This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Put Lake Forest First - Part 7 (The Spock Imperative)

In Lake Forest, do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?

Editor's note: Patch's Local Voices section is a blogging platform for area residents. Blogs are not edited by Patch, though they are read before appearing on the site to ensure they comply with our Terms of Use.

As election season heats up, please know that Patch is a politically neutral source of news and information, acting in good faith with locals of all political stripes. Patch does not endorse candidates.

This post is from a candidate running for Lake Forest City Council. All candidates have been and are at any time invited to blog on Patch.

Find out what's happening in Lake Forestwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

My blog “Put Lake Forest First” has taken on a life of its own, turning into 6 different articles to date. Before continuing, let me summarize -

In we looked at the fact that, based on July 2012 spending, across a variety of categories (professional services, office supplies, entertainment, instructors, etc.), it looked like less than 5% of the City’s budget was spent on people or businesses in the City.

Find out what's happening in Lake Forestwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In we examined the top 15 recipients of city dollars and found that only 1 in 15 came from Lake Forest and this represented only 4% of the money spent. IOW - 96% of city money went to people/businesses outside the city.

was inspired by a commenter who asked whether or not my call to “Put Lake Forest First” was alive and well at my HOA where I am on the Board and have been President. Staff from my HOA reported that 32% of our money in July went to people/businesses in Lake Forest (compared to the less than 5% for the city). I also reported that most of the top managers at my HOA lived in Lake Forest while most of the top managers for the City live in other cities. Apparently “Put Lake Forest First” is alive and well at my HOA where I have been the strongest advocate of hiring our own.

came from a neighbor who e-mailed me his experiences trying to get a contract with the city for his performing group. He reported that the city didn’t do much to help him, and maybe this is why so few Lake Forest people benefit from City dollars.

came from a city worker who called me and said that my research based on July 2012 might not be representative because the city spent a lot of July 4th Parade monies. So I repeated the analysis for August 2012 and the results suggest that even less was spent on City residents and businesses in August.

This is not insignificant. For every 3% of the city’s budget that can be diverted to city residents and businesses, $1,000,000 of new dollars will flow into our community. If the City achieved the level that my HOA achieves (32% vs. 5%) nearly $10,000,000 of new money would flow into Lake Forest, each year. Boy, would that make a difference!

In I strayed from the City’s spending patterns and looked at the influence of developers on decision making at the city, and I showed how thousands of dollars were given by developers to city council members, and how city council members have voted to give developers carte blanche to add thousands of new homes and tens of thousands of people and new cars to our city. While our city buckles under the strain of the existing traffic problems, it’s incredible to think that the city is trying to jam more homes, people, and cars down our already choking throats. It shows me that the city is not putting Lake Forest first. Just as the spending patterns reveal that the city puts the needs of others over the needs of our residents, so too the decision to add more homes, people, and cars shows that the needs of the few are being put ahead of the needs of the many.

This is the final blog in my series “Put Lake Forest First” for awhile. I will return to it in late September when the City reports its spending for the month.  Before closing I wanted to clarify an issue that people have e-mailed me about. It concerns city workers. Some people think that because I was critical that the city hired so many top managers from outside the city that I was being critical of the quality of our city workers. Though I have to candidly admit there are some real duds at city hall, by and large we have good people and in some cases we have excellent people working for the city. I don’t want to embarrass them by listing their names here. But I firmly believe that even the best of our workers would do an even better job if they lived here.

My new series is entitled “Follow the Money” and it will illustrate  how vested interests are trying to shape the city to their needs. Stay tuned. Meantime, let me leave you with the words of Commander Spock –

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”

Going forward, let’s “Put Lake Forest First” and put the needs of the many Lake Forest residents and businesses above the needs of the developers and the city council members.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?