My name is Andrew Hamilton & I want to continue our conversation

[Myself at the first concrete pour for the parking structure during Civic Center construction last week. I was able to kick-off construction with the horn]

I am now writing my 2nd post on the Patch. Thanks again for reading it. By the way, if you missed my first one, you can read it here – https://patch.com/california/lakeforest-ca/my-name-andrew-hamilton-i-want-start-conversation

I wanted to write about more about issues that are important to our city (and briefly how I come to a decision by research and my thought process). I really enjoy understanding the issue, performing a lot of research, all while maintaining the model that previous councils have successfully maintained over the last 26 years: the contract city model.

As an aside, prior councils really provided stellar leadership for our city. The planning and spending restraint is unparalleled in nearly any other city in California. One example is our Sports Park (which opened a couple days before I was elected). The ability of our city to pay CASH for this 86 acre gem is really due to council members before me: former Mayor Kathryn McCullough, Former Mayor Mark Tettemer, Former Mayor Peter Herzog, Former Mayor Richard Dixon, Former Mayor Helen Wilson, Councilman Dave Bass, etc. (am I missing anyone?). We should all be very grateful for their leadership. And here is a good article on the Sports Park:

http://www.ocregister.com/2014/10/24/grand-opening-slated-for-lake-forest-sports-park/

Another example our good city leadership from previous city councils is how city employees are treated during annual raises. Did you know that we are a rare breed as it relates to negotiating with city employees? We do not have any unions and base pay raises on each individual employee’s merit. This is totally abnormal in city government as most employees unionize and demand Cost of Living and Step-based compensation based on tenure. Incentive-based pay is good for our city and its employees and is a tradition I strongly desire to continue.

You may have read about what some Facebooks ads are saying about former Mayor Mark Tettemer. I believe Mark served with dignity and service to our city. Would I agree with him on everything? No. But I know and trust that his heart was always in the right place.

Alright, back to a sample of the issues that have occupied my time on the Lake Forest City Council:

TRAFFIC

I believe that the biannual city survey of residents is correct – traffic is the single most important issue to residents. I also think it may be due to having so many other issues, while not perfect, being performed better than other cities: street maintenance, police services, street sweeping, park maintenance, etc. And I have been very focused on many traffic reducing measures over the last 3 years.

I used to live near the intersection of Trabuco and El Toro. Now I live near the Ralphs on Trabuco and Lake Forest. Everyone can have their opinion, but is seems Bake Parkway has worse traffic than El Toro (except near the freeway) – I now take Bake Parkway from my current residence to the freeway where El Toro was the natural way for me to get to the freeway from my previous house.

However, first I need to provide a little background: the city has a Lake Forest Traffic Mitigation (LFTM) fund – I know I may be getting a little technical below, but stay with me. I promise you won’t want to skip my traffic discussion (maybe just read fast for the next few paragraphs).

The LFTM fund was created to mitigate traffic issues from new development and the city has collected approximately $10 million to date (and we have only spent $3 million so far). Good news, right? Well, it is more complicated than that.

Part of the strings attached to this pile of money for traffic improvements are specific projects for specific intersections for specific dollar amounts which MIGHT have impacts from development – as defined by a traffic model. This model isn’t the kind that our kids made similar to model cars or model airplanes.

No, this was a computer model. And I believe the model was REALLY REALLY wrong. For example, the model said that we needed ANOTHER right turn lane traveling down the hill on El Toro Road when approaching Portola Parkway intersection (toward Foothill Ranch). It already has a right turn lane, but city staff was dutifully following the city ordinance and proposed constructing the additional right lane in the spring of 2017.

So, at a council meeting, I chimed in and said, “STOP! This construction project is not needed at all.” (Or something like that).

See, right before this intersection, El Toro Road is 2 lanes that then expands to 5 total lanes at the Portola intersection (3 through lanes, along with dedicated right and left turn lanes). And the LFTM fund required a sixth lane – the additional right lane. In my numerous travels throughout the city, this would currently be just about the dead last priority of mine to construct a new lane to reduce traffic. This may change in the future, but it is currently a poor project for traffic relief.

