It's Your Government. Use it!

Since assuming office a little more than a month ago I’ve been trying to get more people involved in government. This multi-prong approach has involved putting out a comprehensive calendar of City related events (Click here for most recent), highlighting the events (Click here), previewing Council meetings (Click here), establishing a Facebook page where Lake Forest residents are commenting on City related topics (Click here), establishing office hours every Tuesday from 2:00 to 5:00, by issuing a monthly report which is posted on The Patch, on the Facebook page, and distributed by e-mail to more than 1,000 residents (Click here), and by visiting with groups and HOAs to understand their concerns.

• · Office hours have brought in nearly a dozen people to discuss issues ranging from police to street sweeping to the need for speed bumps.
• · The Facebook page has grown quickly to more than 160 members and there are active posts from dozens of people.
• · Attendance at City Council meetings has nearly doubled

The next prong is to have monthly mini-town hall meetings, and the first one is coming up this Friday at 1:30 at Outback Steak House in Foothill Ranch. The purpose of the meeting is to provide a forum where we can discuss upcoming issues for the next City Council meeting. IMO the Council meetings are not a very good vehicle for garnering public opinion or for having a thorough give-and-take discussion, so these mini meetings are designed to fill that void. Here’s how it goes –

• The City posts the agenda and accompanying documents after 5 pm on the Thursday prior to the Council meeting (Click here). That’s tonight (Thursday Jan 15).
• You can view the agenda/documents any time after that.
• Our meeting will take place the next day (Friday, Jan 16) at Outback Steak House. You can do your homework, see what’s “on tap” and bring your ideas.
• We’ll meet from 1:30 to 3:00 (you can order lunch) and go through the agenda and try to thoroughly explore all the options.
• If we run out of things to discuss for the upcoming agenda, we can migrate to other issues of concern.

This new exercise (the mini meeting) isn’t meant to supplant any of the existing systems. If you want to address the full Council with your concerns, you should use the “public comment” section of the Council meeting. If you have a question about City policies you should use the “Ask Lake Forest” section of the City’s website (Click here).

I hope you can join us on Friday. If you can’t, we’ll be doing this again in the middle of February. It’s your government. Use it.

Please note - this mini Town hall meeting is not an official function of the City.

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.