Voigts Should Resign Position on City Council, Part 2

Scott Voigts must resign. The mayor of Lake Forest is so incapable of clear-headed leadership that he cannot see the conflict of presiding as a councilman and mayor of Lake Forest while at the same time making $24.02 per hour as the council executive assistant to the mayor of Irvine, Don Wagner.

The issue came up during the City Council meeting of February 7; the first Council meeting since that time is Tuesday, Feb. 21, at City Hall, 7 p.m.

Previously, in Part 1, we touched on Voigts' lack of credibility when he defended himself; he said he was not in conflict because he neither provides nor solicits information with Wagner and we are expected to believe him. Either Voigts is lying, or he's an incompetent executive assistant to the mayor who is holding back from his boss.

Unfortunately, Voigts has a terrible track record when it comes to being trustworthy. As much as Voigts might try to pass his job off as an asset to Lake Forest, he is just as much a liability; the mayor of the neighboring town, for whom Voigts works directly, holds financial leverage over Voigts.

Voigts' defended his position, that he was committed more to Lake Forest than he was to Irvine (I'm sure the people of Irvine are happy to hear that) and the reason was because he had so many family members who live in the City and that he's accountable to them. So, let's get this straight; Voigts is accountable to his family members, not the thousands of regular residents of Lake Forest who elected him (or the thousands that signed a petition to recall him -- he represents those people, too); when Voigts is making a decision on the future of the City, it's for the benefit of his family members, not you and me.

During this explanation, Voigts didn't volunteer a reason as to why he has routinely lied to residents – which would include his family members – since being elected to the Council in 2010.

Most family members don't like having a liar in their midst, and in this case, Voigts emphasized it is his family who he is accountable to; however, if he tells the truth to his family privately but lies to residents publicly, what good is that? Even during his comments about where his loyalty rests, Voigts made a provable outright lie.

ANOTHER LIE WHILE DEFENDING HIMSELF

Voigts said his attendance at Vector Control meetings was “95 percent,” a total that is statistically unattainable given the number of meetings he has admitted missing and the number of meetings held during
his tenure. The Vector Board's minutes indicate Voigts has missed more meetings than he let on.

One need only look atthe minutes from the Vector Control meetings that indicate Voigts was either absent during votes or asleep at the table. If he has been attending the meetings, he has been negligent in his responsibility to the residents of Lake Forest: It has been months since he reported results of those meetings to residents, though he should be doing it once a month, and the one time he did report came after a resident made note of it; it has not been a scheduled agenda item even though he has set the agenda for the last two months.

Voigts, holding the gavel of mayor for the third time in five years, called one of the residents he represents a liar when she confronted him at the Council meeting about his absences at the Vector Control meetings.

“I don't know where you're getting this fake news, I've been there 95 percent of the time,” Voigts said, using a term commonly used by President Donald Trump.

Fake news and “alternative facts,” another crutch for Team Trump, should be well-known to the Republican Voigts. He contributed $5000 to the “alternative facts” smear campaign against Adam Nick that, among other things, created fake newspapers that included several lies about Nick and residents, and even went so far as to call residents thugs and pedophiles. So now, Voigts is also calling residents liars -- but we knew already from a 2015 incident. At that time, Voigts claimed a $10,000 contribution from Meritage homes was not on his Form 460 when resident Tracey Tingley asked that Voigts and Andrew Hamilton recuse themselves from voting for a Meritage project; Voigts called Tingley a liar and challenged her to prove it. Tingley went home and returned with a copy. There was no apology by Voigts.

Or what about the time Voigts vandalized a certificate for Councilman Gardner and, from the dais, denied it after Nick called him on it? Voigts flat-out denied it, only to later relent that he had acted like a punk fifth-grader.

But Voigts wants you to believe him when he says his ethics aren't compromised by working for the mayor of Irvine.

POLITICAL STAKES

As it relates to Irvine and the Republican Party of Orange County, Voigts is hanging on to as much control as he can. In the 2016 general election, he was the only incumbent who lost his seat in District 68 of the Orange County Central Committee. In 2014, when he won reelection to the Council, he failed to receive as many votes as he had in 2010 when he was an unknown quantity. Politically, the more the electorate learns about him, the more unpopular he becomes.

Voigts is clearly aware of political currency. He showed no interest as Lake Forest's representative on the OC Vector Control Board until one of his critics, Bob Holtzclaw, expressed an affinity for the position. Voigts, a construction worker by trade, hardly seemed as qualified as Holtzclaw, who is in the farming business. As part of a staunch Republican cabal on the Council with Robinson and Andrew Hamilton, Voigts (voting for himself) got the three votes necessary for the appointment.

Mal Richardson, the city attorney, said there had been precedent for a sitting councilman to be involved with a public agency that bordered shared City boundaries. However, it deserves a closer look with a critical eye because Richardson was referring to former councilman and mayor Mark Tettemer; he was employed by the Irvine Ranch Water District, not a neighboring city – and Tettemer certainly was not someone listed as the Council Executive Assistant to the Mayor of that neighboring city.

Voigts' credibility is one of his biggest weaknesses. His words can't be trusted, and short of someone actually being a fly on the wall, there's no way to verify that he doesn't discuss Lake Forest business with Wagner in order to protect his own source of income, part-time or not. If he says it doesn't happen, or it won't happen, he can't be believed; he has lied to us in the past.

Whether a legal definition or not, it's clear there is a conflict of interest between serving as mayor of Lake Forest and serving as council executive assistant to the mayor of Irvine. The fact that Voigts can't see that is an indicator that he's not equipped to serve on the Lake Forest City Council, much less as its mayor.

He should resign his position on the Lake Forest City Council. Immediately.

About the author: Martin Henderson won several Los Angeles and Orange County press club awards while an editor at Patch in 2012-13.