Blog: Lake Forest City Council Preview—March 5

It looks like some exciting topics on the agenda for the March 5 meeting. I hope you can attend. Here’s my summary:

Sunshine Ordinances (Item 17)

Following the contentious discussion about Sunshine ordinances, the City’s attorney circulated some random articles about Sunshine ordinances to city council members. Personally, I reviewed this material at the Clerk’s office and I was very unimpressed. Now the topic is coming back to the Council for further action.

Although in theory I am in favor of sunshine ordinances, the experience at other cities indicates that it will take months, perhaps even years to enact, cost thousands of dollars in legal and staff time, and ultimately give us a list of things we should do that can just as easily could be done without having the sunshine ordinance in the first place. The more efficient and effective method would be to take each of the issues and simply put them forward as changes to the way we operate. I have detailed what these are and how they were done and which cities did them. They were all accomplished without the time and expense of enacting a formal sunshine ordinance. So let’s have the benefit of this approach without the hassle of formalizing it.

Village Pond Park (Item 16A)

While the City has plowed more than $8 million into improving parks throughout the City, Village Pond Park has been suffering from a high crime rate, duck botulism of epidemic proportions, and other problems too numerous to list. At the base of the animal problems is the City’s refusal to deal with the over feeding of ducks and geese, and the mass depositing of their waste by city contractors into the small pond. At the base of the crime problem is the City’s refusal to install a light at the corner of Ridge Route and El Rond Drive, the place where City officials believe is the main source of the crime in the area.

On the agenda, the City proposes to develop a “Request for Proposal (RFP) to hire a consultant team to develop a community engagement process leading to conceptual park improvement plans.” This is well and good, but the problems stem from the City’s refusal to do their job properly, so no new plan is going to work unless the City is prepared to do their job, and if they did their job, there would be no need for the proposal in the first place.

City Council Invocations (Item 18)

Our new Mayor is a deeply religious man and at the first meeting under his charge he began with a long invocation mentioning the name of Jesus Christ on several occasions. Some people in the audience were critical of this, although in the scope of the problems facing the city I didn’t see it as a big deal and simply an expression of Voigt’s deeply felt faith. Well, it turns out that such actions have long been considered illegal (Rubin v City of Burbank) and our City’s lawyer has summarized the law in this regard and is recommending that if we want to move forward with invocations, we do them in a less parochial manner and in compliance with the standards set in the Rubin lawsuit.

A few years ago we had a big problem getting “In God we Trust” on the city’s signage, but ultimately we did. Although not everyone in Lake Forest (or anywhere else) believes in God, the City adopted the slogan, just as our federal government does and as many other cities do. I suspect that invocations are the same thing, but if we are going to enlist a higher power to assist us (and God knows we can use the help), it shouldn’t be limited to believers in Jesus Christ. It can certainly include Christians, but it would be offensive to everyone else to restrict our invocation to one faith when our city is the home to people of many faiths.

Council Expenses (Item 12)

The quarterly expenses of City Council members will be on display tonight, covering the period from October through December. Council members Herzog, Nick, Robinson, and Tettemer asked for nothing, despite the fact that council members obviously have some expenses associated with their tenure. Voigts and McCullough asked for $55 reimbursement of their attendance at the “ACC-OC New Policy Makers Reception” and Voigts added $66.04 to cover his mileage for the quarter. Former council member Marcia Rudolph led the pack (as always) asking for nearly $500 in transportation reimbursement for attending “Vector Control” meetings in Garden Grove, and another $200 for other transportation.

By the way, Rudolph recently asked to be re-appointed to Vector Control and she was, but no one mentioned anything about her reimbursement for attending. Will the City continue to spend $2,000 per year for Rudolph to attend these meetings? She was entitled to reimbursement when she was a council member, but as a private citizen does she still get the stipend?

Notary Services (Item 15)

There are few things more frustrating than to go to City Hall with all your paperwork and then finding out that one piece had to be notarized, and then go find a notary and then come back. So, the City is adding notary services at $10 a pop, and we already have three staff members who are commissioned notaries. This is a positive, even if a small, step forward. Council members Robinson and Nick have pledged to make the City more business friendly, and this is a small delivery on that pledge.

The public portion of the meeting begins at 7 p.m. See you there.