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Forum Responses - Oct. 24 Response from Jim Woodin: Our paramount need in Mission Viejo is for solid, long-term budgetary soundness. When revenues accumulate, they should be applied to pay down debt, as with the healthcare and pension plans for the city. All construction contracts should be monitored to finish within budget. All contracts for city services, such as landscaping and road work, should be analyzed for the most cost-effective approach and to make sure they were competitively bid for price advantage. Budgetary integrity is the key to the long-term success of the city of Mission Viejo. Response from Michael Ferrall: Mission Viejo is at a turning point, slipping toward urbanism, overcrowding and traffic snarls. Neighborhoods along Los Alisos Blvd. and Crown Valley are overburdened with high-density housing, and many other neighborhoods are being targeted for high-density welfare housing projects. We have graffiti and gang activity occurring near apartment projects. It’s not a matter of adding more policemen as things deteriorate. We have to stop changing the Master Plan – no more high-density welfare housing! Some council members and several candidates favor more welfare housing, including an apartment project at La Paz and Marguerite. These changes impact schools, put our citizens at risk and diminish our quality of life. Beyond the most important issue facing the city, a critical aspect of this election is whether residents or lobbyists will be represented on the council. When council members’ first loyalty is to a lobbyist or special interest group, the city is in jeopardy. Out-of-towners don’t care about the consequences of overdevelopment or the costs of showing favoritism in awarding city contracts. Because the council is weak, our city can’t hold its own in the region. As a result, we have cut-through traffic from the east turning our thoroughfares – Crown Valley, Oso and Alicia Parkway – into freeways. The council has failed to address basics within the city (aging infrastructure, cost overruns on every project, threats from the state about affordable welfare housing, impact of illegal immigration on many aspects of our lives, converting single-family homes into multi-family units, failure to manage traffic, etc.), and I see additional huge problems in the region that will have negative impacts on our residents. Growth in population and additional traffic are just two of the regional trends affecting our city. No one is conceiving of long-term city objectives, let alone achieving them. |
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