Voigts Not Worthy of Your Vote for Central Committee

Residents in Lake Forest spent four months recruiting signatures to get city councilman Scott Voigts on a recall ballot. Even as the Orange County Registrar of Voters verifies signatures against him—more signed for his recall than voted for him in 2014—Voigts is actually on a ballot right now wanting your vote for the Orange County Republican Central Committee representing us, the 68th Assembly District.

Don’t give it to him.

There are many reasons to not give Voigts the most important thing you have as a voter: Your trust.

It’s well documented that Voigts can’t be trusted with the truth. Jim Gardner, now a city councilman who has attended more city council meetings than Voigts has over the past four years—two of which Gardner wasn't a sitting official—has documented Voigts’ lies to the people. The one lie that strikes me the most is this: Voigts said from the dais, “I did not wear a wire” in an attempt to entrap councilman Adam Nick into an admission for something that Nick had not done. Voigts came clean only after confronted by physical evidence.

Voigts’ “I did not wear a wire” was not a conversation with the media (which would have been a bad lie), or a private conversation with a resident (which would have been a bad lie) or something said in error (all of us make mistakes at some point).

This was a point-blank statement from the council dais during a city council meeting.

“I did not wear a wire.”

A flat-out lie that he knew he was telling. Not a little white lie, but a big, bold, red one in which he looked each and every one of the 80,000 residents of Lake Forest in the eye and tried to deceive you. He never admitted it until confronted with the physical evidence.

Yet he wants your vote. He wants to be your elected official so he can continue to play Republican games.

What kind of Republican games?

Rather than providing the opportunity for an interested Lake Forest resident who, by his resume, appeared to be far more qualified and interested in representing the City on the Vector Control Board—Voigts didn’t show an interest until this critic of Voigts made his interest known—Voigts cast the deciding vote for himself for this paid position.

He then blew off the very first meeting for Vector Control. Instead of representing Lake Forest residents, he flew to Sacramento on the City’s dime, stayed in a $350/night hotel on the City’s dime, and shook hands with other Republicans even though "city councilman" is a non-partisan position. In other words, Voigts’ schmoozing with other Republicans provided no benefit to the residents of Lake Forest.

In case you didn’t know, Voigts works for Republican State Assemblyman Don Wagner. When Voigts appears at grand openings for local businesses in Lake Forest, he’s handing out citations on behalf of Wagner, not the City. Instead of Wagner paying for Voigts’ trip to Sacramento to glad-hand Republicans and build the Voigts brand, Lake Forest residents picked up the tab, as the residents always do on Voigts’ many trips.

The spurned Vector Control Board wannabe was Bob Holtzclaw, one of those well-informed residents who has a pretty good idea of what’s going on at City Hall. He's one of those common-sense guys, which is why he was a supporter of the recall.

Holtzclaw spoke at the city council meeting of May 3 during the public comments and told a story which supported what I heard about Voigts in 2013 when I covered Lake Forest for Patch: The rules don’t apply to him. The version I heard from a law enforcement officer was that Voigts parked wherever he wanted and used his council position to get out of parking tickets. I’ve also heard through another party that when a traffic light turns from green to yellow, Voigts suddenly thinks he’s Mario Andretti and speeds up to beat the red. Apparently, defensive driving isn’t his strong suit. I didn't witness that directly. However, Holtzclaw produced photos of Voigts’ vehicle illegally parked at Heritage Hill during the recent Rancho Days Fiesta and questioned the two-time mayor’s sense of entitlement.

“As a city councilman,” Holtzclaw said, “you’re supposed to be an icon for the residents, a leader to follow, and not do things like this.”

Holtzclaw also recounted a similar experience after Voigts was elected in 2010 “when Scott and I used to talk to each other, before we had our problems,” and he parked in a red zone at Sprouts on Portola Road.

“Watch out,” Holtzclaw recalled warning him.

“No, it’s OK,” Voigts responded.

Voigts’ sense of entitlement played out in the last election. He posted his campaign signs in places where they weren’t allowed. He posted the signs before they were legally allowed. He left many of his signs posted well beyond the time allowed by City ordinance. Ask Nick sometime about his discussion with Voigts when Nick was trying to change the time period for posting election signs to 60 days instead of 45. I’ll save you the phone call, it goes like this: Nick told Voigts the 45-day rule supported by Voigts and Robinson was unfair to election newcomers with no name recognition.

