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Health & Fitness

Council Preview June 18. Part 1 - Open Session

The next Council meeting will be June 18 at 7 pm. Here’s a few of the interesting agenda items.


LAW ENFORCEMENT

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It’s time for the City to review its long standing contract with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD) to provide police services to the City. Readers of these columns know that compared to our neighboring cities

·   Our crime rate is higher

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Indeed, Police services have been growing steadily as a percentage of our total spending, and is now 38% of our budget.

Hmmm.

That’s not a very impressive record. What’s even more distressing is that the staff report to the council mentions none of these facts.

The new contract proposes a 2.14% increase or $266,426 additional in payments without any additional services. The total proposed is $12,721,499. Here’s a look at some of the annual payments made for different positions here in Lake Forest -

·   Lieutenant - $295,661

·   Sergeant - $263,674

·   Investigator - $271,737

·   Motorcycle Patrol - $224,000

·   Patrol - $218,841

Most of the 26 page agreement between the City and OCSD has to deal with payments, which is understandable when you pay so much. But, as far as I can tell, there is not a single performance objective in the entire agreement. Apparently the City doesn’t want to ask OCSD to decrease crime or to increase our crime solving abilities. In addition, I didn’t find a word about cost savings measures, like expanding our volunteer STARS program, or making Neighborhood Watch more effective, or better uses of technology, etc.

This is just one more example of the City’s poor policy of not requiring performance from our contractors. We spend millions of dollars every year and rarely ask for anyone to meet any performance criteria.

There’s nothing else to do, at this point, other than approve the contract. But going forward, this new council should start demanding better performance from Police services and a concerted effort to reduce costs.


TRANSITIONAL HOUSING

The City proposes to make changes to the ordinances for emergency shelter for homeless people, transitional housing, and supportive housing. Emergency shelters will be limited to no more than 10 people and no one will be permitted to remain beyond 180 nights. Homelessness probably cannot be solved within 180 days (or nights), so the Council might want to consider increasing the time to 12 months.


MILK AND COOKIES

While the City Council routinely puts our cookies and coffee (decaf and regular) for the public, people interested enough to go to meetings of the Planning Commission and/or the Parks and Recreation Commission have to bring their own sustenance. Lately, attendance at both these Commissions has outnumbered the City Council sessions, and some of the Commission meetings have gone on for hours and hours.

I’m not a fan of government spending, but in this case, it seems that if our citizens are interested enough in our government to show up at 7 pm during the middle of the week, the least we can do to encourage them is to spend a few bucks (and that’s all it is) to provide some sustenance during Commission meetings.

Thank you Councilman Nick for getting this item on the agenda.


COMING ATTRACTION

The closed portion of the City Council meeting will discuss the City Manager’s contract. That’s such a big topic that I will cover it tomorrow in Part 2.

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