SLT Council Candidate John Friedrich

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 John Friedrich

Profession: Founder and Director, Tahoe Green Jobs Initiative

How many years in SLT: 15

1.Explain why you are running for City Council and what your qualifications are. My wife Kim Carr and I have a ninth-grade daughter who inspires me every day to help improve our community and country. Our collective actions must be done with the best interests of our kids, grandkids, and future generations in mind.

I’m running to bring our community together for solutions that better manage tourism, provide housing local workers can afford, diversify our economy, fix our roads, reduce traffic, provide strong support for public safety and fire prevention, create walkable town hubs, and protect our environment.

Since moving to South Lake Tahoe in 2005, I have served as the Program Director at the League to Save Lake Tahoe, and managed renewable energy, energy efficiency and electric vehicle programs at Liberty Utilities. This spring, I founded the Tahoe Green Jobs Initiative to train Tahoe residents for livable wage jobs such as solar and EV charging installations, and affordable home construction.

In addition, I have been active in numerous efforts over the years to improve our schools, including co-founding the group Small World in 2011. I’ve served on the boards of Tahoe Fund and Sierra Nevada Alliance, and I currently serve on the City of South Lake Tahoe’s Transformational Change Committee.

This spring, I hosted two online benefit concerts with Tahoe Supports Tahoe and Tahoe Magic featuring local musicians that raised nearly $20,000 for our neighbors struggling in these COVID-19 times, and hosted another this summer for the new group Tahoe Miracle Fund (El Fondo Milagroso de Tahoe).

I am proud to have received the endorsements of both the Tahoe Chamber and South Lake Tahoe Democratic Club. You can learn more about my campaign at https://john4council.com. I’d be grateful for your support.

2. There has been talk about making South Lake Tahoe a Charter City. Are you for or against this, and why? Leaning for, but would like more investigation done of the pros and cons of this option for South Lake Tahoe. One pro is that becoming a Charter City could allow new means to fund essential city services like repairing our roads, public safety and fire protection. Another benefit is that we’d be able to define the governance structure that works best for our community, and have more local control over procurement, contracting, etc.  

I also support taking a serious look at other structural reform possibilities, such as annexing part or all of the unincorporated Basin portions of El Dorado County into the City of South Lake Tahoe, to increase the percentage of property taxes that are retained here, to increase the number of locals who are engaged in city governance -- since we’re all in this together on the south shore -- and to have more uniform rules on issues like vacation rental ordinances.

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 don’t have an exact tally, but I’ve spoken many times in person and remotely this year and during my time in South Lake Tahoe. The silver lining of remote meetings has been a large increase in the number of people participating, which has been well managed during meetings by City Clerk Susan Blankenship. When the council returns to in person meetings, online participation should be maintained. I envision additional ways to gather meaningful input from the public before and during meetings, like polls on pending votes.

To cultivate more public participation and engagement, I strongly support, and would like to build upon, the committee structure that brings local residents together to explore and propose solutions. Given the centrality of the City budget in reflecting local priorities, I’m a big fan of participatory budget processes that give the public an opportunity to better understand service needs, and the funding needed to sustain those services. Here’s a good overview of what we might consider doing here in South Lake Tahoe: https://www.westerncity.com/article/public-involvement-budgeting-options-local-officials.

I’m also strongly committed to providing more information and pathways for meaningful engagement to South Lake Tahoe’s Latino and Hispanic community, in English and Spanish, building upon the efforts the City has started recently.

4. Are you for or against the US50 Revitalization Project, known as the Loop Road, and why? I support the US 50/South Shore Community Revitalization project to create a more pedestrian and bicycle friendly, transit-oriented, “complete street” area.  I would also like to see similar investment made in creating more walkable community hubs throughout South Lake Tahoe, in places like Ski Run Blvd., Harrison Ave./56 Acres, Bijou, Sierra Blvd., and the Y.

