Letter: NoGlobe Alliance thanks SnowGlobe for working with them on issues

The annual SnowGlobe Music Festival is fast approaching. The SnowGlobe organization has committed to protecting the fields and is working to engineer the sound to reduce the impact to our local residents. They have agreed to reduced hours the first two nights in addition to other actions. These actions should be applauded as they were under no obligation to change anything as per their contract. Again we (NoGlobe) thank SnowGlobe for working with us. The SnowGlobe organization has acted as a responsible business partner.

The No Globe Alliance has been actively pushing both the City of South Lake Tahoe (City) and the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) to recognize the pre-existing Bijou/Al Tahoe Community Plan which has been ignored these past many years. Under the City’s Temporary Activity Permit, the City is required to meet TRPA Chapter 22 requirements. TRPA Chapter 22 requires any existing adopted Community Plan to define the minimum standard for temporary activities within the plan area. The Bijou/Al Tahoe Community Plan was adopted well before SnowGlobe was brought to South Lake Tahoe and the noise requirements defined in the Bijou/Al Tahoe Community Plan apply. Additionally, residents in the unincorporated areas outside the City Limits impacted by SnowGlobe are within their rights to ask El Dorado County to enforce their noise restrictions. The City of South Lake Tahoe did not include these noise concerns in their contract with SnowGlobe. It is the City of South Lake Tahoe that is effectively violating the existing noise requirements in accepting a contract with SnowGlobe that is contradictory to their own regulatory requirements.

The No Globe Alliance has been hopeful that the actions by the SnowGlobe organization are successful in reducing the impact of this event on local residents and in protecting our Community Play Fields which were damaged during last year’s event and repaired under contract. Whether SnowGlobe is successful or not or if they meet their contracted noise requirements does not, however, eliminate the requirements of the Bijou/Al Tahoe Community Plan. We have been asking both the City of South Lake Tahoe and the TRPA to measure the sound per the existing regulations defined in the Bijou/Al Tahoe Community Plan, in addition to the contracted noise requirements that SnowGlobe has agreed to under contract. We are simply asking that the City meet their pre-existing regulatory requirements to measure the sound per existing, long adopted Community Plan requirements.

The No Globe Alliance will be providing a list of resources for the upcoming event on our Facebook group page, No Globe Alliance. We will document what the City reporting process is and contact numbers for all appropriate parties including the City of South Lake Tahoe, the TRPA and El Dorado County. We will post links to resources you can use to monitor the noise in your home to help document your experience during this event. When the event is over, we will be requesting the City provide documentation that they have monitored the sound per regulation and per contract and share that information. We intend to hold all parties to their respective obligations.

Sincerely,
The No Globe Alliance