A Brief Review of Current Issues and Response to Election Rhetoric

By Mark Nielsen

Comments on what we have accomplished over the past 4 years in Finances, Public Transparency, Open Space, Traffic, Downtown Redevelopment, and Water

Yes, I am running for re-election to the City Council. My friends and family think I should have my head examined for pursuing a position that pays a whopping $300 per month. The position also allows me to upset at least some portion of my fellow citizens with every decision made (rarely is there an issue on which everyone agrees). Therefore, the more you do, the more folks there are who have at least one reason not to vote for you. Yet my family and friends support my decision to finish what I started 4 years ago. We have made great strides in the preservation of open space, the improvement of our financial situation, the revitalization of our downtown and the return of public debate and openness to our City decision-making. However, as a businessman, it has been very frustrating to see that government does not move anywhere near the speed of private industry.

Let me touch on a few of the pressing issues recently raised compared to four years ago:

CITY FINANCES We have significantly reduced the annual spending of the City since my election. We cut over $3 million compared to four years ago, while increasing our Public Safety budget by about $1.8 million (almost 30%). We have retained almost $13 million of reserves while keeping many of the special community programs going that are important to preserve our quality of life and community cohesiveness. This fiscal restraint has allowed us to be one of only a handful of cities in California to achieve a top-level bond rating of AAA by Standard and Poor. While some candidates wrongly claim the City is not fiscally conservative, the fact is that we have an independent expert agency putting our financial bond rating in the top 5% of all cities in the State.

We are just now implementing the first-ever 20 year long-term strategic and financial plan that actually forecasts our revenues and expenses into the year 2030 and beyond. The result of this analysis shows we cannot just do what we have done in the past. We are facing a future structural deficit which means our expenditures will start exceeding our revenue in the future unless we change our revenue sources (such as more retail and hotel revenues) or greatly decrease our spending. The first step is to have a financial model that we can input various "what if" scenarios to see the impact over the next 20 years. We have that model and are working through different scenarios as part of the budgeting and planning process.

PUBLIC OPENESS The public process is cumbersome due to the need for handling debate among the Council members only in public meetings where the agenda is posted the week before. This often results in drawn out decision-making as we have to hold two or three meetings in order to take input, discuss and then get answers to issues raised. Yet before I was elected, I heard and experienced myself many Council meetings where the public input often seemed superfluous to the decisions. It seemed decisions were a foregone conclusion, and the low public attendance at Council meetings reflected this perception.

Four years later, we have regular vibrant (and lengthy) debate on issues in the Council meetings with a great deal of public input. Many votes reflect a shifting majority based on the particular issue at hand. And the thought process of each Councilmember is usually expressed in an open forum.

Those who complain that we have held closed session votes to the detriment of the public or in violation of the Brown Act are wrong. Closed sessions are strictly controlled by the City Attorney and limited to personnel matters, litigation and real estate negotiations. The open space real estate negotiations were held in closed session because to do otherwise would hurt the City's negotiating position if our strategy were discussed openly. The deals were publicly announced and the details made public immediately. There was no violation of the Brown Act, despite some of our citizens trying to get the DA involved. The DA declined to pursue their complaint beyond the initial review with the City.

The fact is that we have greatly expanded the public notification requirements far beyond what the law requires, have added monitors in the Council chambers so the audience can see what the Council sees, and have added numerous public meetings to insure full public input.

OPEN SPACE In the past few years, we have acquired over 240 acres of open space, much of which was subject to development. In addition, we have options to purchase or preserve another 113 acres plus proposals with the County to preserve an additional 80+ acres. We added many open space parcels in town to the County's Green Vision Map where before none of our City was represented. This was crucial to be eligible for literally millions of dollars of funding for habitat restoration and acquisition from Measure M funds. We have property on OCTA's finalist list for both acquisition and restoration. We were recently awarded $250,000 in grants for habitat restoration, and have over $16 million of grant applications submitted (most of which have no matching fund requirements!).

The $30 million Open Space bond passed in 2008 also allowed us to acquire land as well as improve the public usability of our Northwest Open Space with the addition of new community gardens, public picnic and recreation areas, restored citrus orchards, a dog park and public restrooms. The engineering is currently in process for these improvements.

And most important to me, our citizens overwhelmingly passed Measure X in 2008 which I architected. Measure X changed the law so that no future City Council can rezone open space without a vote of the people, thus protecting all our open space for future generations.

