"The James Gang" Spotted in Lake Forest

Have you noticed that in the past few months there have been a lot of people using the name “James”? The Patch got a new person posting regularly who calls himself James Ross. The commenters have James Huston and James Phillips, and more recently Jimmie G. What do they have in common? They are all great fans of the Gang of 3 and haters of Adam Nick, Leah Basile, and me. What else do they have in common? The spread false claims, make personal attacks, and rarely offer any facts. But even more cogent is the fact that none of these people exist.

Lake Forest resident Martin Henderson has been in a writing duel with James Ross about what’s happening in Lake Forest. Henderson has been defending the actions of Adam Nick and exposing the lies and corruption involved with the Gang of 3 – Dwight Robinson, Scott Voigts, and Andrew Hamilton. In addition he exposed the false claims and bad logic in stories by Ross. Henderson has been criticized by pseudononymous commenters, but they never poke holes in what he actually says because he generally sticks to the facts and his arguments tend to be pretty solid.

Henderson is a long time Lake Forest resident. For a short time he was managing The Patch for Lake Forest. Henderson got in the habit of attending nearly Council meetings and continues to this day. So Henderson is actively concerned with what happens in the City, and is more knowledgeable than most.

But who is James Ross? Henderson thinks that he is actually Andrew Hamilton, writing under an alias. Recently Henderson challenged Ross to make an appearance (Click Here to read the amusing post). Henderson asked him to show up for a debate, with the money going to charity. Several people offered to contribute, myself included.

Ross made no effort to contact him and never showed up at the Candidate Forum.

If Ross is real, why not reveal himself?

That’s not conclusive proof, but it says a lot. So I decided to do some research myself. I looked up James Ross, as well as the other James’ who post on The Patch and support the Gang (i.e., James Huston, and James Phillips) on Google and on WhitePages.Com Here are the results.

Not only are these pseudonyms not registered voters, it appears they are not even residents.

James Ross

Here is the result of the Google search Click Here . There is a James Ross in Lake Forest Illinois, but not in Lake Forest California.

Here is the result of the White Pages search Click Here. There is no James Ross in Lake Forest California. The closest one is in Irvine.

James Huston

Here is the result of the Google search Click Here. There is no James Huston in Lake Forest California.

Here is the result of the White Pages search Click Here . There is no James Huston in Lake Forest California. The closest one is in Chino Hill.

James Phillips

Here is the result of the Google search Click Here. There is no James Phillips in Lake Forest California. There is one in Charlotte NC who lives on Lake Forest Rd.

Here is the result of the White Pages search Click Here . There is no James Phillips in Lake Forest California. The closest one is in Fontana.

Why would someone use phony names to post their comments? There are a couple of possibilities. Let’s talk about that tomorrow.

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.