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Health & Fitness

Lake Forest City Council Recap for April 2

Here's what happened at the Council meeting

 

All things considered, the council meeting Tuesday night was brief and uneventful. But there were a few sparks during the public comment and the Council comment sections.

Prayer

However well-meaning he may have been, the Mayor opened the City up to litigation when he made numerous references to “father” and “son”, putting the prayer clearly within the Judeo-Christian tradition. But for some 4 Billion other people in the world (yes, that’s a B there) whose God doesn‘t have a son, they were specifically excluded from our very first official prayer. This is just what the City’s attorney warned against, just what dozens of members of the public objected to, and just what the Council specifically said they were not going to do.

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When the issue first came up, and the Council was discussing what would happen if a guest speaker broke the “rules”, it was suggested that the offending speaker spend one year in purgatory before being allowed another chance. When the council decided to rotate the “invocation” among themselves, I asked the logical question – what happens when a council member violates the guidelines? But my question was ignored as if it was so unlikely to occur it didn’t warrant a response. Well it didn’t take long for the unlikely to happen, and now the Council should address the problem at its very next meeting.

To avoid future problems, the “invocation” should be written out and given to the City Attorney in advance of the meeting. That won’t prevent a spontaneous “Jehovah” or “Lord” from creeping in, but it will help. As far as the offending council member, what’s “good for the goose is good for the gander.” If it was acceptable for an offending guest speaker to be placed in time-out for a year, then it seems equally acceptable for a council member to be given the same consequence. Personally I think a year is too harsh, and I wouldn’t be unhappy with a shorter period.

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Herzog's DUI

Talking about prohibited behavior and consequences, this was the first meeting of the council after Councilman Peter Herzog was convicted of drunken driving. Leading up to the meeting, several people called for his resignation. One person used the public comment section to reprimand him –

“… in my mind, it’s just not proper for a city councilman to be recklessly driving around our streets with a blood alcohol level more than twice the unlawful level, endangering property and lives. It’s shameful. But this shame falls not only on the drunk driver, but for nearly 5 months the City has been dragged through the mud – in the newspapers, online, and even on the radio….”

Herzog took the reprimand stone faced, and during the comment section at the end of the meeting, he said nothing. No explanation. No apology. No resignation. And there was not a peep from any of his fellow Council members. Here we have council members who campaign on “family values” and making our city “safe” and honoring “the law” and not a single one of them had the courage to publically address the issue. I use the word “courage” because it’s not an easy thing to do. Often times the right thing to do isn’t the easy thing to do, which is why we have words like ”courage” to describe the person who steps up to the plate when no one else will.

Press Reports

If the Council members were silent about Herzog’s conviction for drunk driving, Mayor Pro Tem McCullough was fired up about something she read in the newspapers, and spent some time reprimanding the press (she wasn’t specific) for suggesting that City staff were “corrupt.” Personally I have been so busy exposing the corruption and moral lapses by members of the Council I never had the chance to look at corruption by the staff, but I have to say that I am unaware of any signs of corruption at the staff level. It occurs to me that if this is true, it warrants the attention of the District Attorney, and if it’s not true, it certainly doesn’t warrant even the hint of impropriety. I have been critical of some staff members for doing a poor or mediocre job, and I even raised this issue at last night’s meeting talking about the Housing Element report which I found lacking in detail and usefulness. Yet in all the time I spend at the City and going through reports, it never occurred to me that any willful wrong doing by staff was afoot. Unless they can back up their allegations with some facts, the offending parties owe the City and the staff a retraction and an apology. Unfortunately because Council woman McCullough was so vague, it’s hard to say anything more.

The common thread in all of this is taking responsibility for your behavior. Against this rare perspective we have the “have my cake and eat it too” crowd. The council sets rules for others and then violates them on the first occasion. Council members campaign on family values and making the city safe, and then drive drunkenly and recklessly through our streets. The Press alleges impropriety but doesn’t back up the allegations with any facts, leaving staff members stained by inference. It’s a sad state of affairs when doing the right thing is such an uncommon event that we call it courageous.

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