Not only would it waste money that could actually go toward better projects, but it would also occupy a major amount of time of our Public Works department.

So I transitioned the conversation toward Bake Parkway and mentioned that this road had much more need for traffic mitigation projects (I even was on Bake Parkway within the last few days where the popular “Waze” smartphone traffic app routed me to Alton Parkway to get to my destination northwest of Lake Forest).

In any case, I fought for additional lanes going toward Foothill Ranch at the intersection of Bake Parkway and Trabuco Road – both a dedicated right lane and another dedicated left. I mentioned that each other road leading to this intersection already had these two features. I initiated this issue and really fought for traffic reducing projects. I am just curious – do you agree with me? Does the intersection of Bake Parkway / Trabuco Road need help? Especially when compared to adding a second right turn lane from El Toro to Portola?

Long story short, but I am pushing for these LFTM funds to be used along Bake Parkway and other necessary places to lessen traffic where it is actually needed. We need to be creative under the current constraints to better spend our existing LFTM funds.

I have even requested that staff investigate 2 additional ways to better spend LFTM funds so they are better utilized (and staff is now researching because we have discussed them at recent city council meetings):

- See if we can change our LFTM ordinance to meet the same traffic reductions, but loosen the restrictions. This would probably be a difficult task because we would need to contact each developer to get their buy-in (at least these are the initial thoughts of our city attorney).

- Investigate whether we can use a portion of the LFTM funds to route traffic from Alton in a more direct manner onto the 5/405 freeways. Currently, traveling down Alton with the intent of going on the 405 freeway is tedious and indirect. My gut says that we should work with Irvine (especially if the new Veterans’ Cemetery is approved) to route Cemetery and Alton traffic in a more direct way to the freeways WITHOUT impacting Bake Parkway in any manner whatsoever.

I also believe we need more dedicated rights and left turn lanes on numerous Lake Forest streets (including those intersecting along Bake) to improve the traffic flow in Lake Forest.

My council colleagues might be tired of my ideas. And staff is probably tired of my numerous ideas and me reporting scores of potholes. But residents have said this is the biggest issue for them and I will keep fighting to improve traffic as long as I am on the city council.

CIVIC CENTER CONSTRUCTION

As you may know, we are building a new Civic Center in Lake Forest. And even though staff learned from Newport Beach’s civic center fiasco - see http://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/news/tn-dpt-me-civic-center-audit-20160629-story.html (mentions the audit of 800 change orders and $35 million increase in cost of the Newport Beach Civic Center construction) - there was still a strong chance of a similar situation to Newport Beach.

So I met with two licensed architects, including Allyson Gipson, mentioned in the above article, who was the project manager of the audit process for the Newport Beach civic center project.

I was concerned the same situation may occur in Lake Forest: “The auditors were critical of city staff for not establishing a process to track the project through design and construction, which led to inadequate oversight and budget and time overruns, according to the report.”

Since we didn’t have an owner’s representative (see a description at http://eaglepromanagement.com/owners-representative-services.html) on city staff with civic center construction experience, I made this a huge priority of mine.

I met with staff who met with both of the architects I contacted, and staff concurred. They issued an RFP and now the City Council has selected a consultant who is an expert in civic center construction who will best represent the city throughout the entire civic center construction process.

MOBILE PHONE RECEPTION

I have also fought hard on this issue. While on the Planning Commission in 2013, I brought this to the attention of the Commission and then the City Council who then agendized it back to the Planning Commission in 2014. I was then elected to the City Council in late 2014 and this item finally made it to the City Council in early 2016 where we loosened the burdensome restrictions, making it easier for AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile and others to drastically improve wireless phone reception while keep residents safe.

I believe this is an important issue for public safety reasons (accidents, crime, etc.) along with the convenience of residents who value having good wireless coverage. It even is a factor when selling your home.

We are still having hiccups in the process, but I continue to reach out to staff along with representatives from 3 of the 4 major wireless providers – over 25 conversations in just the last few months.

