SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – South Tahoe Now emailed all 13 South Lake Tahoe City Council candidates the same questions so voters could get to know them before deciding on the November 3, 2026 ballot. Responses will be published in the order received, along with photos they provided. South Tahoe Now also emailed the two candidates for City Clerk with their own set of questions. Not all candidates replied, so the public will be unable to read their responses.

Name: John Friedrich

How long have you lived full-time in South Lake Tahoe? I moved to South Lake Tahoe in 2005. I’ve lived here since, except a 3-year stint in the Yosemite area.

What is your occupation? Chief Development Officer for Skycharger, an electric vehicle charging station development company. We’re building charging hubs for electric cars and trucks throughout California and the country. The future is electric!

What is your education? Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Finance, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

What makes you qualified to be on City Council? When I served on City Council from 2020-2024, I listened to the community and acted in response with fellow council members. Together, we:

  • Funded our new Recreation & Aquatics Center, Sugar Pine Village and Lake Link.
  • Spent as much on road repair per year as the City spent for 10 years prior
  • Adopted the most ambitious renewable energy commitment of any municipal government in the country,
  • Sustained seven firefighters at Station 2.
  • Stopped the Loop Road from displacing hundreds of residents in the Rocky Point neighborhood. We’ll build housing there instead. 
  • Eliminated the City’s subsidy of the Airport by transferring more economic responsibility for paying for airport costs from taxpayers to airport users.
  • Passed one of the nation’s first bans on plastic water bottles
  • Founded the annual Multicultural Celebration
  • Utilized a participatory budget process to get input from nearly 1,000 residents about how the City should spend millions in COVID recovery dollars, which resulted in funding for murals, extension of the Greenway Bike Trail, Bijou Skate Park renovation, and much more.

I’m running for Council again to build on these accomplishments, which also includes strong support for our hard-working police and fire departments, and city staff.  I’ll represent our community and bring to life all the great ideas and potential that we together possess. Many heads are better than one.

I invite all residents to share their ideas for creating a better South Lake Tahoe at votejohnslt.com. I’ll create plans and goals that represent our shared aspirations. If elected, I’ll bring forward the “people’s platform” into the next strategic plan update. What we’ll accomplish, we’ll accomplish together. 

What is your level of understanding of the Brown Act and other council procedures? Do you feel agenda item deliberations could be streamlined? I understand the Brown Act and other council procedures very well from my previous service. And yes, agenda item deliberations could be substantially streamlined. City Council, when functioning effectively, provides direction to City staff to implement the strategic plan, which in turn should represent the will, creativity, and insights of the community we serve. That’s why I’m building a “people’s platform” based on input from people across our community. 

Agenda item deliberations should, in most cases, be fairly short if and when Council trusts staff to provide thoughtful recommendations to implement strategic plan objectives, which I do. If agenda items are stretching out for hours, it generally means the Council hasn’t given adequate direction and focus to staff, or council members are using meetings to pontificate rather than efficiently getting the people’s business done. Meetings that routinely run late and that don’t get through the agenda disrespect the time of community members and staff. I work for a private business, where we make major decisions in two 30-minute meetings each week. I’ll work to bring that sensibility, efficiency, and respect for people’s time to Council meetings.

Have you ever served on a commission or committee for the City of South Lake Tahoe? If so, what was it?  Or, have you served other communities in this capacity in the past? I served on City Council from 2020-2024. During that time, I represented the City of South Lake Tahoe on the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) Board and the Tahoe Transportation District (TTD) Board.

With community members, I founded the Multicultural Subcommittee to help give South Lake Tahoe’s diverse communities a voice in city policymaking. One of our signature accomplishments was starting the annual Multicultural Festival. I also served on the Housing Subcommittee and the Finance Subcommittee, where I championed a participatory budgeting process that gave nearly 1000 residents a voice in choosing how to spend federal American Rescue Plan Act funding.

If you served in previous leadership roles, please name them. Is there anything you wish you’d done differently, and how would you use those lessons on council? In addition to my previous service on City Council, TRPA and TTD, I have served as the Program Director for Keep Tahoe Blue, the head of rooftop solar, EV and energy efficiency programs at Liberty. I’m currently an executive at Skycharger, an EV charging development company. 

One of the primary lessons I’ve learned is that to get the best results, you need to build consensus within the organization, so that projects and plans are co-owned by many people. I’m working to bring that approach to the Council. To prepare, I’m working to build a shared vision about where we should go together as a community, along with goals and priorities.

If elected, how do you plan on representing the community? If they don’t attend meetings in person, how will you know what they want? How would you get more citizens engaged? I agree with Abraham Lincoln that government should be of the people, by the people, for the people. I believe the role of city council is to facilitate the will of the community it serves, which is why I’m creating a “People’s Platform” based on input I’m gathering from a broad swath of our community.  Please share your ideas for the future of South Lake Tahoe here: https://www.johnefriedrich.com/peoples-platform

I’ll work to bring your hopes and ideas into the City’s next strategic plan update following the election. The voters are our boss, so whatever ideas are brought forward by Councilmembers need to be grounded in the priorities of local residents. 

I strongly believe in the importance of collaboration and teamwork, which requires listening and charting a path forward that incorporates many perspectives, including those of fellow councilmembers who represent the community in equal measure. That’s the approach I took in my previous term on city council, and I’m even more committed to leading in that way should I have the honor of representing our community again.

