Lake Forest 2018 Part 1 (Finances)

My year as Mayor and my four years as a Council member are coming to an end so it’s an appropriate time to review. Here is what I see as my accomplishments. I’ve focused on those issues in which I played a major role. In a later article I’ll talk about the other achievements by the City in which I played a minor role.

Once we’ve looked at the achievements, I’ll discuss the current “State of the City” and then offer what I see are the challenges ahead.

These achievements are organized by topic, and within each topic I’ve tried to arrange them in what I think was the most important achievement. Where appropriate I’ve chosen pictures that illustrate some of the projects discussed.

The list is so long that I broke it up into several articles. The first one involves finances.

SECURING OUR FINANCIAL FUTURE

• Debt Free. As part of my weekly meetings with the Finance Director a few months ago we came up with the idea of paying off the Alton Parkway bond, thus saving the city $1,000,000 in interest payments and making us the only major city in the U.S. that is debt free. I presented the idea to the Council and they approved it unanimously. (See Photo)
• More Income. I long objected to the vast empty space by El Toro Rd and the train tracks. It belonged to the City but it sat there for years looking terrible. I lobbied the Council to sell the acreage, and after some negotiations, we sold the property last year for nearly $900,000. The new owners have yet to improve the property, but it is expected shortly. Without my push, the space would still be vacant and we would have $900,000 less in the bank. (See Photo)
• More Income. A few years ago, just after I joined the City Council, I complained about how little interest we were earning. We established an ad hoc committee and we came up with a new approach to investing our money. Since that time, the increase in our interest earnings, separate from the rise in interest rates that occurred, has been estimated by the Finance Director at close to $500,000.
• Less Non-Essential Spending. Last year, when we discussed the General Plan revision, I objected to the costs and to the length of time it would take. I got some push back from some of my colleagues (Voigts/Robinson), but ultimately I prevailed and we adopted an approach that cut 2 years from the delivery date and saved the city $500,000. (See Photo)
• Less Non-Essential Spending. Last year the City was faced with a lawsuit about district elections and the law firm threatening to sue the City had won dozens of lawsuits, gained millions of dollars in awards from cities, some as high as $4,000,000. I argued strongly that we needed to move to district elections so that we would not be sued and lose, potentially, more than $1,000,000, as many other cities did. I got strong opposition from Scott Voigts and Andrew Hamilton, but I was able to convince Dwight Robinson to join Mayor Pro Tem Basile and I and avoid what would have been a major loss to the City. Not only were we facing $1,000,000 in awards against us, we were facing the costs of defending the lawsuit, which could easily have been $1,000,000 or more. Ultimately I prevailed and the City was spared the expense of a costly lawsuit. To this day the law firm remains undefeated. FWIW – in the ballot measure on the November election, the majority of the people who voted agreed with us that fighting this battle in the light of the firm’s undefeated record was the right thing to do.
• Less Non-Essential Spending. Our Homeless Liaison Officers (HLO) have done a great job for the city, but let’s face it – having a Deputy Sheriff doing what is essentially Social Work is a waste of the Deputy’s education and training and a considerable cost to the City. I worked with the City Manager to contract with a well-respected agency to do the work of the HLO, providing more coverage and more management at half the price. We are already reaping the benefits and in a few months we have moved more people off the streets than previously. This will mean a savings of $100,000 a year to the City, assuming that the HLO as a full-time position is phased out as planned. (See Photo)
• Less Non-Essential Spending. We are spending more than $500,000 a year to have Police Officers enforce our parking issues in the City. It doesn’t require the education and training of a Police Officer to give out tickets. Many cities get by with civilian personnel at a 50% savings. That could mean saving $250,000 per year
• Savings. Mayor Pro Tem Basile and I pushed for a multi-city street sweeping agreement with Mission Viejo, and if enacted in 2019, this may save us more than $50,000 a year.
• Savings. Councilman Adam Nick and I argued for a study of spending by the Police since the costs of our contract were going up by hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and police spending was taking up more and more of our budget. Hamilton-Voigts-Robinson shot us down, but later I was able to get an agreement for us to join 13 other cities in a study of this nature. The results will be coming back soon and we may be able to save hundreds of thousands of dollars per year if we implement some of these ideas.
• Fire Grants. While attending the Leadership Academy I learned about a potential $1,000,000 grant available from the State to assist the City and the HOAs in a fire prevention program. I pushed the City to respond rapidly because the due date was very close, and we were able to gather the HOAs and hopefully we will gain $1,000,000. (See Photo)

That’s a brief summary of the money we’ve saved and could save if all the initiatives I advanced are put into motion. In total, it’s a savings of nearly $6,000,000 in one-time savings/increased revenues, and $400,000 or more per year in on-going savings.

Next time we’ll talk about Public Safety.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest where he serves as Mayor. 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.