office the City spent 5% of its budget on our own people and businesses. Since Robinson it’s down to less than 2%.

PROMISE – “…reduce pension benefits for future city employees.”

REALITY – He’s done nothing to achieve this. In fact, he’s voted to give hundreds of thousands of dollars in raises and bonuses to City employees, thus increasing our pension liabilities.

PROMISE – “…oppose wasteful city spending.”

REALITY – Robinson has been the "King of Wasteful Spending"

• He refused to vote to ask City Department Heads to cut the fat from their budgets which could have saved the city $2,000,000 per year (May 12, 2015).
• He refused to re-bid a street sweeping contract that could have saved the City $250,000 per year (May 19, 2015).
• He voted to give OC Animal Control a 10 year contract without knowing how much they would charge and with no limits on what they could charge (Dec 1, 2015). This may cost us millions of extra dollars.
• He voted to give himself and everyone on the Council and the Planning Commission expensive iPads for their convenience. (Dec 17, 2013)
• He voted to spend $10,000 to make life more convenient for him and Council and Commission members by letting them submit forms electronically. (Jan 7, 2014)
• He voted to eliminate “Investment Oversight Review” from Council review (Feb 4, 2014).

PROMISE – “Work actively to prevent any Jail Expansion and stop the transfer of high risk violent offenders to our family-friendly community.”

REALITY – Robinson did nothing to stop jail expansion, and the jail is not only going to be expanded, but it will house medium security prisoners which is far worse than the minimum security prisoners it used to house.

SUMMARY

Previously we looked at Adam Nick’s claims about Robinson and about his voting record. Nick was found to be 100% accurate. Now an analysis of Robinson’s campaign promises from 2012 shows that, as Nick claimed, Robinson broke every promise he made, and sometimes, did the opposite of what he promised.

Tomorrow we’ll summarize.

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 is not up for re-election in 2016.

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 in November at the Foothill Ranch Public Library.