South Lake Tahoe City should not pull the rug out from any of the former VHR
owners, they did nothing wrong. The current proposal is trading expediency for
the ethical and moral path they should follow. There can not be a compromise
on doing the right thing. With three simple votes, the City can restore us to the
status we held at the time Measure T passed, and that is exactly what should
happen. Remember that even if the measure was approved by the voters, the City was not required to enact it.

We are all acutely aware of the damage done by the Caldor and similar fires. Measure T was another forest fire deliberately ignited by Scott Robbins and his
comrades. It was fueled by lies and deception, and burned honest, hard-working
people who were following all the rules.

We all came together to help those whose lives were damaged by those fires, and that is what we should be doing for the thousands who suffered losses because of Measure T, NOT making things worse.

The proposed resolution falls far short of what we should be doing. We might not have a legal obligation to do the right thing, but we certainly have a moral obligation to those who suffered enormous harm because of the illegal implementation of Measure T – even if it was different council members at the time, it was our City of South Lake Tahoe that caused the damage, and the City should be taking the responsibility to make things right.

This is not a legal decision; it is a moral one, and we are morally obligated to restore everything we can that was damaged by the enactment of the unlawful measure. We are not required to sacrifice any of the survivors, we should be helping ALL of them rebuild, not destroying the possibility of them recovering.

Let’s not dirty our hands by becoming accomplices in this miscarriage of justice
perpetrated by Scott Robins and his cronies. Let’s undo Measure T completely. If the City Council wants to reduce the number of permits by attrition, after all of those devastated by T are allowed the opportunity to pick up the pieces from where they were at the time Measure T was unlawfully enacted, I would be OK with that.

There is no provision in the proposed ordinance for selecting which of the former
permit holders will be afforded the limited opportunity to renew their permits, and what the status of the remaining ones will be.

Those on the waiting list are also being shafted by this proposal. Some of them have been on that list for as long as eight years, and will suffer an even greater loss than the actual permit holders. The waiting list also has a significantly different legal position than the permit holders, it was legally only suspended ostensibly until Measure T was adjudicated.

While I do agree that the QVHR permits should also be restored, they were not
included on the agenda and should probably never have been suspended. There is still the opportunity to correct this hastily passed, poorly conceived measure, I urge the council members to reconsider what they are doing.

John Messina, South Lake Tahoe