Mayor Has Tantrum, Cancels Meeting

There are people who attend City Council meetings because it’s good entertainment on a Tuesday night, and they weren’t disappointed. On March 1st Mayor Hamilton showed up more than an hour late (getting to be a habit with him), got into several verbal fist-a-cuffs with residents and even with a Council member, then punished the residents (and everyone else) by calling a 10 minute “time-out”, and then abruptly called an end to the meeting despite several significant items to be discussed. Don’t take my word for it, go to the City website and view it for yourself.

Hamilton refers to the residents as “the audience” and seems to think that the City Hall is a library where no one is allowed to talk. In fact, he has issued this command several times, along with his command to prohibit laughing and clapping. But since the Council voted to allow residents to clap and laugh, Hamilton has been frustrated in his ability to achieve absolute control over his “audience”.

It is true that last night several residents did offer their comments when Council members were spouting lies.

· Dwight Robinson claimed that members of the recall movement were “threatening his children”. As far as I know, that’s not true, and if it were, Robinson should contact the Police. But he offered no support whatsoever for his allegation.

· Scott Voigts grumbled that Adam Nick stole his signs, when almost everyone by now knows that Voigts signs were illegally placed and although Nick was initially cited, the charges were dropped when it was determined that the signs were illegally posted.

· Andy Hamilton claimed that the election would cost the city $250,000, a figure invented by the “Gang of 3” and not substantiated by the City Clerk.

To these and other egregious lies and distortions, residents did react with comments. The comments weren’t disruptive, but you could say they weren’t polite. But rather than focus on the reactions, I’d be more inclined to look at what prompted the comments in the first place. As long as the Gang of 3 believes they can spout whatever lie they want, in whatever context they want, people are going to react, and from my point of view, I would say rightfully so.

Perhaps the solution should be a truth meter with a loud gong that goes off every time a Council member tells a lie or makes a gross distortion. Maybe we could even put a small electrical shock for the second occurrence. This way residents wouldn’t have to comment every time lies and distortions were being told, and maybe my colleagues would stop their lies.

At the last Council meeting, Dwight Robinson lied when he claimed that Irvine cost per capita for Police services was nearly twice as high as Lake Forest. The truth is that the difference is about 50% and not 100% as he claimed. When he made this claim I corrected him and told him I was pretty sure he was wrong. He insisted he was right, and the man who could have settled the argument, City Manager Dunek, sat silently. In case you have any doubts, here is the e-mail from Mr. Dunek discussing the per capita costs –

“After deconstructing the major portions of the Irvine police department budget and discussing it with their budget analyst, it looks like their current per capita number would be approximately $298; in comparison, including like with like factors, the per capita number for Lake Forest would be $189.”

Yet Robinson claimed the figures were $170 and $325, an absurd number put forth by OCSD but which I disputed and Dunek confirmed was false. Yet because it served his purposes, Robinson re-introduced these false figures.

Returning to Tuesday night, Hamilton bitterly complained that the occasional and barely audible comments from residents were inappropriate because Council meetings were “the place to do business”. Really!!?! And is Mayor Hamilton’s idea of doing business showing up late to Council meetings? Is it his idea of doing business to punish participants with a “time out”? In The Mayor Hamilton School of Business do they recommend abruptly ending a meeting with significant issues left on the table?

Tomorrow we’ll discuss what happened during the business section of the meeting, but quite frankly, the theatrics of Mr. Hamilton are far more compelling.

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 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 on March 26 at 2 pm at the Foothill Ranch Public Library.

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