Movement to Turn Back Auto Centre Development Reaches Milestone

By Martin Henderson

The "Save Lake Forest" grassroots movement to collect 4,000 signatures of registered voters from Lake Forest reached a milestone figure over the holiday weekend in its bid to turn back a City Council decision to OK a residential development by Brookfield Homes in what has been the Foothill Auto Centre. 

According to Jim Gardner in his Save Lake Forest Blog, the group—which a week earlier had consisted of a few people standing in an abandoned auto mall—has reached 25 percent of its goal. 

Gardner says more than 1,000 signatures have been gathered for his team's referendum, although they must eventually be verified.

Just as importantly, about 100 individuals have joined on to collect signatures. 

Gardner said the group's original goal was to have 40 people collect 100 signatures, but with 100 people as part of the collection process—and he says they're looking for more—each needs to account for only 40 signatures apiece. 

With 16 days to go before the Sept. 19 deadline, the task seems far more doable. The blog also tracks the group's upcoming dates and locations for signature gathering outside local businesses.

"There was a lot of interest and fortunately, a lot of people who want to gather signatures as we try to turn back this development," Gardner said on Tuesday afternoon. "Of the people we talked to, 25 percent were already fully knowledgeable about this and saw the sign and signed right away. Another 25 percent were aware of the issue and didn't require very much time to explain it to. That was very positive in terms of the impact on the community. The other 50 percent we needed to talk to but it didn't take that long." 

Gardner said many were upset by the appearance of corruption more than the appearance of condominiums and town homes after developers contributed heavily to the 2012 campaign and then got special dispensation from the candidates who benefited from those contributions once they were on City Council.

"Their reaction was, 'If they get away with it now, who knows what will happen next,' " Gardner said. "For the entire weekend, over three days, we probably had less than a dozen people who said they were in favor of the project and didn't want to sign."

A Save Lake Forest Facebook page created last week had 93 "Likes" at noon Tuesday.

An organizational meeting takes place today, 5:30 p.m., at City Hall; members of the group plan to attend the city council meeting at 7 p.m. and oppose the second reading to pass the Trumark development and the rezoning of the auto centre property from commercial to residential. 

"The reason for tonight's meeting, we've got so many who have come out of the woodwork, instead of the small core of us, we now need to work with all those people so they can be more effective," Gardner said. "Our challenge now is to manage those who have come forward. If we can do that, we will succeed. It will be hard, but we can succeed."