SLT Council Candidate Scott Robbins

South Tahoe Now reached out to all nine candidates for South Lake Tahoe City Council and provided the same list of questions to each one of them. Once a day their answers will be published in the order received.

Today's candidate is Scott Robbins

Profession: National Security Analysist

How many years in SLT: 4

1. Explain why you are running for City Council and what your qualifications are. I'm running to support the locals. The bartenders and baristas, nurses and retirees. The people who live here, work here, and play here. Our city continues to put the interests of the casinos, developers, and resorts first, and the locals last. This must change, and it can change.

I’ve spent the last 16 years as a researcher and analyst in the national security sector. I’ve managed and directed multi-million dollar projects and provided complex systems analyses for some of the largest acquisition programs in government. I know where government works. And I absolutely know where it doesn’t.

I believe in public service and in the value of giving back to this place which has given so much. I believe that government should serve the people, and that it's the locals that are the heart and soul of this place we call home.

I’ve advocated extensively for the reopening of Fire Station 2 and the hiring of 7 new firefighters, and to pay for them as the first priority of general funds revenue, not some afterthought dependent on grants or special tax increases. I was a speaker at the “Prepare for Evacuation” event, detailing the timeline of the Camp fire that destroyed Paradise, and how those lessons apply to South Lake Tahoe.

I’ve worked to pass Measure T, which eliminates vacation rentals in our residential neighborhoods.

I’ve advocated extensively in opposition to the Loop Road, which will demolish homes in Rocky Point, one of our few genuinely affordable neighborhoods, and displace local families to better speed tourists to Nevadas casinos.

I have regularly engaged with the City Council and written on a wide range of local issues including over-tourism, and for reforming police protocols for handling sexual assault victims.

I volunteer with the sheriff's department's Search and Rescue team and have volunteered the Warm Room homeless shelter.

2. There has been talk about making South Lake Tahoe a Charter City. Are you for or against this, and why? There is a great deal of work the city can do within its existing authority to put local interests ahead of the casinos, resorts and developers. Including properly funding our fire department, ending the loop road project through Rocky Point, mitigating the worst impacts of over-tourism, and working to meaningfully diversify our local economy away from their relentless focus on tourism-only.

Charter status would provide some additional flexibility in municipal governance, notably the ability to limit the influence of casino and resort money in local politics. It’s worth perusing, however, given the breadth of work the city could be doing now, to put locals first, it’s not a particularly high priority.

3. How many council meetings have you attended (Remotely and in person) and participated in? What changes, if any, would you bring to the table on how meetings are run? Ideas for more public participation? I’ve attended more council meetings than I can count. It’s notable that public participation is mostly limited to the same handful of people. People who could (pre-covid) dedicate a full day to spend at the Airport, or now, have the both the time and technical means to participate virtually.

The city should be hosting more community engagement sessions, held in the neighborhoods, and in the evenings. Last month, the city expanded the Tourist core zone into the Bijou neighborhood, permitting the construction of massive Edgewood-style resorts and displacing the current local retail. A move that almost nobody knew about before it was all over. This is exactly the type of decision, taken without meaningful public outreach or engagement that leads to distrust by our public.

Engagement by our Hispanic community, about 1/4th of our population, is almost entirely absent from municipal meetings. I have attended many of the city council community sessions regarding the Loop Road project which will demolish the mostly minority Rocky Point neighborhood, and none of those meetings provided Spanish interpretation. City documents are also not translated into Spanish. We can and should provide Spanish language documents, simulcasting, interpretation service at city meetings. These services are affordable, and the costs could be offset by eliminating city spending on tourism advertising.

4. Are you for or against the US50 Revitalization Project, known as the Loop Road, and why? I fundamentally oppose the Loop Road. This project will demolish much of Rocky Point, a predominately Latinx and Filipino neighborhood, and one of the few truly walkable and affordable neighborhoods in South Lake Tahoe. It will demolish homes. It will displace scores of families, many in mixed-documentation households who will absolutely not qualify for replacement housing. It will do these things to build a four-lane highway to better speed tourists the Nevada casinos.