The Ranch acquisition at Ortega and La Pata was an opportunity that presented itself after the open space bond vote. The riding park with its horse shows and soccer tournaments brings a great deal of business to our merchants that result in sales tax revenue. The claim that the Riding Park is "a longstanding financial disaster for San Juan taxpayers" is patently false. Rather than a financial disaster, the taxpayers are now receiving almost $250,000 per year from the leases on the land we just acquired.

In fact, it should be noted that the $27.5 million we paid for the 132 acres from the Ranch looks like a bargain compared to the $21 million we paid in 1990 for the sports park/farm property and Northwest open space that totaled 126 acres. The $21 million we paid in 1990 is equivalent to over $34.5 million today! You should also note that the city of Lake Forest just recently acquired a small 12 acre parcel for a park at a cost of $15 million!

Accusations that the Ranch acquisition is "private open space" are also wrong. The Riding Park is public land that is under a lease that runs through 2011. Another portion of the acquired land is leased by the Oaks and Joan Irvine Smith. A third piece along Ortega where the lemon groves sit is not leased and is being considered for a combination of various public uses ranging from a campground to picnic groves to a multi-purpose day use area and a staging area. The land under lease is no different from the organic farm by the sports park which the City acquired in the 1990 open space bond. That farmland is not open to the public, and the lessee pays the City for a private use that was determined to benefit the City overall.

And the City did not negotiate this deal secretly. The fact the negotiations were occurring in closed session was posted publicly on the Council agenda on multiple occasions.

Are there terms in the purchase agreement I don't like? Absolutely! However, at the end of the day, a seller does not have to sell unless they get terms they want. On balance, I believe it was far better for our City to acquire this land under these terms than to allow it to be developed and lost forever as the unique open space asset we now control. I believe my colleagues agreed asthe Council voted 5-0 to make this purchase.

DOWNTOWN REDEVELOPMENT After 10 years of darkness, we got our movie theater reopened by providing a loan to the theater from the City's Redevelopment Agency. We have a new hotel moving forward across from the Mission, and another proposed for Stonehill at the south end of town. Two new car dealers have made applications and Costco is expanding. The Los Rios Park and parking lot was completed and a Master Plan for the downtown is in process that for the first time has the involvement of all stakeholders to insure something will actually be done to implement the final plan. The final plan will still take months to complete, and then will take many years or even decades to ultimately achieve. However we will have a common roadmap for developers, staff and future Councils to pro-actively work toward.

TRAFFIC A number of projects are in process or have been completed to ease traffic, including the widening of Del Obispo, improvement of the J. Serra intersection at Rancho Viejo, the San Juan Creek Road resurfacing, etc. In addition, the City has taken a strong stand on the widening of Ortega near the Hunt Club and sued Caltrans to insure that we get a project that preserves the unique character of our community. We have also agreed on a plan for the I-5 interchange at Ortega, though we are still in discussions with Caltrans on the final design and impacts on the City. We addressed some long-standing parking issues on Camino Capistrano and Alipaz, and forced completion of the widening of Valle Road in spite of the developer responsible going bankrupt.

WATER We achieved an end to the brown water problem of a couple years ago, and in the process removed the company that was running our groundwater recovery plant. This ended a $100k per month contract that we now handle in-house for far less. Pro-active maintenance has begun that for decades was ignored, leading to emergency fixes being the norm instead of the exception. This approach has cost us dearly and the recent rate hikes are in part a reflection of this past practice that each year put us in a deeper hole.

We formed a true Utility Department that now is set up to operate as a business, with accountability and oversight by a top-notch utility commission. We are well on our way to fixing the past issues and establishing San Juan Capistrano as one of the few cities in Orange County to have most of its water needs provided directly, instead of importing water. This will provide long-term savings for our citizens and keep us self-sufficient.

The Chevron MTBE spills continue to be a major issue and the City is holding Chevron accountable for the cleanup and costs that have been incurred. Until we can recover the costs from Chevron, the City is constructing a new treatment facility to clean up the MTBE ourselves. Recently the City announced that it looks like we have reached agreement on terms for a settlement with Chevron.

Overall, these items are but a small part of the numerous challenges we have addressed these past four years. I hope to have the opportunity to complete the work I started, but that will have to wait for your vote in November. In the meantime, we have a great deal of work that requires input from the community. There are competing views on which each side feels they are in the right. Our job on Council is to listen to all input and use our best judgment to decide what is in the best long-term interest of the whole City. While we likely will not agree on each issue, I pledge to use my best judgment independent of personal interests to do what is best for our City overall. And I will gladly explain my decisions and thinking to anyone who is interested. As always, I welcome your comments and challenges.