My First Year in Office - Goals for 2016

This is Part 5 in a series in which I tried to sum up my first year in office. Part 1 dealt with individual achievements. Part 2 dealt with my contributions on the Council. Part 3 dealt with Council achievements in general. Part 4 went over my notable failures. Today I want to lay out my goals for 2016 with a focus on completing the ongoing projects. At the end of the month I will have a list of new initiatives I want to pursue in 2016.

COMPLETE ONGOING PROJECTS

· RECLAIMED WATER – See that we are able to significantly expand the use of reclaimed water in the City, in our lakes and in Village Pond Park and in FHR and Portola Hills.

· SENIOR CENTER – After years of delay, we need to get the proposed senior center started. We are the only City in Orange County to lack a Senior Center. There is no excuse!

· SUPPORTING LOCAL ARTISTS – I want to see City Hall and the Sports Park used to promote our local artists, and more local artist shows at City events. I would also like to see an Arts Advisory Group to give us direction on how to better promote arts in the City.

· VILLAGE POND PARK – We still are waiting for the analysis of the impact of the feeding prohibition ordinance to see what structural features may or may not be needed. This may save us tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Once we get this we should move forward quickly with the re-model.

· ANIMAL CARE – My colleagues (Voigts-Robinson-Hamilton) voted to instruct the staff to stop looking for alternative animal care, and to remain with the County despite the poor service, poor training, terrible conditions, and high kill rates. But that doesn’t stop the rest of us from looking, and I hope to come up with some viable alternatives prior to April 1, 2016.

· ITEMS ON HOLD – The seemingly endless list of items on hold is harmful to our financial wellbeing as well as impacting our quality of life. I got the Council to agree to look at the way we conduct business and I’m hoping to get this resolved in January.

· PUBLIC SAFETY – I got consensus to have the Police Chief provide quarterly reports on the crime rate and how we are dealing with it. I’m hoping this will be a great benefit for everyone (except maybe the criminals).

· PUT LAKE FOREST FIRST – I intend to keep pressing the Council to change our purchasing guidelines to allow preference for local people and businesses. Last time I looked we were spending only 2% of our budget locally. Not so long ago we were spending 5% and I thought that was too little. I will need support from local people and businesses to convince my colleagues this is a good thing to do.

· COUNCIL CONDUCT – Now that a recall has been launched, I can only assume my colleagues will behave themselves. Their conduct has only exacerbated the behavior of our residents. I have been active in the past trying to calm them down and will redouble my efforts in 2016.

It’s been a heck of a year and I am looking forward to a more productive 2016.

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 Dec 12 at 2 pm at the El Toro Public Library.