Lawsuit filed to prevent Loop Road project from appearing on South Lake Tahoe ballot

At the end of business on Monday, papers were served on the City of South Lake Tahoe, the City Council and four members of the group Let Tahoe Decide to keep the subject of the Loop Road/US Highway 50 South Shore Community Revitalization Project off the ballot in November.

Jason Collin, a member of the Tahoe Chamber Board of Directors and director of Home Health & Hospice for Barton Health, filed the lawsuit in El Dorado County Superior Court on July 14, but the City and other named parties received their summons just before 5:00 p.m. on Monday, July 18.

The "Let Tahoe Decide" members that were named as defendants in the lawsuit are Laurel Ames, John Cefalu, "Billy" Crawford and Bruce Grego. The local grassroots group sought an initiative prohibiting the City Council from approving or supporting the Loop Road without a vote of the public, and received enough signatures to make it to the ballot. The issue of the initiative is on the agenda of the July 19 City Council meeting though now the lawsuit now prohibits the City from presenting it to the voters.

In the lawsuit, Collin, through his lawyers Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk of Sacramento, claims he is seeking "judicial intervention to prevent the City of South Lake Tahoe and its City Council from adopting or presenting to voters a fundamentally flawed ballot initiative which, as drafted, is invalid on its face and, if adopted, would violate state law and unlawfully interfere with the City's authority as granted by State Legislature."

The suit says the initiative measure infringes on the City's ability to fulfill its duties to the Tahoe Regional Planning Compact, "to the extent the initiative would infringe on federal interstate commerce."

Collins also alleges the "four private parties," (Ames, Cefalu, Crawford and Grego) drafted the initiative without the opportunity for public input or comment about its content. They needed signatures from just ten percent of the registered voters in the city, or 879 signatures, to get the City to put the measure on the November 8 ballot.

No items concerning the City may go on the ballot without their consent, which is the reason the initiative is on Tuesday's agenda. Discussion is scheduled to begin at 2:00 p.m. at their meeting at the Lake Tahoe Airport.

Late night messages left on Monday with Collin, City Manager Nancy Kerry, City Attorney Tom Watson and Bruce Grego have not yet been returned.

The realignment of Highway 50 through the eastern end of South Lake Tahoe has been discussed since the 1970s and 80s. Over the past few years, the Tahoe Transportation District has been seeking public and agency input on the project they say will free up the current stretch of the highway for a more walkable area without heavy car presence. The plans have the new highway moving through a neighborhood near Pioneer Trail, and the relocation of businesses and residents.

All defendants listed in the lawsuit have 30 days to respond. Besides the City of South Lake Tahoe and City Council and the four persons already named, Collin's lawyers reserved the right to name "Does I through X" at a later date.

Collin is not seeking financial damages, though he is asking for "costs and reasonable legal fees." In the lawsuit, it says he is bringing the action solely in the "public interest." It states that Collin felt without this lawsuit, the City Council would have voted Tuesday to present the measure to the voters.