A Vision for Lake Forest - Better Decision Making

This is Part 4 in a multi-part series about ways to make Lake Forest a better place to live.

· Part 1 offered ways to involve more people

· Part 2 discussed ways to make government more responsive

· Part 3 looked at ways we could improve the planning process.

Today we’ll look at ways in which the decision making process could be improved.

STAY ON TRACK

In the recent past our City Council has lost its way. We have so many postponed decisions that some issues are taking months and even years just to be brought up, only to be postponed again. I’ve called this phenomenon the “Voigts Void” referring to the dozen plus items left over from Scott Voigts turn as Mayor, many of which still haven‘t been resolved. The need to revise the process for allowing stores to sell beer and wine is one prime example. The Council’s inability to adopt an ordinance to prohibit feeding the geese at Village Pond Park is another example. Both these important issues have been stalled for more than a year.

Yet despite the plethora of issues waiting to be resolved, the City Council often closes shops and goes home early.

Click here for my latest article on this topic.

There are many management techniques available for keeping a group on track. They need to be employed ASAP so that long neglected areas can be examined and long standing problems resolved.

USE DATA BASED DECISION MAKING

The best decisions are those which are based on the available data, yet so often the Commissions and the Council make decisions in the absence of relevant data. For example, the Planning Commission approved an unmanned Compressed Natural Gas fueling station in the heart of El Toro Rd without any knowledge of the anticipated traffic this would bring to the City, nor how slow accelerating CNG vehicles would impact a part of town that already suffers mightily from congestion.

We need a much higher quality of data gathering and analysis than is currently present in the City. Having College/University affiliations will greatly enhance our ability to do a better job in this regard. But, quite frankly, having brighter members of the Commissions and the Council would also go a long way toward elevating the quality of the reports.

DEVELOP FEEDBACK MECHANISMS

The Council and the Commissions rarely review the results of their decisions, despite the fact that data is readily available to do so. Thus, the decision makers exist in a vacuum, isolated from the impact of their decisions in the real world.

• · Did approving all those new stores selling beer and wine result in increased crime and DUIs?
• · Did approving a permit system reduce the overcrowding in the streets?
• · Did giving tickets to people who leave their cars on the street during street sweeping increase the amount of debris picked up?
• · Does Neighborhood Watch result in reduced crime?

Feedback is essential if an organization is to improve its decision making. Without feedback, errors get repeated, myths get created, and the efficiency and effectiveness of the organization is diminished.

The City should institute routine feedback mechanisms to review the results of decisions at 3, 6 and 12 month intervals. Of course not all decisions require these kinds of feedback mechanisms, but anytime a decision is made that is expected to make life better, feedback is important. It’s even more important in those cases where decisions are made for the better good, but some people are on the short end of the decisions. For example, permit parking works for the people who request it, but it works against the people who were parking there. In situations like this, feedback is vital because one group is being dis-advantaged with the belief that the advantage for the greater good is happening. But maybe it isn’t.

The current practice of moving forward with little reflection on the impact of past decisions is a poor one, and should be corrected.

These are a few suggestions as to how to improve the decision making process.

About Jim Gardner

Dr. Jim Gardner is the editor of CITY WATCH on The Patch and a contributing editor to OC Politics and Voice of OC. He is running for City Council in Lake Forest. You can check him out on LinkedIn and/or Facebook.