The City’s motto is "Remember the past, challenge the future". This week we took a look at what’s been accomplished during the first half of 2014 and today we’ll look at the future.
Remembering the past, we found -
Business as usual happened as usual.
Find out what's happening in Lake Forestfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Only 3 of the dozen plus Voigts Void issues surfaced in 2014. Two of the excellent ideas (a traffic commission and a nonprofit foundation) were defeated and the third (more efficient meetings) was inadequately resolved (i.e., they dealt with it, but didn’t solve it).
Among the positive achievements, we loosened up our regulations on business and campaign signs, made it more difficult to raise our taxes and fees, and voted to stiffen the council’s expense policies. The opening of the sports park is on schedule, and we are expanding the number of traffic lights that are synchronized.
Find out what's happening in Lake Forestfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Among the negatives, the Council spent our tax money making their life easier, voted the biggest fee increase in City history, and defeated several sunshine ordinances that would have made government more honest and transparent.
We noted with some dismay
Mayor “TwoFace” Robinson continues to break promises at a record level.
Councilwoman McCullough has been caught in another bunch of lies, but this time she may have stepped over the line and broken the law.
City Manager Bob Dunek continued to prove that he is woefully inept by producing reports that are lacking in accuracy and deeply flawed.
Scott Voigts got caught pretending he is still the “Mayor of Lake Forest” while he was trying to solicit money to support his re-election campaign.
There was absolutely no progress on cleaning up Village Pond Park, finding a location for a dog park or a community garden, and developing guidelines for allowing alcohol sales in the City.
Corruption continues unabated. Voigts, Robinson, and McCullough continue to take money from special interests and then vote to give these special interests what they ask for. In 2014, some of these special interests included Brookfield Homes, mobile park owners, and CR&R trash haulers. While Voigts, Robinson and McCullough are the ones who engage in this unethical behavior, neither Nick nor Bass have the courage to reprimand their errant colleagues, so the misbehavior continues and Lake Forest City Council has become a “nest of vipers.”
LAKE FOREST
If you ask most people what they like most about living in Lake Forest, here is what you’ll find
Good climate
Good location
close to beaches, mountains,
close but not too close to major cities
close but not too close to local airport
Relatively small size (population and physical footprint)
Fortunately none of these things can be ruined by the City Council.
If you ask people what they don’t like about living in Lake Forest, here is what you’ll find
Traffic congestion
Traffic lights not synchronized
Paucity of amenities (e.g., dog park, senior center)
All of these problems are the direct responsibility of the City Council.
Having looked at the past, let’s look ahead.
THE FUTURE
Despite the dramatic changes in the composition of the city council and commissions since 2012, not much is different. As a City we continue to slog along, with relatively high crime rates, traffic congestion, and much fewer amenities than our neighbors have. Moreover the corruption that was rampant before is even worse now. Nothing this council has done indicates that anything new is going to happen.
Progress on the location of a dog park or a community garden is stalled.
A plan to cleanup the Village Pond Park has not even been developed.
The idea of a traffic commission has been dismissed, and any feedback from the “traffic forums” is long overdue.
Plans for a new civic center are stalled, maybe permanently.
Our crime rate is significantly higher than almost all our neighbors and yet there are no plans to do anything differently with regard to reducing crime, and all the while the cost of Police services continues to rise and now approaches 40%.
Despite complaints from the Planning Commission and the Council itself, revisions of the ill-conceived process by which stores are approved for selling alcohol has still not been revised.
In the last few years, we have spent less and less money on people and businesses in Lake Forest, to the point where this month we will achieve a new low of less than 2%.
CLEAN OUT THE HOUSE
Going forward, the best thing we can do in the second half of the year is to work to clean house – remove the three incumbents and replace them with three honest, conscientious, intelligent, and concerned people. There are plenty of people who fit that description in Lake Forest – unfortunately most of them aren’t on the Council and the three incumbents asking to be re-elected are ill- prepared to lead us into a more productive future.
Voigts – will continue to lie, break promises, and accept money from special interests. He will lack vision and be absorbed in issues that are self-serving.
McCullough – will continue to lie, use City funds to pay for her personal expenses, and accept money from special interests. She will offer no new ideas and will continue to monopolize valuable Council time with her endless monologues.
Bass – will continue to do nothing of consequence. At least he kept one of his promises. He said he wasn‘t going to do anything and he didn’t do anything. He said his sole objective in “filling the seat” was to keep the City from spending money on a special election. Mission accomplished.
Tomorrow we resume our discussion of “DinnerGate” – Councilwoman McCullough’s false claims about how she spends the City’s money, along with the actual story of how she spends our money.
Next week we’ll look at whether or not what Councilwoman McCullough did constitutes illegal acts.
