This letter was sent to the South Lake Tahoe City Council and is being reprinted here per the request of the author. Honorable Mayor and City Council: You have a big decision to make: I know the feeling. I was elected to STPUD for over 20 years. I was also on the Lake Tahoe Unified School Board, as well as over a dozen other non-profit boards and commissions.

I learned from mentors and other board members to boil things down to their simplest parts and focus on the facts.

That was especially true when it came to emotional issues.

The emotional issues regarding VHRs have on the one side: Property owners (retirees and those who don’t get directly paid by tourism) who want and have a right to the peaceful enjoyment of their property.  They had experienced problems years ago and worked to eliminate all VHRs through Measure T.

On the other side, you have second home owners, legitimate companies, and their employees who were making a living under a legally allowed existence, who lost their livelihoods and or homes due to T.

The facts are: As a result of T, the city lost between three and five million dollars in TOT and sales tax each and every year.

The facts are: Tourists vote with their feet: Truckee, the North Shore, and other tourism destinations TOT income increased as much as 275%.

The facts are that hundreds of workers lost their jobs.

The facts are that over 70 businesses have closed

The facts are that we have potholes to fill, affordable housing grants to match, vacant lots that need clearing from fire danger, police department needs, Transit funding needs, and a recreation center bond to pay down.

My mentors taught me that when working on ordinances that affect people’s lives they should be: Simple, consistent, predictable and fair.

After reading the current ordinance 1114 several times and reviewing the actual results from 2017 through 2021, it’s clear that it’s a good ordinance and it worked well just as it is written.

Yet one side of the emotional issue has generated a virtual spaghetti bowl of new amendments/ punishments for you to choose from.

Our suggestion is as follows:

SIMPLE: The issue is enforcement: We recommend you do that.

CONSISTENT: Clustering and limiting by neighborhoods is anything but consistent in how people could possibly understand it and how it would be applied. It worked for over three years. Everyone knew the rules. It just wasn’t enforced.

PREDICTABLE: Everyone understands “three strikes you are out. Have bricks and mortar for consistency and hold them accountable.

FAIR: Give those who had permits the opportunity to be first in line to apply again.

That is all that is needed. That is all we recommend, should you even decide to add on to an already well-written, proven ordinance that took years and hundreds of citizens to produce.

Duane Wallace, CEO, ACE South Tahoe Chamber