Council Majority Ignores Issue

A Saddleback Valley News reporter attended the Feb. 4 council meeting, but why has no newspaper article been published about the most controversial item? A city watchdog explained, “Most likely, it is because City Manager Dennis Wilberg hasn’t finished writing it.”

Item No. 21, put on the agenda by Councilwoman Cathy Schlicht, was about the city’s landscape contracts. The discussion took 45 minutes, but none of the others wanted to address the crux of the matter. Councilwoman Schlicht was proposing that the city rebid the contracts every two years (instead of extending two-year contracts to four years) to include refurbishment and rehabilitation of slopes. Text in bold is the part ignored by city administrator Keith Rattay in his 15-minute slide show about almost everything except what the agenda item specified.

Some of the current contracts are for maintenance only. As an aside, what does it cost to “maintain” barren city slopes that have been neglected for years?

One thing all parties agreed on was the amount paid by taxpayers -- $33 million since 2005 – for landscape contracts. Despite Rattay’s 15-minute slide show, he didn’t state how much is spent on slopes versus the lush Disneyland-type landscaping around city hall and the community center or the city’s obsession with maintaining its “One Million Trees” status. Obviously, all areas of the city are not equal.

As an example of a neglected area, Aegean Hills was annexed in the early 1990s, and the city-owned slopes along its thoroughfares are in bad shape. When city staffers funnel the lion’s share of tax dollars into one part of town – the part they frequent on their way to city hall – there isn’t much left for the other 95 percent. If that seems like an exaggeration, where were 95 percent of the city’s holiday lights? Many of the city’s top-paid administrators don’t live in Mission Viejo, and they evidently take the I-5 to La Paz Road.

The city attorney said some neighborhoods will need to get in line and wait their turn for landscaping. Aegean Hills has been waiting for 20 years. In contrast, medians along Marguerite are planted and replanted with remarkable frequency. Councilwoman Schlicht indicated less is being budgeted for landscaping in recent years while slopes are declining. She said such neglect ends up costing more in the long run, just as letting streets deteriorate is more costly over time.

After 45 minutes of discussion, largely spent on badgering Councilwoman Schlicht, the other council members voted 4-1 against her proposal.