State of the City - Q2 (Challenges)

We've spent some time looking at the "State of the City" for 2018. On Thursday I talked about the "livable" goal (Click Here). On Friday we looked at the "connected" goal (Click Here). On Tuesday we covered the third goal - "healthy" (Click Here). We summarized on July 5 (Click Here).

Today I want to talk about the challenges to our quality of life.

HOMELESS PEOPLE

There is no budget item for homeless people although the City has expended hundreds of thousands of dollars each year trying to assist them through our CDBG grant program and through our Homeless Liaison Officer. Until recently this was more than adequate, but after years of neglect by the Board of Supervisors, a wave of homeless people descended on many cities in Orange County as the riverbed encampments were cleared. We are now dealing with the aftermath which brought a few dozen more homeless people to our City. We are working as quickly as we can to refocus our efforts and marshall our resources, but it isn’t easy and the time and energy required is being taken from our other activities. This one issue is probably our greatest challenge in the next year.

RUST NEVER SLEEPS

Rust never sleeps, nor do the special interests who ruled Lake Forest for so many years. 2018 is the first time ever that a City Council did not have a majority who were bought and paid for by special interests. Developers and builders, companies seeking city contracts, and people looking for favors have all contributed more than $500,000 to keep their favored friends in office. In turn, appointments were made, contracts given, zoning changes made, and building code variances granted – none of them with the best interests of the city in mind, but ALL of them in accordance with the wishes of the people who gave generously to the City Council members.

These special interests were badly defeated in the recent special election, but you can be sure that the upcoming elections will see a return of their corrupt practices. We failed to get campaign reform passed this year, so they will be unbridled in their blatant attempts to elect officials who will do their bidding.

THE POLICE BUDGET

The costs of the contract with the County to provide police services increase by millions of dollars every year, far outpacing inflation or any other costs. In less than a decade the police contract has grown from 30% to nearly 40% of our budget, and in some cities it is greater than 50%. Even worse, there are no signs of any break in the trajectory.

Going forward, our projected revenue and expenses show a very tight margin and there is simply not the available funds to keep paying more on the police contact without having to reduce services elsewhere.

Together with a dozen other cities we are looking at ways to cut costs without sacrificing quality. In addition to these collaborative efforts, in Lake Forest we are looking at using code enforcement for parking violations, a move we hope can save $500,000 a year.

SO MUCH TO DO

No City Council has ever achieved what we have achieved in the past 2 years, much less the past 6 months. We are doing more than ever before…

• · Building the $70,000,000 Civic Center complex – our largest and most complicated project ever.
• · Renovating 10 of our neighborhood parks and re-creating Veterans Park – a $10,000,000 multi-year project.
• · Updating our General Plan – something that was done only once before in our 27 years of existence.
• · Dealing with homelessness and the political shenanighans that accompany this issue, including attempts to build a 400-bed homeless shelter in our backyard.
• · Dealing with the threats to our neighborhoods by the wave of Airbnb, sober living homes, boarding homes, and all sorts of transitory housing creeping into Orange County.
• · Trying to come to terms with the changing retail landscape and reorient our Economic Development efforts accordingly.

I could go on but you surely get the point. We are doing more now than has ever been done before, and trying to do it at a level that surpasses previous levels of achievement. How long can we keep it up?

The challenge is to be able to do so much without dropping the ball. To do this, we've set in place various measures (e.g., weekly updates from the City Manager and the City Attorney, hiring a supervisor for the Civic Center project, creating several working sub-committees), but the plain truth is that City has never been as productive as they are right now, and no one can predict whether or not we will rise to the occasion. In the past, without this much on our plates, we tried to build a road that would have seriously injured people, we built a park without access for disabled people and then had to re-build it, etc. Going forward, can we get the job done?

BOTTOM LINE

The City has never been stronger. We are doing more, doing it at a higher level, and involving more people than ever before. We are becoming a center for excellence and for innovation. Despite these advantages we face challenges ahead and working together, we can achieve even more.

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 Aug 16 at 7 pm at the Lake 1 Clubhouse (Ridge Route).