City Council Preview—March 19

Time for another council meeting, tonight at 7 p.m. Here’s a link to the agenda.

In closed session, the City is once again in negotiations with the two property developers who have been the subject of my recent series “Is Lake Forest For Sale?”

In open session, there are a number of topics of interest.

IT Support

The city is seeking computer support services (e.g., desktop computer support, network maintenance, project management, and strategic planning). Right now we use an Irvine company, Synoptek. The annual budget for IT services is $380,000. Hopefully some of our local IT companies will apply so the money can stay here in the city. Proposals are due April 17.

BTW,  the city needs a better way to let residents know how it proposes to spend our money so that our local residents can apply and take advantage of the $35,000,000 the city spends each year. Council members Nick and Robinson both campaigned on this issue, and it’s high time we saw some action.

Sports Park

The City is about to spend $35 Million to build the Sports Park. The recipient of this money will be Park West Landscaping, a RSM based company, who was the low bidder on the project (the high bidder came in at $41 Million). This culminates a process begun in October 2009. I can hardly wait.

Opening Up the City

As a follow-up to Councilman Nick’s efforts to increase transparency, the City Attorney has listed the pros and cons of altering the current “deliberative process privilege” that council members enjoy.Looking over the material, it appears to me that opening up the process has more advantages than disadvantages. Judge for yourself. Check it out here.

Community Development Block Grant

The City proposes to apply for nearly $55,590 in federal grants to be used to assist the following agencies:

• Families Forward - $7500
• South County Outreach - $7500
• Fair Housing Council of OC - $6000
• Camino Health Center - $7500
• Laguna Beach Community Center - $7500
• Human Options - $4950
• Age Well, Senior Services - $7500
• SVUSD Learning Connection Plus - $7500

In addition the city is asking nearly $400,000 for help in building ADA Access Ramps, $41,492 for “Neighborhood Pride Paint Program,” and $74,600 for Administration.

BTW, if you think your organization qualifies for federal assistance through the Community Development Block Grant, contact the City and see if you qualify.

Prayer in the Council

We talked about the prayer issue previously. Click here to get up to speed. The issue has come back to the Council with several recommendations from our City Attorney:

If someone violates the proposed prayer policy (e.g., using the names “Lord”, “Jesus” “Jehovah”, etc.), he or she would be banned for a year from giving another prayer at the City Council. Or, the Council can consider having the offender say 10 “Hail Marys” and abstain from eating meat for two weeks. (just kidding about this last sentence!)

Alternatively, the Council can avoid the problem of outside prayer-givers using the wrong language by asking the Council members themselves to give the prayer. Of course, nothing was mentioned about what happens when the Council member slips in one of those offending words.

To me, the real issue is the moral conduct of the Council. We have a council that is bordering on moral bankruptcy. They lie to us about the crime rate in Lake Forest, the installation of maximum security cells at Musick Jail, our evaluation by the Grand Jury, etc. With the exception of Adam Nick, they are busy filling their campaign coffers with tens of thousands of dollars from special interest money, and hiding this fact from the public when they vote to give these same special interests contracts and concessions that are worth millions of dollars.

With such morally questionable behavior at large in the city council, should we really be discussing whether or not to start our meetings with a prayer? Does wrapping ourselves in sanctimonious ceremony lessen the many transgressions we’ve reported on these pages for the past year? Let’s pray that our council members see the error of their ways and repent. Sad to say, in my mind, that’s the proper place of prayer in our City today.

What’s not on the Agenda

• I thought I’d list a few things that aren’t on the agenda, and haven’t been on the agenda yet.
• The need for a Traffic Commission.
• The need to direct more of the City’s $35,000,000 we spend each year to people and businesses  in the city.
• The need to put some teeth behind the City’s Code of Ethics.
• The need for term limits.
• The need do a better job preventing crime and increase our abilities to solve crimes.

I know the City Council has been busy with a whole host of other things, but there is a lot to do, so let’s see which of these new topics we can get to. The term limit issue isn’t as time sensitive as the traffic commission, so maybe it’s OK to put that one on hold. The other three—getting more money into the hands of local businesses and residents, better crime prevention and solutions, and cleaning up our ethical behavior—should also be priorities.