A New Lake Forest - Part 4

This article is the fourth in a 5-part series. On Monday we looked at the changes made to our City Council meeting. On Tuesday we looked at our major legislative changes and the more business friendly measures we’ve undertaken. On Wednesday we examined reaching out to residents and improving our quality of life. Here’s what we’ve covered so far –

• A greeter meets everyone at the door and orients them.
• We show a slide show with information about the City.
• We broadcast live on Facebook
• We re-order the agenda to fit the people present
• A Production Assistant displays relevant agenda reports
• We created a welcome videotape.
• We introduced an 8 pm “necessity break”
• We offer take-aways (e.g. upcoming events, new businesses, pets available )
• New campaign finance legislation
• Creation of an Ethic Committee
• Creation of a Traffic Committee
• Introduction of real term limits
• Aggressively promoting ribbon cuttings
• Creating “block parties” to promote local businesses
• Creating Mayor’s Councils
• Live-streaming all major meetings, workshops, and seminars
• Creating "Mayor's Minute" weekly video
• Creating a “Pop up City Hall”
• Requiring Commission members to attend at least one city event every month
• New mobile app
• More seminars on child safety

Today I want to focus on improving how government works.

"The most terrifying words in the English language are:
I'm from the government and I'm here to help." Ronald Reagan

IMPROVING HOW GOVERNMENT WORKS

We’ve spent a lot of time talking about how Government works and trying to come up with ways to improve. Here are some initiatives we’ve started -

• The City Manager will now report in writing on a quarterly basis an update on all major projects underway. This report will become a regular part of the agenda. Starting date – April 1
• City Council members and designees who are part of County and State-wide committees will now report in writing on a monthly basis, and that report will become part of the agenda. Starting Mar 6
• All Department Heads will be asked to review the KPIs (key performance indicators) in their annual reports, and the Council may require additional KPIs. Major KPIs selected by the Council will become part of a “dashboard” used to monitor the quality of our performance. Underway and expected to be implemented by July.
• When addressing complex issues, City Council members will form ad hoc committees and report back, in writing, to the Council. We are getting ready to do this for (a) Relations with Saddleback Valley Unified School District and (b) Business Development. We just approved following this same process for (c) Overhauling our Ethics guidelines and procedures and (d) mission statement for the Traffic and Parking Commission. Our first report will be March 6.
• The Council will now get legal updates on a weekly basis, keeping us in the picture on the myriad of legal issues we are dealing with. This started Feb 22.
• When we have complex issues, I am drafting motions so that the process of making motions moves more swiftly and more accurately. We did this on Feb 6 (campaign finance reform, ethics committee) and Feb 20 (no-kill shelter, traffic commission) and it appeared to work very well.

This is merely a start down a long path to improve how government works. But at least it’s a start.

We have done so much in such a short time it’s remarkable. Of course many of these projects and issues are “works in progress”. We’ve initiated legislation but the entire process will take months to come to fruition. We’ve got the plans for the parks improvements but actual construction probably won’t begin until next year. The search for an alternative to a no-kill shelter has begun, but it’s likely to take months before we can proceed.

Meanwhile we will continue to innovate, improve, and initiate.

PROJECTS IN MOTION

Even while we move forward, we still have on our table an enormous amount of work initiated under the previous Council. This includes –

• Construction of the new Civic Center complex (estimated opening Summer 2019)
• Planning for the new Civic Center, especially for the Senior Center and the Performing Arts Center
• Update of the General Plan after 25 years (now underway)
• Transition to district elections (estimated completion by July 1)
• Re-construction of Village Pond and completion of Veteran’s Park (estimated Fall 2018)
• Updating of Heroes Park
• Analysis of Police Services based on multi-city report (due Summer 2018)

Tomorrow we’ll talk about future ventures and look at the challenges ahead.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest where he serves as Mayor. 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 Twitter handle is @DrJimGardner. 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 May 17 at 7 pm at the Lake 1 Clubhouse (Ridge Route).