How important is an ethics policy and decorum policy for City Council, and why?  What should these policies include? Paula published an article on April 21, 2026, titled “City Council Needs to Do Better for Staff and Community.” I agree with the points Paula made that decorum during meetings needs to be addressed and corrected, including:

  • Yelling from the dais to the audience, and vice versa, needs to be shut down the moment it starts.
  • Councilmembers need to speak respectfully to each other, to the public, to others in leadership, and demand the same back.
  • Council must model civility, invite and respect public input, recognize that elected officials and city staff are on the same team in service to the community, promote clear communication, work collaboratively, consider the larger picture in decision-making and actions, and be accountable for actions and words.
  • Time limits should be enforced on councilmembers’ comments. I believe that as a rule of thumb, councilmembers should work to limit comment time to the same amount of time, or less, than public comment received. It’s important to remember that the Council is facilitating the will of the people who elect us – the people are the boss in a democracy.

In addition, as I outlined above in response to the question about streamlining meetings, If agenda items are stretching out for hours, it generally means the Council hasn’t given adequate direction and focus to staff, or council members are using meetings to pontificate rather than efficiently getting the people’s business done. Agenda item deliberations should in most cases be fairly short if and when Council trusts staff to provide thoughtful recommendations to implement strategic plan objectives, which I do.

Is there anything in your past that could come to the surface if elected?  If so, what is it? I stepped down from the Council during the final two months of my previous term in office, from 2020-2024, following the unexpected passing of both of my parents. I needed time to focus on my family, grief and healing. I stepped aside during a time I concluded I’d be unable to totally fulfill my duties as a councilmember.  I decided at the time that it would be in the best interests of the community if I resigned to allow someone not going through what I was to focus on the people’s business for the end of my term. Devin Middlebrook was appointed and did a great job.

Do you think a councilmember represents the City at all times, and why or why not? In terms of policy, the Council represents the City, not individual councilmembers. We may disagree, but it’s important to respect Council decisions and to not present individual ideas and opinions that have not been adopted by Council as city positions. On a personal level, yes, individual councilmember behavior is a reflection of the City and people we serve.

When council divides up the list of assignments for councilmembers, what boards would you want to sit on and why? I would like to sit on the TRPA and TTD Boards again to bring the City’s priorities and perspectives to important Tahoe Basin deliberations, including expanding and electrifying our public transportation system, strongly protecting Lake Tahoe, updating housing ordinances to increase the availability of homes that locals can afford, and developing a truly sustainable tourism economy that reduces the impact of visitor cars. 

What are the top concerns the council should be focusing on?  Creating more housing that locals can afford, and supporting small businesses and our local economy. 

Housing initiatives I supported in my previous council term– including Sugar Pine Village, enacting a Lease to Locals Program, and incentivizing houses that are affordable by design–earned South Lake Tahoe a prohousing designation. I will build on these accomplishments with the following priorities:

* Make it fast, easy, and affordable to build housing that locals can afford, like ADUs, duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes.

* Reduce regulatory and financial barriers to building homes that are affordable by design (smaller with less environmental impact). 

* Build on programs like Lease to Locals that incentivize second home owners to rent their homes to local workers.

* Design policies that encourage visitors to stay near community centers, and that maximize housing dedicated to locals in our neighborhoods

* Reduce fees and permitting requirements for renovation and rehabilitation of existing housing

To  support small businesses, we should make our town centers—Midtown, Ski Run, Harrison Ave, Sierra Ave., Bijou, the Y and Stateline—the go-to places for locals and visitors alike. Places where visitors can walk to and from nearby lodging, that are alive with live music, public art, thriving small businesses, restaurants, coffee shops. Building in our town centers should be streamlined, with the goal to make it fast and easy to develop where it most benefits our community.

The more tourist dollars that are spent in our community centers, the more small businesses and their employees will thrive, the more local musicians and artists will be supported. The more tourists support local businesses, musicians and artists without driving, the more locals will embrace this form of sustainable, low-impact tourism.

What is the role of a city council on economic development? Do you think we should be attracting new types of businesses, and if so, what are they? We should advance policies that encourage visitors to stay near and frequent South Lake Tahoe’s community hubs, where visitors seeking authentic, cultural experiences without cars will be welcomed to experience local musicians, artists, locally-owned restaurants, bars, and coffee shops. This will in turn free up housing in neighborhoods for residents, while increasing the economic benefits of tourism throughout South Lake Tahoe.  In a future where visitors support our local economy without clogging our roads, they will be more welcome as benefits to our quality of life, with fewer downsides.

I will push to implement the Midtown Area Plan to make it the heart of South Lake Tahoe, where locals gather to meet each other, and interact with tourists looking for authentic experiences. City Hall should be moved here, and the current City Hall should become a visitor center.

I envision South Lake Tahoe as a place that models world-class sustainable tourism. A place where locals thrive with meaningful work centered on locally owned small businesses, with a thriving music and art scene that fosters a growing creative economy that attracts remote workers. A place that helps visitors understand that keeping Tahoe Blue means taking action on climate change, which is evident in the ubiquitous solar panels and EV charging stations, which in turn inspires more environmentally conscious visitors who travel here with a lighter environmental footprint (i.e. less time in their cars) year-round.

What are your favorite things to do in Tahoe? Going to live music at our many great venues – the Hangar, Valhalla, Live at Lakeview, Aleworx, Paddlehouse Brews, Divided Sky, South of North, Steamers. Backpacking, hiking, skiing, biking, going to farmer’s markets, theater productions, home art studio tours, and community events.

Is there anything else you’d like to add? At a time when immigrant communities are feeling threatened,I will prioritize efforts to ensure every voice in our community is heard, represented, respected, supported, and defended. I believe in the ideal of government being of, by, and for We The People – ALL the people.

I would be honored to earn your vote and the opportunity to again represent you and our community on the South Lake Tahoe City Council.