A New Lake Forest - Part 5

This is the last in our 5-part series about The New Lake Forest.

On Monday we looked at the changes made to our City Council meetings. 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. On Thursday we looked at improving how government works. Here’s what we’ve covered so far –

MAKING COUNCIL MEETINGS BETTER

• A greeter meets everyone at the door and orients them. (Done)
• For people who show up early we have a slide show with information about the City and upcoming events. (Done)
• We broadcast live on Facebook and allow questions/comments during Council meetings .(Done)
• We re-order the agenda to fit the people present (Done)
• A Production Assistant displays relevant agenda reports so it's easier for people to follow along. (Done)
• We created a welcome videotape about the city and about how the Council meeting functions. (Done)
• We introduced an 8 pm “necessity break” (Done)
• We offer take-aways listing upcoming events, new businesses, pets available, etc. (Done)

BETTER LEGISLATION

• New campaign finance legislation to limit the influence of special interests(In process)
• Creation of an Ethic Committee (In process)
• Creation of a Traffic and Parking Commission (In process)
• Introduction of real term limits (In process)

MORE BUSINESS FRIENDLY

• Aggressively promoting ribbon cuttings (Done)
• Creating “block parties” to promote local businesses (In process)
• Expanding "Shop and Dine" week to a month-long celebration (Done)
• Promoting businesses in Council take-aways (Done)
• Establishing a Mayor's Council on Business (Done)

REACHING OUT TO PEOPLE

• Creating Mayor’s Councils (In Process)
• Live-streaming all major meetings, workshops, and seminars (Done)
• Creating a “Pop up City Hall” (In process)
• Developing a new mobile app for better communication (In process)
• Requiring Commission members to attend at least one city event per month. (In process)
• Creation of weekly video - Mayor's Minute (Done)
• Expanding the city's calendar from month to year-long perspective. (Done)
• Creating resident-based ad hoc committees (In process)

IMPROVING OUR QUALITY OF LIFE

• More seminars on child safety (Done)
• Installed shades at the dog park (Done)
• Started construction of a new dog park in Portola Hills (In process)
• Workshops completed to improve 10 neighborhood parks (Done)
• Spending $12 million + on traffic improvements in next 2 years (In process)
• Looking for alternatives to using OC Animal Shelter (In process)
• By the end of the year we will be one of the few cities that is debt-free (In process)

IMPROVING HOW GOVERNMENT WORKS

• Creation of a City Manager Report (In process)
• Creation of a Council Committee report (In process)
• Reliance on ad hoc Council committees for complex issues (Done)
• Better KPIs (In process)
• Creation of a KPI dashboard (In process)
• Weekly updates on legal issues (Done)
• Drafting motions in advance for complex issues. (Done)

Today our focus is on future ventures and the challenges ahead.

FUTURE VENTURES

"It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves." William Shakespeare

With all of this already under our belts, and more ahead of us, I also set in motion additional projects which will surface in the next few months –

• Paying off our bond obligations, leaving our City completely debt- free.
• Creating “block parties” at selected locations throughout the city to promote local businesses. Councilman Dwight Robinson helped with this project.
• Creating a “Put Lake Forest First” preference for local businesses applying for city contracts.
• Locating city literature kiosks at strategic locations throughout the city so that we can better communicate with residents.
• Finding a location for “Meals on Wheels” to operate in the City and serve the nearly 100 seniors in need of their services. Councilman Tom Cagley is working on this with me.
• Creating a more effective parking enforcement procedure.
• Improving the street sweeping process, including better signage and stricter enforcement. Mayor Pro Tem Leah Basile is particularly involved in this project.
• Creating a parking area at the bottom of Regency Park, intended for Park users on the weekends but capable of being used by everyone during the week.
• Creating “dog runs” at two of our neighborhood parks.
• New businesses will be asked to register so that the city can better support and promote them. With this registration will come a 6-month free membership in the Chamber of Commerce. Councilman Robinson helped craft this idea.
• Getting bus service for children in schools that are impacted by traffic. Col. Cagley and Mayor Pro Tem Basile are working on this with me.

There is no way of knowing which of these initiatives will succeed, but they are all worthy of our efforts.

The quantity and quality of what we've done is amazing and it has truly been a team effort. I am absolutely sure that without the support of our new City Manager (Debra Rose) and her management team (Keith Neves, Carlo Tomaino) few of these advances would have been possible. My colleagues on the Council, especially Mayor Pro Tem Basile and Council members Cagley and Robinson have been particularly supportive and bore some of the load where possible and appropriate. Management Services (Brett Channing, Jonathan Volzke, Skylar Hunter) have worked wonders in such a short period of time. The City Clerk's office and especially our acting head (Jennifer Connally), working without Stephanie, have managed to keep the ball rolling and helped make this possible. The Chamber of Commerce (Jeremy Olson, Mary Visconte) have worked long and hard on many of these initiatives. The City Attorney (Matt Richardson) has provided wise counsel to keep us out of trouble as we do so much. And an enormous amount of credit has to go to residents - many of these ideas and initiatives came from them, either in comments at the City Council or on Lake Forest Town Square.

CHALLENGES AHEAD

Having laid out our achievements and looked ahead to some of the planned changes, it remains to look at the challenges.

"Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory." - George S. Patton

DON’T GET OVERWHELMED

This Council and City staff have taken on an agenda that is far greater than anything any other Council or staff undertook in the past in a comparable time period, or, in fact, any time period. We are building more, legislating more, spending more, and monitoring more than has ever been done before, and the danger in doing this is that we are overwhelmed, and things don’t get done right. Everyone is acutely aware of this danger, but the danger exists nonetheless.

IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF REPORTS

The quality of our reports is better, but hardly a standard we should accept or be proud of. Good decisions require good reports. Without adequate information presented in a timely manner, our decisions are likely to be faulty, and dire consequences await poor decision-making. Occasionally a really good report surfaces, so it seems obvious that the ability to create a good report is there. Why doesn’t it manifest itself more often?

I have this discussion with the City Manager on a weekly basis, and while we are moving forward, the quality of reports remains an obstacle to good government. For example –

• The Council asked for an analysis of crime in an area of the city that a resident complained about, and all we got were the 2017 statistics. There was no comparison with other years, no per capita analysis, and no way to assess whether or not crime was a problem in that area and whether or not it was getting better or worse.
• The Council asked for an update on animal care at the County shelter. All we got was an xlxs spreadsheet that is probably incomprehensible to most people.
• Recall that when we hired a Pet Education Officer 6 months ago, we learned that after 3 months they had given out almost no tickets and licensed no dogs, despite spending $18,000 on the project.

The quality of our reports is a major challenge, second only to the enormous amount of work we’ve chosen to undertake. This has been a long standing problem for our City (and other cities) and while it is improving, there is much more to be done.

BE MORE RESPONSIVE

With so much to do, we can’t afford to work slowly, re-think our decisions, and fail to anticipate problems and then get bogged down.

• Should it take more than a year to get a dog park shade installed?
• Could the problems at Village Pond Park have been anticipated so that construction didn’t have to stop mid-way through the project?
• How many years must we wait until we get data on the accident rate throughout the city?

Better planning, more long range analyses, better monitoring, and better reporting are needed for us to be more responsive. We are making some strides in this direction, but the goal is a long way ahead. It’s part of the nature of government to work slowly, so we are up against a long tradition.

These challenges are not insurmountable. John Quincy Adams observed that "Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish." I believe collectively we have the patience and perseverance to succeed.

We have a lot to be proud of, and we've accomplished a lot, but there is a lot more to do -

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep."

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).