Wasting Taxpayer Money- Again!

Recent events surrounding Saddleback Ranch Road have once more raised the specter of how badly we manage our money in many instances. Here are some examples –

· In May our Public Works Department failed to send out the right RFP for street sweeping, and as a result, we lost the opportunity to save more than $200,000 on the contract. I wanted to re-issue the RFP but Councilman Robinson in particular was anxious to see it move forward with Athens Services ( a company that contributed $500 to his election campaign and $1,250 to Mayor Voigts’ campaign)

· The City remodeled Tamarisk Park but forgot to put in the disabled pedestrian access, which then had to be retrofitted at a considerable extra cost to taxpayers.

· During our budget discussions in May (Click Here), I urged our Department Heads to cut 5% out of the fat from their respective budgets, but my colleagues (Voigts, Robinson, and Hamilton) didn’t agree with me, and hence we lost the chance to save as much as $2,000,000 per year.

· My colleagues (Voigts, Robinson, and Hamilton) recently voted our City Manager a $10,000 bonus on top of his $300,000 per year compensation.

· In July, my colleagues voted against getting competitive bids on the newsletter printing and mailing contract ($96,000 per year) and instead automatically renewed the existing contract (Click here). Who knows how much we could have saved, especially since one of the companies that wanted to bid was a Lake Forest business (PM Group).

· In the affordable housing fiasco I wrote about a few months ago (Click here) the City lost nearly $1,000,000 in a deal that created 4 affordable units and then enacted a policy by which we would continue to do badly while developers (who fund my colleagues’ campaigns) are advantaged (Fortunately it now looks like this arrangement is illegal and I’ve asked our Attorney to look into this in detail).

I could go on, but you get the point (If not, Click Here). Now we are faced with another waste of taxpayer funds. We’ve built a road that everyone agrees is an accident waiting to happen. Even while we knew this was true, we continued building it. I implored the City to stop construction and re-group, but my colleagues (Voigts, Robinson, and Hamilton) wouldn’t agree (Click Here). So the construction continued, and only now, after 1,000 people signed a petition (Click Here) and another group initiated a recall effort (Click Here), has the City begun to respond. Suddenly what was so clear to everyone else is now clear to the City staff, who only a week ago were steadfast in their resolve to move forward.

Of course we applaud the City for coming to their senses and we applaud my colleagues for taking time from their Monday night to attend a staff meeting they otherwise would never attend, but I have to ask myself – “Why?”

• · Why was this ridiculous plan developed in 2012 and approved in the first place in 2013 and 2014?
• · When it became abundantly apparent that we were on the wrong course, why didn’t we stop it then instead of incurring more costs and requiring intensive action by our concerned citizens?

I understand that not every decision is perfect and not every project gets a gold medal. But this latest fiasco on top of the others I’ve mentioned (and the ones I haven‘t) raises some serious questions about how we function.

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 on Dec 12 at 2 pm at the Foothill Ranch Public Library.

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