Transparency in government is a necessity in a democracy. Your elected representatives are supposed to act in your best interest and be knowledgeable about what they are doing.
I submit that our present Rossmoor Community Services District representatives have not in the past acted in our best interest, nor are they upfront about what they are doing now.
In the past they spent $100,000 or more on making the bid for cityhood.
This failed bid put the RCSD squarely in Supervisor John Moorlach’s radar as a group who did not know what they were doing.
It made Moorlach suspect (and probably rightly so) that they were more interested in their own interests than the Rossmoor community.
After all, board members of a city stand to gain financially more than the board members of a Community Services District and city managers (Henry Taboada) would probably negotiate a higher salary too.
Directors of cities are not held to $600 per month stipends as the Community Services Districts are. (This RCSD Board gave themselves an increase in salary when they voted to pay themselves more money for each extra meeting that they attended that had little to do with the services that they provide Rossmoor.)
They have just passed a resolution opposing Los Alamitos’ annexation of the Rossmoor village shopping center. This is a senseless resolution, but Henry Taboada will get $60 per hour for writing this resolution.
It is meaningless because if Los Alamitos wants the annexation they will get it if they follow the correct procedures.
The Board spent money doing a survey that was done for the purpose of introducing Rossmoor to the “latent powers” that they wanted. They spent money having their attorney prepare a request to the attorney general asking if they could get the latent power of law enforcement.
Recently, they dropped the law enforcement and refuse collection from their list of desired latent powers.
Now they are preparing to go forward on the latent power of animal care. They are not deterred by the fact that Orange County is actually subsidizing animal control for Rossmoor.
What this RCSD Board of Directors has done is put the amount of money that Orange County spends on Rossmoor in the limelight and it may not be in Rossmoor’s best interest to find out they do not generate enough money from property taxes to pay for the full range of services that Orange County provides Rossmoor.
Joyce Bloom is a longtime Rossmoor resident and a former member of the RCSD board.
