My mother was raised in Texas and Oklahoma. My great-grandfather was a fiddler and a Texas Ranger. My grandfather was a West Texas cowboy. I learned the West Texas twang and how to use Southern slang. Instead of saying, “If I had my way,” my relatives would say, “If I had my druthers.”

So, if I had my druthers…
FIRST CLASS MUSEUM: We would construct a large Regional
Museum including a replica Washoe Village, a replica silver mine, a
Mark Twain exhibit and a raised Tahoe Steamer centerpiece. We
could create jobs, preserve history, and increase tourism.

YOSEMITE STYLE VISITOR CENTER: We would build it in Meyers,
with restrooms, while telling our visitors about Tahoe and how to protect and sustain our environment. Years ago, a location was picked, plans drawn, and land purchased close to the Upper Truckee River where a nature trail was planned. Let’s finish the job.

MUNICIPAL PIER AT TIMBERCOVE OR SKI RUN: Underline the pier to protect the water. Build little shops, restaurants, and an aquarium.

BRING BACK THE TAHOE QUEEN: Everyone loved those boats and the races.

WEDDING CAPITAL OF THE WEST: Promote the happy reason to come here and the reason to return for anniversaries. We used to have 18,000 per year. Now it’s half that.

SIDE ROADS RETURNED TO NEIGHBORHOODS: Long-time locals remember that a few neighborhoods had dirt or paved side roads that cut through to other local neighborhoods. These relieved the traffic on Highway 50.

FIREWORKS ON LABOR DAY: Recapture Disney-type magic that
our visitors experienced as children and want to have their grandchildren experience.

IMPROVE THE VIEW OF MEADOWS AND THE LAKE: Move businesses like Meeks to the mountainside of the highway in order to have better views of the meadows, streams and the lake, by offering huge incentives to relocate.

INDIAN CASINO IN THE BLACK HOLE: A California side modern gaming establishment with top-notch entertainment. The city would get more revenue. The Washoe are a sovereign nation TRPA rules would not interfere.

FACADE IMPROVEMENTS TO OUR BUSINESS FRONTS: Promote logs and stone frontages, by offering low-interest, revolving loans to businesses to improve their facades to a common mountain theme. The Tahoe Valley Lodge is a great example. So is the Fireside Lodge on Hwy 89.

FULL-FOUR-YEAR COLLEGE WITH DORMS: Keep more of our local students here as well as bring in higher salaried jobs. More student housing. Add Police and Fire Academy buildings to supply our community safety positions.

SELL OR LEASE THE MIDDLE SCHOOL: to the city, to have a centrally located City Hall. Have our grammar schools become K-8 with no middle school where insecurities are rampant and homeschoolers drop out by the dozens. The playing fields could be run by the city recreation department.

UNIFORMS AND NO PHONES FOR SCHOOL KIDS: There is not an acceptable dress code at either the Middle School or High School and cell phones gobble up class time providing too much opportunity for mischief.

NAUGHTY BEAR PARK: I visited a place in Montana outside of Glacier National Park where black bears that misbehaved were brought to live, play and hibernate in their own igloolike structures. The visitors paid a fee covering costs. Instead of euthanizing misbehaving or injured bears, save their lives n a natural life setting.

NATURAL BERRIES IN THE BACKCOUNTRY: Give each hiking party natural Tahoe berry seeds to sprinkle throughout the backcountry. This would give our bears the food they want and need in a place they would rather be.

MORE POCKET PARKS: like the one on Bonanza Ave and on Ski Run Avenue. Families love them and it makes for better neighborhoods.

MEDICAL HEALTH SPECIALIST CENTERS: In addition to our current top-notch orthopedics become a recuperation center mecca like we used to be.

REOPEN LAKE TAHOE AIRPORT TO COMMERCIAL TRAFFIC: When electric airplanes/air busses, are capable of delivering passengers to bring back the 400,000 travelers a year that would reduce car traffic on Highway 50.

BUILD A TRAM DOWN THE CENTER LANE OF HIGHWAY: Supports spaced as far apart as structurally safe. The center lane could still be used for turning left into businesses and for storing snow. Locals could ride it to work. Tourists could tour.

GONDOLA TO TOP OF KINGSBURY: Build a gondola up the mountain from the bottom of Kingsbury Grade. Commuters could get to work and skiers could ski.

MORE PARKING GARAGES: Customers aren’t people in cars, customers are people out of their cars walking around. Cars circling around looking for places to park are bad for the environment and create excessive traffic.

FIX OUR POTHOLES AND ROADS WITH RUBBER-INFUSED ASPHALT: An innovative new composite many times less expensive and many times faster to overlay our city roads, handles high altitude mountain conditions better.

WIN, WIN, WIN: Corps of Engineers replace STPUD sewer pipes
and also repave our roads. Have the City, Eldorado County, STPUD and the Conservancy jointly petition the Army Corps of Engineers replace our aging sewer lines in our streets and also move them out of the shoreline. Miles and miles of roads would be repaved. They pay, they do the work, the environment gets protected and our roads get paved.

FIX MEASURE T: Protect the quality of neighborhoods, create competent 24-hour, noise and parking enforcement with tight restrictions, fining VHR renters and owners. Bring back hundreds of jobs and the lost $3 million per year in revenue to the city budget.

OPEN UP A MODEST AMOUNT OF COMMERCIAL FOREST THINNING: For fire protection, just enough to return our forests to their natural state using the funds received to fund this list of druthers as well as housing, roads, and transportation.

SENIOR HOUSING AT CURRENT BARTON HOSPITAL: When the main hospital moves to Nevada make use of the current rooms. Turn them into senior assisted living.

CONSERVANCY RELEASE A FEW MORE BUILDABLE LOTS: For affordable housing from the thousands of lots they bought that are not truly sensitive in order to accommodate housing just as they did with Sugar Pine Village.

MORE PROPER BUS SHELTERS: Glass, wood and rock shelters that allow visibility for protection and shelter from the weather. We’d have more riders if they were dry.

BECOME OUR OWN COUNTY: We’re the largest city in the County, sending more taxes down than come back in services. We get 1 vote out of 5. It’s time to look at giving Meyers a say in our local decisions. Maybe then their roads would get plowed.

– Duane Wallace
South Lake Tahoe