Is Lake Forest For Sale? Part 1—Recap

This is the first of a multi-part series about recent campaign spending in Lake Forest. It exposes (once again) the sweetheart deals in which vested interests contribute thousands of dollars to city council members’ election campaigns, and the city council members then vote to give these vested interests millions of dollars in contracts and concessions. There will be a specific focus on the recent action by the City Council to allow two developers to proceed in the planning stage without the type of oversight that has been exercised in the past with other developers. But before we can address that specific issue, we need some history.

Today provides some background on the general issue of campaign funding and special interests. Tomorrow we’ll discuss the recent election and then we’ll look at the developers and finally the recent actions at the council.

Here are the cogent points from the “Follow the Money” series I wrote in 2012. I’ve included links so you can explore this material in more detail if you wish to. Those of you familiar with those articles can probably skip today’s piece.

Let’s start with the City’s code of ethics. Our city council members are mandated to:

 
“Safeguard ability to make independent, objective, fair and impartial judgments by scrupulously avoiding financial and social relationships and transactions that may compromise, or give the appearance of compromising, objectivity, independence, and honesty.”

Keep this is mind as we move forward. Be especially concerned with the phrase “or give the appearance…” which means not only must the council members avoid actually breaking the law, they must avoid the appearance of doing anything that even looks like breaking the law. And look at the word “scrupulously”. Taken together, the council members have sworn an oath to the highest standards of behavior, beyond question and beyond reproach. Let’s see if they live up to the high standard to which they’ve sworn.

In Part 1 of the 2012 series we found that over a 7-year period city council members accepted nearly $90,000 (that could be traced) for their election expenses and the people/businesses that gave them this money made $13,000,000+ in city contracts and stood to earn millions more in concessions.

Many people would consider this an example of corruption. In other contexts it appears to be bribery and payoffs. But an exemption in the FPPC code law allows it so it is not technically breaking the law.

In Part 2 we looked at some specifics and identified some of the companies involved and which council members took the most.

Part 3 began our series of case studies. In this one we looked at how one shopping center received preferential treatment from the City and how the developers of this shopping center gave  thousands of dollars to city council members.

Part 4 looked at the liquor license dispute between then council candidate Adam Nick and the City. At issue here was the failure of council member Scott Voigts to disclose the thousands of dollars Nick gave him in 2010, and then Voigts’ failure to recuse himself before voting in Nick’s favor. BTW – the vote was 4:1 against Nick with Voigts being the only one to vote in his favor (and the only one to have received $ from him).

Part 5 was my favorite in the series, because it showed just how much money influences voting. The council considered a 0.5% rebate on purchases made in the city for $20,000 or more – a move that would clearly favor the car dealers in Foothill. Council member Dixon who had received $1,000 from one of these dealers was in favor, and council member Herzog who had received money from dealers in Santa Ana and Costa Mesa was opposed. Neither one revealed the money and neither recused themselves from the vote, and both voted in the direction of the businesses who gave them the money.

So this is the long sordid tale of money and politics in Lake Forest. It provides a history to understand what happened in 2012 and what is happening right now. Tomorrow we'll focus on the spending for the 2012 election.