State of the City Address: South Lake Tahoe has a bright future as housing, transportation and fire threats tackled

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - The City of South Lake Tahoe recently held its State of the City address, highlighting the work of its 200 employees, commissioners, and city council members over the past year.

It has been 57 years since several small neighborhoods joined together to form the city of South Lake Tahoe. While those mismatched communities make South Lake Tahoe what it is today, its infrastructure is showing its age.

The State of the City highlighted the small town that was never meant to be, but one that has "a very bright future."

Over the past two years, through COVID, the City supported local food programs, financially supported local businesses, and put $6M into the community through ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds. Then, if the pandemic wasn't enough, the Caldor Fire crossed the ridge and headed into South Lake Tahoe. The community was saved.

City Manager Joe Irvin and department heads joined Mayor Devin Middlebrook in going over the City's strategic plan that highlighted the fact that more roads have been paved in the past four years than in the previous decade. The network of multi-use trails throughout the community continues to be improved and further connects the ends of town.

Even with successes, there are challenges, one of the biggest being the increasing cost of housing.

There are workforce and affordable housing projects underway (72 single‐family, 91 multi‐family), more at this time that in the total history of the City. The Lease to Locals program has housed 25 people by unlocking vacant homes, and more are being worked on. There have been 67 units added for those facing homelessness, 248 units coming through the Sugar Pine Village project, and 41 more pending units of new housing.

During the State of the City, Middlebrook also focused on the biggest threat facing the community - climate change. The City has lofty goals of building climate resiliency with one of the biggest carbon neutrality goals in the country.

The City has been working on transportation, with an increasing network of bike trails and financially supporting Lake Link, the new on-call free transportation service that was launched between Stateline and the college. The goal is to add more neighborhoods to the routes. The Tahoe Transportation District (TTD) buses continue to be free, and more of the fleet is electric.

Middlebrook focused on the lands around Lake Tahoe belonging to everyone, not just those lucky enough to live around the lake.

"It takes us all to create a new narrative," he said. "There is no place for hate in South Lake Tahoe. No place in our community for us versus them, California vs. Nevada."

Mayor Middlebrook's closing statement:

South Lake Tahoe’s unique mountain culture and community stem from our immediate connection to the Lake, its forests, and its peaks," said Middlebrook. "
This extraordinary geography shapes each of our days – our homes, our routines, our thinking, and our wellness. Trails connect our backdoors to town and to the wilderness, with parks, farmers' markets, ski slopes, art installations, breweries, and more dotting the landscape.
 

The combination of living-wage jobs with myriad all‐season recreation – whether water, snow, dirt, or sky – means that in our community intellect matches athleticism, and adventure greets both work and family.

While we celebrate tourism, we are also consciously building a broader, more resilient, future‐focused entrepreneurial economy, leveraging our short distance to the San Francisco Bay Area. Small businesses anchor redevelopments that add character, provide quality jobs, revitalize their surroundings, and protect the environment. Attractive transit makes it easy to link feet, bikes and skis with boats, busses and gondolas, and reliably get you and your family around town and around the Basin on your own schedule. 


Our leaders show political courage and accountability, support one another in innovating, and reflect the range of ages, races, ethnicities, and classes that make up our city. 


While visitors and tourists can readily find diverse accommodations, families and service workers can afford to live in South Lake Tahoe, with ready access to exceptional schools, highspeed broadband internet, and top‐notch physical and mental health care.


As a community we must focus on seven core principles, said Middlebrook:
1. Future-focused: honoring our past while envisioning, enabling, and embracing the future;
2. Inclusivity: ensuring everyone, residents and visitors, feels warmly welcomed in South Lake Tahoe;
3. Equity: ensuring that people from all racial, gender, class, religious, and other backgrounds have access to the same public amenities, services, and opportunities;
4. Advocacy: promoting and speaking in favor of innovative policies and programs;
5. Communication: sharing information and ideas to promote mutually-beneficial actions;
6. Collaboration: working together toward goals that we hold in common; and
7, Community participation: inviting and creating ways for community members to shape this vision for our future. 



Living in our dynamic mountain community is not only desirable, but it is also possible.