| Orange County, CA | November 4, 2008 Election |
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Competent GovernmentBy Jim GardnerCandidate for Council Member; City of Lake Forest |
This information is provided by the candidate | |
A city council needs to have competent membersThe city has no adequate system for decision making on contracts nor do they have an adequate way to measure the outcome of the contracts they fund. For example, last year our city staff produced a report looking at the costs of animal services in Southern California, and when they came to examining the costs of these services, they forgot to consider the revenue produced by the services. They merely looked at the expenses. Then when they decided to divide the expenses by the population figures, they forgot to add the figures correctly. When I pointed this out to the staff and the council, they were amazed. When asked to explain how she could author such a fallacious report, the city employee said "Oops." Oops indeed! Our city spends nearly $40,000,000 per year, and a good percentage of this is based on the adequacy of reports. In mid 2008 the city decided to gather bids for a "transitional housing" project, with projected expenses of $500,000. When asked to define the term "transitional housing," city staff demurred. They didn't have an explanation. In the course of the debate. Council woman McCullough asked the staff about the results of the hundreds of thousands of dollars that had already been spent on "affordable housing." Had it been spent wisely? Had the people who used the program, at tax payer's expense, been able to graduate from subsidized housing and live independent lives? There followed a symphony of blank stares. No one on the staff had ever considered evaluating the results of the hundreds of thousands of dollars that had already been spent, and here they were proposing to spend hundreds of thousands more, and no one could define what they were going to spend the money on. Is that the way to run a city? The city council is reactive. They respond to problems, but do not anticipate them. And because they approach problems in a piece meal, reactive style, they are not able to respond quickly or adequately to many situations. For example, in 2003 they were approached by citizens with a problem of too many cars being on the streets. It took them 4 years to investigate this issue, even though the issue has reared itself in other areas, and each time the city treats this as if it were a separate incident. In fact, our city faces the problem of urban blight, and this problem manifests itself in many forms, including the parking problem. |
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ca/or Created from information supplied by the candidate: September 13, 2008 11:42
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