Lake Forest City Council - Nest of Vipers or House of Clowns?

It’s hard to decide whether or not the Lake Forest City Council is best described as a “nest of vipers” or a “house of clowns”. Let’s look at both epithets.

NEST OF VIPERS

There has never been a City Council in Lake Forest’s history that has been so severely criticized for their unethical and corrupt behaviors. Here are but a few examples

• Council members Voigts and Robinson took money from the Brookfield/Trumark builders and then voted them unprecedented privileges, including removing the requirement for an economic viability study, allowing tandem parking (then later narrowing the tandem garages to the point where they were no longer able to park 2 cars), granting special privileges to the children who lived in Brookfield, etc.
• Council members Voigts and McCullough told so many blatant lies while sitting on the dais that several articles had to be written to cover them. Click here for Voigts and here for McCullough.
• In addition to the Brookfield/Trumark corruption scandal, Voigts took money from organizations doing business with the city (e.g., Waste Management, BIA, Shea Homes) or seeking favors from the City (e.g., Maaco Collision Repair, Sue Waltman, Waltman-Fodor Properties, Manufactured Housing PAC, Committee to Elect Tom Fuentes), and delivered the votes they sought, and never bothered to mention this obvious conflict of interests.
• It was discovered that McCullough used public funds to pay for many of her husband’s expenses when he traveled with her on City business.
• Voigts and Robinson appointed their friends, cronies, and campaign contributors to positions on the Planning Commission even when they had no qualifications for the position, with devastating results. Click here for that story.

Indeed, the behavior of the Council was so egregious that long-time Council member and 3-times former Mayor Peter Herzog resigned and took 3 pages to list his concerns. Here are some excerpts -

“Tragically, over the last 10 months, the City government has been turned upside down, and the people are secondary at best to the political interests of three council members. Mayor Voigts and Councilmembers Nick and Robinson have decided the new course of the City is to replace solid public policy based on facts, with politics.”

“Cronyism is now driving appointments made by the City Council, not the goal of choosing the best qualified people. The Planning Commission is the most glaring example.”

“Probably the most alarming change is we now have councilmembers who show open disdain for people who speak on agenda items or under Public Comments”

Indeed, last year 4,000 Lake Forest residents signed a petition trying to turn back some of the votes by the Voigts’ Gang, but they were unsuccessful in being able to do this within 30 days.

These are just a few examples of how sleazy the City Council has become since Voigts and his gang took control.

If you don’t like the prospects of being ruled over by a Nest of Vipers, in the upcoming election there are 5 people who are running who are not incumbents. Next week we’ll start profiles on each of them.

Tomorrow we’ll look at the case for the City Council as a “House of Clowns”