To be perfectly frank, I have been frustrated numerous times along the way (since 2013!!!!!), but am hopeful that we will start having new projects initiated in 2018.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Wow – this is more recent issue for me. Based on what I have researched and now discussed at our last council meeting, I have become very passionate (and compassionate) about this issue.

In essence, we are mandated to collect Affordable Housing funds from the State of California. These funds are used to build low income housing with income requirements for residents (generally by a “for-profit” company who builds the low-income housing with massive state and federal tax breaks). These low-income projects have extremely long list of residents who want to live there (I can totally understand – I have toured these projects and they are really nice!).

But these income requirements have really small ranges of income to qualify to live in the Affordable Housing units. SO much so, that if their income increases just a couple percentage points UP or DOWN from the county median, they will lose their low income housing.

Therefore, residents generally don’t have much incentive to increase their income because they will have to move. As a result, many people stay in these units for a very, very long time.

To summarize, massive federal and state tax breaks create a socialist-like system that doesn’t incentivize people to better themselves. It benefits a small group of people as 100% turnover may occur over decades of time. And it costs a lot of money to build these projects because the state requires Prevailing Wages to build them.

Also, we have a non-profit provider of Affordable Housing funds that also used Prevailing Wage in their project. However, their first two years had 25% turnover. This would equate to 100% turnover ever 8 years which is an improvement of 100% turnover over decades with “for-profit” providers.

And so there I went – conducting more research. And I found another provider of Affordable Housing funds, the Orange County Rescue Mission, who has 100% turnover every 18-24 months. I coordinated scheduling a tour with our Mayor and City Manager (CEO). What we found was that their programs help many more families by not only increasing the turnover, but by providing a hand-up instead of a hand-out as they always prepare people for exiting the program. It would also not require Prevailing Wages similar to projects they built in Tustin, Buena Park and Corona that received large amounts of private donations (and no tax subsidies). And it would greatly improve the on-site services for its residents: healthcare, education, foodservice, etc.

It would also help people who need help the most: people without homes. If you ever have a chance to tour their Tustin Facility, you will see it is not a magnet for the homeless. Rather, it truly helps people. Here is a description of their program:

Village of Hope transitional living program:

Phase 1 (Freshman Phase): This is the initial phase of the program that begins when a person moves into the Village of Hope. During this phase, the immediate needs of shelter and food are met as a person leaves their prior living situation and gets situated at the Village. For the first 90 days of the program, residents are not able to leave campus except for doctors’ appointments, legal appointments, or other mandatory appointments, which allows them to acclimate to the program without distraction. They also begin a full-time volunteer work assignment to develop work ethic and communication skills. They participate in groups, chapel, and case management sessions weekly.

Phase 2 (Sophomore & Junior Phases): During this phase, residents work on advancing in their volunteer work assignment, achieving their high school diploma (if need be), and preparing for the job search phase. Also during this time, there is an emphasis on dealing with emotional trauma, which may include counseling, parenting classes, and other supportive resources. To complete this phase, each resident participates in a Road to Success job skills workshop run through our Success Center here at the Village of Hope. Through this workshop, residents develop and hone interviewing skills, work on their resumes, and receive valuable training from mentors to assist them as they search for employment.

Phase 3 (Senior Phase): Residents now begin to look for full-time work outside of the Village of Hope. Once they maintain employment, they begin completing a monthly budget to keep track of how their money is spent and saved. They also begin to pay a minimal program fee relative to their income to get into the habit of making payments. As goals are being met, they begin to transition to the graduate phase and look for off-site housing, childcare, transportation, etc.

I believe we may be able to vastly improve the way we spend out Affordable Housing funds to help those less fortunate. I hope the City Council concurs with me to give the biggest bang for the city’s buck by choosing a program with high benefits, similar to the Village of Hope.

THAT’S A WRAP

Alright, that is it for this post. I REALLY enjoy serving the residents of Lake Forest as there as so many issues that need good leadership. I hope I can continue in my role on the City Council to help better our already GREAT city.

Thanks again for reading and I hope to continue the dialogue with you.