Now that the election is finished let’s look at the challenges ahead for the new Council. Today I want to focus on what I consider some main issues.
NEW CITY MANAGER
Mr. Dunek, the city's manager for the past 21 years, just announced that he plans to retire. Getting a replacement is the first and major task for the new Council. But to select a new City Manager we have to decide where we want the City to go and how to get there. Once we have a vision we can agree on, finding the person to lead us will be easier. This discussion was going to accompany the creation of the new General Plan, but given the departure of our City Manager, I suggest we accelerate the goal setting sessions.
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It’s also important to note that no decent City Manager would want a job in our City if he looks at any Council meeting or attends any meeting in person. To my knowledge there is no other City Council in the County where the people show up in such consistent numbers to complain about their elected officials. Unless we all are prepared to change our behavior, the citizen complaints will continue, and we will be unable to attract a good person for the job.
STAYING ON TRACK
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We are in the middle of two major projects – the revamping of Village Pond Park and the construction of the new Civic Center. We need to be sure that these projects remain on track. I don’t anticipate problems but in the past we haven’t exactly had a sterling record of achieving projects without difficulty – recall the Saddleback Ranch Road, Village Pond Park, and the Tamarisk Park projects.
NEW BUDGETING PRIORITIES
The new massive spending and building infrastructure (the new Sports Park, the new Civic Center) will require a dramatic increase in our operational spending. For example, right now we don’t have a senior center, but once we do, and if it operates the way it should, all of our expenses in this area will increase, as more and more people spend more and more time doing more and more things.
As we spruce up our parks, there are more and more things that will require operating funds as well as maintenance and repair. It will only get more expensive.
If we don’t properly allocate our resources and build with an eye on the future, we can find ourselves in the unfortunate position of not having enough money to support the services we want to provide. We know for sure that our utility bills will go up, and the Police contract, our single biggest expense, will keep going up. Yet the continuing gains in our sales tax and our property taxes are subject to the business cycle, and do not necessarily keep pace with our expenses.
I’d like to see a detailed simulation/projection of our budget operating under completion of the $70,000,000 projects to guide us in this planning stage.
TRAFFIC AND PARKING
Traffic congestion continues to be a problem throughout the City and street parking continues to be a problem in many areas. In the absence of any data, it looks to me like nothing has changed for the better, even while we spend millions on traffic light synchronization. As has been pointed out many times, traffic light synchronization has limited effectiveness because cross traffic and pedestrians re-set the system, causing delays. From bitter experience we’ve learned that every time we create a permit parking area we overload an adjacent area, moving the problem but not solving it.
The Traffic Advisory Group (TAG) was a complete failure, spending 6 months, achieving very little, and in the end effectively endorsing everything we were doing. That’s because the TAG was run as an extension of the Public Works Department. We need a true Traffic and Parking Commission if we are going to continue to expand the number of homes being built in the city, and we already have some 2,000 more scheduled.
Many other cities have Traffic and Planning Commissions. We should too.
Next time I'll discuss some of the remaining issues.
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 in January at the Foothill Ranch Public Library.
