Politics & Government

Council Gives Green Light to Developers

With lines sharply drawn, council members who benefited from campaign contributions voted in favor of the project and zoning change.

By Martin Henderson

In a meeting that took five hours—it ended exactly at midnight—Lake Forest City Council members gave the green light to developers who want to build condos and detached homes in the Foothill Auto Centre. 

With some of the most sustained emotion from the dais in the city's history—not just a momentary dustup such as the one earlier this year between Adam Nick and Peter Herzog—city leaders paved the way to integrate residential living into a commercial area. 

Nick, Dwight Robinson and Mayor Scott Voigts provided the three votes necessary that converted about 16 acres of commercial property to residential and gave the official OK for Brookfield Residential to build condos on the site, and OK'd the first reading of plans by Trumark Co. to build its detached homes where Elite Automotive Services currently does business.

In an ironic twist, Elite Automotive—which services the city's vehicles—will have to be relocated. 

Herzog and Kathryn McCullough spoke passionately in opposition to the developers, who Herzog pointed out had contributed tens of thousands of dollars to stack the council in their favor. 

Either directly or indirectly, their interests contributed about $75,000 to politicians and the 2012 election, either in support of councilmembers—including Voigts, who wasn't running for office—or opposition of other candidates. Herzog, an attorney, said they had laundered money through Political Action Committees to attack longtime councilwoman, Marcia Rudolph.

He said Trumark had spent $58,550, about equal to what Nick spent on the campaign that got him elected with 10,279 votes. Robinson also was elected with a runner-up 9,381 votes.

The audience clapped twice for Herzog after expressing his concern that the City had been bought and paid for by the developers, who were able to get their projects done by circumventing normal procedure and in spite of about 4,200 homes—representing about 12,000 new residents to the population and a 15 percent bump in the city's population—within about a mile of the auto centre.

Herzog at one time addressed Brookfield executive Dave Bartlett directly while speaking out against the project. "You can smile and smirk all you want, Bartlett, it's the truth," he said.

Herzog also addressed one of the points of consideration for the project, that it would bring new jobs to the area, but that they would be construction jobs for builders in Los Angeles and, after completion of the project, would move on. 

He also said the location is not a vacant site, that Elite Automotive is "thriving."

"That property is being used the way the city says it can," he said. 

Herzog also said the council should consider what Lake Forest should look like in 35 years, and that businesses that would return to the auto centre would bring more money to the general fund than the residences.

TELL US IN THE COMMENTS: Should the council have voted for the developers to turn the auto centre into an area for residential use?
 


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