Lake Forest City Council Recap for March 19

Here are the highlights from yesterday’s Council meeting.

Sports Park

The City approved spending $35 Million to build the Sports Park. Councilman Herzog thanked the developers who paid fees to the city which allowed us to build such an expansive sports park, the ”largest in Orange County” according to Mayor Voigts. Of course, Herzog neglected to mention that the list of developers whom he thanked individually, reads like the campaign contribution list he files every year. Their fees not only helped finance our Sports Park, they financed Herzog’s many re-election campaigns. And bear in mind, the developers did not provide fees to the City out of their generosity or their concern to make our City a better place to live. Developer fees are a “cost of business” that all cities charge all developers. If they wanted to do business in the City, they had to pay fees. What they didn’t have to do was to give tens of thousands of dollars to city council members’ re-election campaigns. It’s probably why Councilman Herzog said “I truly enjoyed working with these developers.” I’m sure he did.

And while he was so busy thanking the developers, Herzog forgot about Marcia Rudolph, the former Council member who sat in the audience last night. Rudolph was a big supporter of the Sports Park and even though she no longer sits on the council, any list of “thank yous” certainly should include her name (as well as former council members Tettemer and Dixon).

In the discussion about the Sports Park, Mayor Voigts crowed that our new park will be “a destination for all of Orange County” and asked that the soccer fields be widened to attract even more visitors.

Hmmm.

We’ve already agreed to build more than 4,000 new homes in the Foothill/Portola area.

We’re probably going to approve some 200 more (see my series “Is Lake Forest For Sale?") in this same area.

As the Great Park develops, this area will be used as a thoroughfare for MV and RSM residents.

Now we’re going to build a “destination for all of Orange County” so we’ll have even more traffic.

Hmmm.

Opening Up the City

Councilman Nick’s efforts to increase transparency in the City fell on deaf ears last night. He got no support for his suggestions to open up government, and in fact, Councilwoman McCullough went on a 5-minute tirade against the idea.

In the end, everyone agreed that when the City refuses to give someone information, the City must also provide the appeals process. In the past, the City has not done this. I guess a half loaf is better than no loaf at all.

Prayer in the Council

Seven people spoke on the issue of prayer in the council. Most of them didn’t live in Lake Forest, and two of them were ministers. They each had something valuable to say, and it was clear that no action would make everyone happy.

Councilman Herzog had the strongest opposition. He claimed that in 18 years no one ever asked for prayer in the council, and this was the personal quest of two council members and not representative of the wishes of the citizens. He further said that council members shouldn’t use prayer to inspire them, instead they “were supposed to come prepared” and do their homework.

Councilman Nick was worried about religion and politics, and cited his childhood experiences in Iran. But he liked the idea of asking for inspiration, without the heavy religious overtones that accompanied Mayor Voigts’ prayer earlier this year.

Councilwoman McCullough didn’t like the idea of controlling what a visiting prayer-giver could say. She thought we should do it just as we do the pledge of allegiance – led by rotating council members who want to participate. And she advocated allowing for a wide variety of options, including silence, words of inspiration, or generic prayer.

In the end, McCullough’s version survived. The vote was 4 to 1 with Herzog still opposed.

Council Comments

Often times, the most interesting part of the Council meeting comes at the end, when the individual council members have a chance to speak outside the agenda. Of course, some of the council members use the agenda time to speak outside the agenda anyway, but at the end of the meeting this is the formal place when this can occur.

Councilman Nick asked that we put “term limits” on the agenda for the next meeting. He was supported by Councilman Robinson and even Councilman Herzog chipped in his belief that “no council person should serve more than 8 years.” Hmmm. Peter Herzog, a lifetime politician who has held his seat in the council for nearly two decades, now believes that no one should be allowed to serve beyond 8 years. I trust this means that he will not run again in 2014.

Thank you Councilman Nick for your continued efforts to make government more responsive. Term limits has been a long time coming.

Councilman Robinson asked the media (staff from The Patch and OC Register were busy scribbling away in the back row) to please advertise the contracts that the City has available for IT and for Payroll and Human Resource management. These contracts are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and he hoped that some Lake Forest businesses would apply.

Thank you Councilman Robinson for your continued advocacy for people and businesses in our City.

Councilwoman McCullough asked that the staff fix her light. She then gave a brief summary of her many activities in the past few weeks on behalf of the City.

Thank you Councilwoman McCullough for representing us in so many forums and on so many occasions. At 70 years of age we must admire your energy and enthusiasm.

No one mentioned the need for a Traffic Commission, the need to put some teeth behind the City’s Code of Ethics, or the need do a better job preventing crime and increase our abilities to solve crimes. Maybe these issues will come up next time.