We are constantly told that locals must sacrifice for the tourists. We must sacrifice our beaches and trails to trash, we must sacrifice our neighborhoods to vacation rentals, and now, finally, that we must sacrifice our very homes. This must stop. Tourism should work for the locals, not against them.

This project is not just bad public policy. It is wrong.

5. What are your thoughts on the 56 Acre Parcel and what should be included? Our city is currently asking the locals who work here for the least wages to pay an increase in sales taxes to fund essential services. While there’s real positive things in this plan, we simply cannot take seriously a city council that demands a tax increase to fund essential services, and simultaneously plans to spend lavishly on vanity projects such as a new city hall building. It’s also notable that this plan would see the city enter into an agreement to give over 50 percent of campground revenue to the county, costing the city money every year.

We need to set and stick to priorities. Priorities means paying for the thinks we actually need first, before the things we may want.

6. Being on council takes a lot of cooperation and collaboration. Do you consider yourself a team player? How do you work with others that may not have the same vision as you? Please explain how your election to the council will help get things done in South Lake Tahoe. Our city council needs voices willing to speak to the real needs of locals first, before the needs of the casinos, developers, and resorts. And to speak to those needs in clear, unambiguous terms. I will work and seek compromises with anyone willing to share these priorities.

7. What is your top priority and why? We must fully fund our fire department as the first priority for general revenue funds, not an afterthought dependent on a new sales tax. Our environment is one of ladder fuels and wildland-urban interfaces. Catastrophic fire is a matter of “when”, not “if”, and no other priorities will matter if we suffer the fate of the former city of Paradise.

8. What do you see yourself accomplishing as one of five council members in your first six months? I will move for a vote to terminate all support for the Loop Road project through Rocky Point, and for a resolution that the city will never seek to demolish private homes for corporate gains.

I will move for a vote to place a ballot measure to raise the Transient Occupancy Tourism (TOT) to 16 percent and to repeal any sales tax increase.

I will move for a vote to prohibit the use of auxiliary dwelling units (aka “shared rentals”) as AirB&B’s in residential neighborhoods.

I will move for a vote to Increase the fines for littering to $800 and assign code enforcement officers to write actual tickets, not warnings.

I will move for a vote to end the “hole-in-the-ground” by imposing fines on any commercial construction projects that remains substantially unfinished after four years. The developers can either finish their project or pay the locals for the hole they’ve left us.

I will move for a vote to develop a plan for high speed fiber-optic community internet service to support the development of local, non-tourism, business. This is a complex problem that has gone without meaningful attention for years.

9. South Lake Tahoe is very polarized right now. As a councilperson, what would you do to create a more cohesive and respectful community? The people who actually live here are less polarized than they are angry at a city that constantly puts their needs last, and the needs of the casinos, developers, and resorts first. A city that wastes money on small dollar nonsense such as trips to Mexico, expensive outside consultants, and endless tourism advertising, all while insisting they need to raise taxes on the locals, while doing nothing to address the impacts of over tourism.

We need our city to engage in meaningful, sustained public outreach about critical topics on which locals have been demanding action for years. Every local has sacrificed something, large or small, for the privilege of living in this beautiful place, they deserve a government that listens and prioritizes their interests.

10. Anything else you’d like to add? A word about endorsements: I am not endorsed by the Democratic party. I am not endorsed by the Republican party. I am not endorsed by the chambers of commerce, the developers, the casinos, or the resorts.

I am and will be an independent progressive voice for the locals and theirs is the only endorsement that matters.

The people who live here, work here, and play here. The restaurant workers and retirees, bartenders and baristas. It’s the locals who make Tahoe a great place to live, not just to visit.

Previous candidate responses
Daniel P. Browne, Jr.
Keith Roberts
Leonard Carter