Local coalition confident voters will reject “divisive and unfair” vacancy tax

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - A local coalition of residents, small businesses, and taxpayers has been formed to launch a campaign to defeat the proposed vacancy tax in South Lake Tahoe. On Wednesday, the El Dorado County Registrar of Voters certified the tax measure after it received enough signatures to qualify for the ballot in November.

“We’ve assembled a strong local coalition of residents, local small businesses, and taxpayers who will defeat this horribly flawed, divisive and unaccountable measure masquerading as an affordable housing proposal,” said Steve Teshara, co-chair of the Stop the South Tahoe Vacancy Tax. “When voters hear the truth about this measure, we have no doubt they’ll vote No!”

“After all the promises from the backers of this measure, voters will be shocked to hear that nothing in this measure requires the City to produce a single new unit of affordable housing, or even to spend a single penny on housing affordability at all,” added Sharon Kerrigan, co-chair of the campaign. “We all want to address housing affordability in South Tahoe, but this measure is not the answer, and will likely make things worse.”

Teshara and Kerrigan point out that while proponents of the measure promised residents that this measure would solve housing affordability when they were collecting signatures, the truth is that nothing in the measure requires the City to produce a single new unit of affordable housing, or even spend one penny of the tax on housing programs.

“Let’s be honest, the City doesn’t have the greatest track record in the past of spending taxpayers’ money well, and nothing in this Measure mandates a future City Council use any of this massive tax increase to spend any money on affordable housing,” added Teshara.

“The first call of dollars on this Measure is not housing, but on the legal defense of the measure and the massive bureaucracy the City will have to set up to enforce and administer the tax, concluded Kerrigan. “It is literally a tax that will pay for the administration of the tax!”

The campaign leaders said the divisive nature of these and other proposals from the vacancy tax backers had united the community like never before to promote South Tahoe values. They said their campaign website will be launched soon at StopTheSouthTahoeVacancyTax.com.