The New Lake Forest - Part 2

Last time we discussed some of the changes in the City which suggest we are entering a new and exciting era. These were

• New City Manager
• New General Plan
• New Civic Center
• New Mobile App

Today I want to discuss a few other seminal changes.

NEW APPROACH TO TRAFFIC/PARKING

We spent more than a year trying to coordinate our efforts in the parking area and we came up with a powerful tool to use – the parking matrix – which is already showing promise. Along with adding traffic/parking to the Planning Commission, we should be in an excellent position to make dramatic improvements in these areas.

(As I’ve said before, we need a dedicated Traffic/Parking Commission b ut adding traffic/parking to the existing Planning Commission is all I could get from my three colleagues.)

The Council just voted to add a Parking Enforcement Officer. With the mobile app, the new Commission, and the personnel, I anticipate that within a year we should have many problems solved. Bear in mind, all the problems cannot be solved by the City alone. Those issues that bear on the parking problems include –

• People use their garages to store things, or even as play rooms.
• More and more people are moving in together, with their cars, meaning we have 4 to 6 cars for any one home.

BETTER COMMUNICATION

Our mobile app will go a long way to improve communication between residents and the City. Meanwhile we recently approved -

• An annual meeting with CEOs of the top 10/15 companies in the City to discuss collaborative projects.
• An annual meeting with the Presidents of the HOAs in the City to discuss collaborative projects. Since 30% of our residents don’t live in HOAs, we’ll come up with a way to get these folks on board too.
• Increasing the social media budget by up to $50,000 to promote City projects- e.g., “Don’t make it easy”, “Shop and Dine”. I asked that the staff provide data on the effectiveness of each of these programs so we get the best bang for the buck.

BETTER ANIMAL CARE

We’re stuck with the contract with the County as a result of the vote by Hamilton-Voigts-Robinson. That contract cost the City over $600,000 to help the County build the new shelter in which we will have no equity. The City also anticipates that our costs for animal care will go up more than 40% as the County moves from terrible service and quality to adequate service and quality. In money terms, that’s another $150,000 a year over what we pay now.

As grim as this sounds, it may not be so grim after all.

The Council and the County are collaborating on a local animal adoption center (AC) that will improve the adoption rate for Lake Forest animals. This will reduce the daily charges for care and may reduce the kill rate. But beyond this, we got agreement from the Director of Community Services to refer all owner surrender pets to the adoption center rather than to the shelter. This includes owner requested euthanasia. This means about 80 animals will be diverted, lowering our costs, and saving the animals from going to the shelter.

The job of the AC will be to provide counselling and assistance. They may connect the pet owner with a place where they can get free food, or reduced medical bills, or temporary placement whole the owner undergoes surgery. Many times people who surrender their animals do so reluctantly, and the AC will try to keep the pet in their home. If not, the AC will put the pet up for adoption, once more avoiding the need to send the pet to the shelter.

We also decided to hire a Pet Education Officer for a 6 month period, and possibly extend based on the results. This person will assist in getting more dogs (and cats) licensed) which will not only increase our revenue, it means that when a pet is lost, returning it to their owner will be quicker, possibly even avoiding going to the AC or the shelter.

At my request, we will enter into negotiations with the County to have stray pets diverted from the shelter to the AC once the AC is up and running well. Not all stray pets will be diverted (e.g., aggressive dogs), but where they can, they will. This has the potential to seriously reduce the number of Lake Forest pets going to the County shelter.

Our program is so innovative (for OC at least) that it will serve as the model for other cities to adopt.

Next time I'll summarize

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 June 10 at the Foothill Ranch Public Library.