“What do you care, you’re in already,” Nick recalls Voigts answering back. “Plus, it [the 45-day limit] doesn’t apply to us.”

Voigts' steadfast support of developers who gave him money is well documented.

Voting for Voigts endorses the chicanery and lack of conviction he stands for. Last October at a council meeting, he told Portola Hills residents who showed up by the scores that the council would talk about Saddleback Ranch Road and put it on an upcoming agenda. When Nick made the motion and Gardner seconded to do just that, Voigts sat silent. He reneged. He, Robinson and Hamilton sat quiet and basically said the road’s dangerous design was not important enough to bother with further. Of course, this was after Voigts, Robinson and Hamilton had changed rules making it necessary for three councilman instead of two to agree to place an item on an agenda. So, when fans of the recall talk about collusion and corruption, that’s an example of the power brokering they’re talking about.

So, after the great fake-out by Voigts, he, Hamilton and Robinson were served with a recall notice. Even though Saddleback Ranch Road wasn’t important enough to even discuss, the item miraculously appeared on the next agenda and was suddenly important enough to act on and attempt to fix.

After the recall notice, why didn’t Voigts vote “no” to fixing the road? The road wasn’t any more dangerous. The residents weren’t any more upset. Voigts lacked the conviction of his previous vote—just like Robinson and Hamilton—because he couldn’t explain his decision to do nothing when given the opportunity a month earlier.

Voigts says he must represent “all the people” of Lake Forest. So, when he decided the public safety of the people of Portola Hills wasn’t important enough to fix, which people in Lake Forest was he actually representing with that decision? When he didn’t support giving unused space (at no expense to taxpayers) to Meals on Wheels for seniors, who was he representing? When he switched his Planning Commission vote from Amanda Morrell—who had been a project planner on a new town of 100,000 outside Tokyo and had done master planning for the Navy, among others—to HOA board member Jolene Fuentes, the widow of former OC GOP chairman Tom Fuentes, who was he representing? When I pressed for an explanation afterward why he changed his vote, Voigts eventually said, “I don’t know.”

How does the mayor of the city come up with “I don’t know” as an explanation for switching his vote from a Hall of Fame candidate to a veritable minor leaguer by comparison? He had no conviction, and then he couldn’t provide a legitimate explanation. That's just one example of Voigts "selling out" to appoint a lesser qualified candidate.

Voigts does a terrible job of explaining his decisions. If he did, maybe we would know:

• Why he didn't support transparency in government when he had the opportunity.
• Why he didn’t support limitations on corporate support of council candidates when he had the opportunity.
• Why he didn’t support a robust code of ethics for council members when he had the opportunity.

Fighting the recall, Voigts gave political fliers to elementary and middle school children in his Nick is Nuts smear campaign. Imagine, giving a 12-year-old a political flier with the message, "Take that home to your parents." That's not leadership, that's exploiting children.

Voigts, under pressure from the recall effort, agreed to assist Jim Gardner to create a Request for Proposal for an alternative to the high-kill Orange County Animal Care. After Gardner gave the presentation, Voigts voted against it, instead endorsing an unbuilt facility with undetermined costs that would likely rise because other cities were seizing the opportunity to break way from OCAC. Other cities are finding a way to send a message about bad leadership—OCAC has had decades to change the culture of death in its facility—but Voigts instead wants to blindly fork over millions over the next few years to build and use a facility in which Lake Forest will have no ownership and no control.

Voigts supposedly loves pets, but here’s the problem: He loves being an "in-crowd" Republican more, more so than he loves representing the people of Lake Forest; how else do you explain the trip to Sacramento and the $350/night hotel stays?

If Voigts really stands for what you believe in, vote for him. But if he doesn’t, don’t give him the satisfaction of continuing to represent you on the OC Central Committee. And when the opportunity comes to address his role on the Lake Forest City Council, don’t allow him to represent you there, either, and hold him accountable. Because at the end of the day when he’s settling into that $350/night mattress on the City dime, he has only one thing on his mind—himself, and his bedfellows.

Photo: Scott Voigts' parked vehicle at Rancho Days Fiesta.