Mid Year Report - Part 2

Yesterday we explored the results in 2017 at the level of the Council and the City. In summary -

As a Council

• Meetings are far more harmonious than ever.
• We are doing more than ever.
• We are trying to make meetings work better.
• We set in motion the transition to district elections
• We’re bringing in a professional consultant to assist us in strategic planning.
• After an extensive search, hired a new City Manager

As a City

• Getting the moribund civic/senior center off the ropes, into reality, and on schedule.
• Expanding our special needs program to an exemplary level.
• Creating a local animal adoption center.
• Getting the long delayed Village Pond Park renovation actually started.
• Establishing a new procedure for handling parking problems citywide.
• Creating a Traffic/Planning Commission and tasking them with specific objectives.
• Revising the system for sports field allocations and also revising our way of treating the turf.
• Soliciting experts to assist us with building affordable housing for veterans.
• Designing a mobile app to revolutionize people’s abilities to communicate with the city.
• Creating an annual CEO and an annual HOA forum for an exchange of ideas.
• Creating an ad hoc committee to improve our relationships with SVUSD.
• Creating an ad hoc committee to explore ways to reduce the costs of the Police contract.
• Adding a Public Education Officer to increase revenue to offset County charges for animal services.
• Adding a Parking Enforcement Officer to help with the citywide parking problems.

Today we'll look at some other areas.

PUBLIC SAFETY

For nearly a decade I have been upset that the crime rate in Lake Forest was higher than most of our neighbors. Now, for the first time, we have one of the lowest crime rates in the area. Only RSM and Aliso Viejo have lower rates than Lake Forest. (Click Here) This is an enormous move forward for our City in an area of the utmost important.

In addition, the County has recognized the work of our officers. Deputy Sheriff Chet Parker was named "Deputy Sheriff of the Year" (Click Here) and Deputy Adam Koliha was honored for his life saving (Click Here).

LEGISLATION

We’ve initiated three major legislative efforts

• Transitory lodging (Click Here)
• Granny units (Click Here)
• Overnight parking (Click Here)

The transitory lodging and the overnight parking ordinances will go a long way toward improving the parking problems we have in the City.

LEGAL ISSUES

We avoided being sued or suing anyone, which is a miracle itself in these litigious times. We were in danger of being sued, but thanks to a vote by Mayor Pro Tem Basile, Councilman Robinson and me we avoided what could have been a $7,000,000 lawsuit against the City.

On a positive side we sold the Housing Authority Parcel (near El Toro and the railroad tracks) for nearly $900,000. That parcel sat for decades as a scar on the city. Now it will be developed by the local landowner and the money will go to our affordable home budget.

BUDGET

We’ve achieved an extremely ambitious agenda and yet we are still operating with a balanced budget and an anticipated budget surplus. Our reserves are strong and we have sufficient capital improvement monies to carry out our goals for the next 5 years. (Click Here) This Council simply took over a good position from previous Councils, so a lot of credit can’t go to us.

QUALITY OF LIFE

There are many indications that our quality of life is improving.

• For as long as I can remember, Lake Forest had one of the highest crime rates among our neighbors. The most recent statistics show that Lake Forest now has the 3rd lowest crime rate in the area. This is great news. (Click Here)
• After decades of being closed every other Friday, at the urging of Mayor Pro Tem Basile and I, beginning June 30 the City Hall will now be open even Friday. This is a big benefit to residents.
• We are on schedule to open a new Civic Center, Senior Center, and Performing Arts center.
• The City is creating the position of Communications Director to improve communications with residents. (Click Here)
• We held parks improvements workshops for 10 of our parks and we're about to start improvements in all of them, based on what people asked for. (Click Here)

CHALLENGES

• The ever-rising Police contract budget is going up about $1 million per year for the same level of service we had 5 years ago. (Click Here). The addition of more than 10,000 people as a result of the new homes is going to increase our Police budget even more. As the Police proportion of our budget increases, we have less money to spend on other things. We need to find ways to keep our current quality of police services while containing costs. This problem is not unique to us, but is faced by everyone served by the County.
• We are doing so much more than has ever been done we are in danger of mis-steps and mistakes. While doing less, the City made sufficient mistakes in the past (e.g., Saddleback Ranch Rd., Tamarisk Park, Village Pond Park) so our past record is not outstanding. We will need to put extra efforts into quality control to insure that we can do more and even better. This will not be easy to accomplish. As our performance gets better, expectations get raised, putting more pressure and increasing the possibilities of mistakes.
• The move to district elections has the possibility of disrupting our normal way of functioning. We need to be concerned with putting the interests of the City above any special interests. In the past we have been corrupted by developers, builders, companies with city contracts, and political action groups. These were troubling enough. We mustn’t let the district election system add another layer of special interest.
• We have areas of the city that are under-performing, with respect to economic viability and with respect to quality of life. The City needs to focus on these areas and bring to bear whatever resources we can to improve them, without neglecting the services currently provided. We need to work smarter and be more innovative and collaborative in addressing these issues. Meanwhile most of the cities around us are already working on plans to revitalize their cities. (Click Here)
• Many people who lived in Foothill Ranch and Portola Hills when it was annexed by Lake Forest are still resentful, and the move to district elections may help to keep some people feeling alienated from the City as a whole. We will have to work at this problem and hopefully the districting can be used to bring us together rather than separate us any further

SUMMARY

We are half way through the current year and this year promises to be the most innovative and productive in our City’s history. We have challenges ahead but they can be overcome.

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 mini town meeting every month. The next meeting will be on Sept 9 at 2 pm at the Foothill Ranch Public Library.