As to the loop road portion of the project-- I support routing traffic around the highway 50 corridor, but want a different alignment than proposed to save existing affordable housing in walking distance to Stateline core workplaces, as well as the integrity of the Rocky Point neighborhood, which is home to hundreds of predominantly Latino, Hispanic and Filipino families. The bypass/loop road should create no net increase in pavement to protect Lake Tahoe, and not leave any current residents without housing, regardless of their status. Housing is more important than highways, especially in the Tahoe Basin.

The current affordable housing crisis we are facing, combined with the need to reduce not facilitate more traffic, means we need to re-evaluate options that were previously discarded -- such as creating a two lane, one way loop on both sides of highway 50, using existing road infrastructure (primarily along Lake Parkway E/W). At the same time, measures should be taken to reduce the amount of traffic currently cutting through the Rocky Point neighborhood as a de facto local loop road.

I believe we can unite the community around a plan that creates a
walkable/bikeable Highway 50 core, while avoiding the negative impacts to the Rocky Point neighborhood and its vulnerable families. If there’s a will, there’s a way.

5. What are your thoughts on the 56 Acre Parcel and what should be included? Love this project! This could become the locals downtown, connected with Harrison Ave. businesses and Lakeview Commons.  I support transforming the 56 Acre parcel into a recreation and arts-focused town center, and possible central location for city hall. Traffic could be looped around this area, or at the very least slowed down to make it pedestrian and bicycle friendly, similarly designed to the US 50 revitalization project at Stateline. Also, we need a new name to replace the bureaucratic sounding “56 Acres”. Tahoe Centro? This project has been in the concept and discussion stage for more than a decade – time to make it happen!

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. Yes, I definitely consider myself a team player, and my leadership approach is collaborative and cooperative. I’m solution-oriented, with a propensity and ability to seek to find common ground. I’ve developed strong relationships with disparate factions in our community, and will seek to find projects and programs that bring people together, such as better managing tourism, and creating new affordable housing options. Division leads to paralysis, unifying around a shared vision leads to action and progress.

If I’m elected, you have my promise that I will listen, remain open-minded to different points of view and make thoughtful decisions based on input from all parts of our community. It’s about we, not me. 

7. What is your top priority and why? Affordable housing. I support immediate action to confront our affordable housing and homelessness crises, which will be exacerbated if spikes in COVID-19 again lead to widespread unemployment. This would harm both tenants and landlords. I support the affordable housing projects under development, and also support permitting Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), and incentives for making more second homes available as long term rentals, such as a low-interest loan fund to help second homeowners with vacant homes bring them up to code, and to make them more energy efficient.

8.What do you see yourself accomplishing as one of five council members in your first six months?  Establish a participatory budgeting process to facilitate strong public engagement on the budget. 

Expand outreach in English and Spanish to the Latino and Hispanic community to facilitate greater participation in city council meetings

Work with TRPA to permit construction of Accessory Dwelling Units to provide urgently needed new housing, extra income for Tahoe residents, and new construction jobs.

Launch a buy local campaign in coordination with the local chambers to support local businesses, and to increase funds staying in our community to pay for local services like public safety and road repair.

Work with partners to establish a tourism management plan for summer 2021 that prevents the heavy impacts we experienced this year.

9. South Lake Tahoe is very polarized right now. As a councilperson, what would you do to create a more cohesive and respectful community? I am running for city council to help unite our community around solutions to move us forward. The new problems we face require new ideas and new approaches. For too long, we’ve been divided into camps, us vs. them. It’s easy to throw stones and tear apart ideas and people. To get past the acrimony and finger pointing, I’ll be asking people to step up to be part of the solution, and will work to provide as many meaningful ways to help shape city direction and priorities as possible – including participatory budgeting.

We all love Lake Tahoe, and challenges like COVID-19 and the threat of catastrophic wildfire remind us that we’re all in this together. We all want a better future for our kids.

10. Anything else you’d like to add? You can learn more about my campaign at https://john4council.com.  Send me a note at johnf4council@gmail.com, and tell me what’s important to you. I’d be honored to have your support.

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