South Lake Tahoe Mayor Tamara Wallace: Better days ahead

“You’ve got to count to three.” Those were the words of advice attributed to Norm Woods one of the first five city council members. The Cityhood project in 1965 was spearheaded by the South Lake Tahoe Chamber of Commerce with all five of that first council members coming from the Chamber Board ranks. Norm served as one of the first rotating Mayors and many times thereafter. His advice was offered to the citizens who were newly elected to subsequent councils. I’m thankful for those who paved the way before me, especially our first woman Mayor, Del Laine, who also served many years on the council. One of the best parts of being elected when I was to the council is that I had the special privilege of serving with Del’s daughter Brooke on city council. What a legacy Del Laine left to our community.

One year ago, as I finished my first year as a council member, I wrote about what I had learned so far, as well as the challenges we faced. The three new members from two years ago have now come up to speed, got to know each other and how to work with each other as well as become a cohesive team. With this recent election we have added two brand new Council members leaving two-years’ experience as our longest serving current members. Given the state of our current pandemic situation, we had to get to know each other by Zoom only and a couple Council members had never met in person until we recently took a group picture.

In addition, in a City of our type, the City Manager actually runs the day to day business of the City. The Council is meant to govern from the 30,000-foot level. Over our history there have been council members who did not understand the proper relationship between the council and city staff, which made the City Manager’s job very difficult. That is probably the reason that Manager turnover is so frequent in California cities and counties. There are some cities that elect a strong Mayor separately. Even those cities often hire a manager to work for that Mayor. Our Mayor position is mostly ceremonial and often rotates amongst the council members, especially those who can efficiently run a meeting. Our Mayor has no other authority separate from each other Council member. Each vote is equal.

Another error that sometimes occurs is when Council members attempt to carry out the agenda of a particular national political party. While it is obvious that our country is somewhat equally split as to how to best govern, our City is also. Our City was originally founded to provide police, fire, roads and snow removal. Those basics are local issues and Council candidates aren’t listed on the ballot by political preference. Cities do not have the staff or money to carry out the programs that are delegated to the State and/or County. Some refer to City issues as being the “potholes and noisy neighbor” issues.

However, in my opinion, given the great political divide that exists in our country at present it is no surprise that this community reflects the uncivil manner in which many treat each other now. It saddens me to see it happen. There are literally hundreds of issues that a City Council deals with together as they strive to understand what the citizens truly want and or need. My hope is that we will be able to continue to attract good citizens to run for office who can withstand the slings and arrows of a frustrated and divided public. My wish is that just as Abraham Lincoln asked our country after the Civil War to refer to our “better angels,” that we as a community can do the same for our neighbors.

We have just finished a very difficult year in our history. COVID-19 and how it affected the citizens in our small community has been a part of almost every waking thought for the last 10 months of my life. Trying to balance the medical health needs of our community with the mental health and socio-economic needs has been a struggle. I have personally lost family to COVID and have lost very close friends to suicide due to the shutdown of the economy. I also work very closely with a local food pantry and I see how affected our community has been. We were also dealing with issues beyond our control and expertise. The city does not have a medical officer, so we relied heavily on the County and State Health officers to provide guidance. Hindsight will tell us whether or not the right decisions were made, but please know that every decision was made with this whole community’s best interests in mind.

This Council will be holding a goal setting session on January 19, this is designed to set and reinforce the priorities identified over the last few strategic planning sessions as well as the community input received during the Transformative Change Task Force and a recent community survey. I am excited to be working with the other four people you have elected, in addition to our very capable City Manager, Joe Irvin, and his staff. Better days are ahead.

The people of the City of South Lake Tahoe will continue to meet all challenges we face – if we work together.

Tamara Wallace
Mayor
City of South Lake Tahoe