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: Erika Gonzalez
How long have you lived full-time in South Lake Tahoe? I was born and raised in South Lake Tahoe and graduated from South Tahoe High School in 2003. My family has lived here the whole time, and I stayed closely connected through college and law school, including a legal internship here. I moved back full time in 2019, and I’ve been here ever since.
What is your occupation? Public interest attorney specializing in anti-human trafficking work
What is your education? I earned my Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from UC Berkeley, then went on to the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law, where I received my JD.
What makes you qualified to be on City Council? Since coming back to South Lake Tahoe, I’ve wanted to engage with this community as much as possible, especially in local government. I got involved early with the Police Advisory Commission, back when it was first established. Around that same time, I also joined the TRPA Tahoe Living Working Group, and seeing how regulations actually get formed through that process made me want to serve on the Planning Commission when the opportunity came up, including attending the Cal Cities Planning Commission Conference to keep building that knowledge.
My commitment to local government has also extended into other community work, including Friends of the Library, ADVANCE (supporting adult education and civic opportunities in the Basin), and co-chairing the curriculum development for the Chamber’s Leadership Tahoe program, which built out a full curriculum on how the Lake Tahoe Basin functions.
On top of all of that, my career as a public interest attorney has given me the skills to dig into complex legal and policy questions, communicate clearly, and advocate effectively, skills that translate directly to the work of a councilmember. My specialty working with survivors of human trafficking has added another layer to that, teaching me to approach my work through a trauma-informed, client-centered lens. That means centering the wants and needs of the people I serve, rather than my own individual goals.
What is your level of understanding of the Brown Act and other council procedures? Do you feel agenda item deliberations could be streamlined? I’ve learned the Brown Act inside and out through both the Police Advisory Commission and the Planning Commission. Interestingly, the Police Advisory Commission’s less frequent meetings actually sped up that education, since the Brown Act’s restrictions on things like agenda setting show up quickly when you’re working within a tighter schedule. Between the two commissions, I’ve had a solid, practical education in how to navigate them.
As for whether deliberations could be streamlined, I think meeting length is a real issue that needs to be addressed. Part of what drives it is when discussion centers on individual priorities rather than genuinely listening to what the community wants. My hope is to bring a council approach that’s driven by the actual needs of residents and those impacted by our decisions, rather than by assumptions about what they need.
That said, any conversation about streamlining deliberations must also include public comment. Right now, public comment is the primary way residents feel heard, and until we build out other ways for people to engage, it needs to stay protected. At the same time, I’d love for us to explore more informal ways of connecting with the community, even something as simple as individual office hours, so residents have more than one avenue to be heard.
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? Yes, I currently serve on the Planning Commission and chair the Police Advisory Commission for the City of South Lake Tahoe. I’ve also served on the TRPA Tahoe Living Working Group.
While I haven’t served on a formal commission or committee in another city or county, my work as a training and technical assistance attorney has given me related experience at a national level. I specialize in helping attorneys represent trafficking survivors, and as part of that work, I facilitate a national working group to troubleshoot legal cases. I’ve also been part of several national working groups focused on policy issues.
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? y leadership roles include chairing the Police Advisory Commission and co-chairing curriculum development for the Chamber’s Leadership Tahoe program, as well as serving as a managing attorney at CAST, where I run a training and technical assistance program funded by federal grants. Managing a federally funded program has given me hands-on experience with grant management, budgeting, and program administration, skills that translate directly to the fiscal and operational responsibilities of council.
In terms of lessons learned, one of the biggest has come from serving on the Police Advisory Commission, which only meets four times a year. That schedule taught me how much planning and forethought goes into setting an effective agenda and thinking through whether an idea is actually implementable. It’s a different rhythm than the Planning Commission, which meets monthly and allows a little more room to adjust as you go. But the Brown Act itself pushes you to think ahead rather than just react in the moment, and it’s taught me to be efficient with my time, including reading agenda packets closely so I can come into meetings ready with sharp, useful questions. Those are habits I’d bring directly to the council table.
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? The reality is that most residents won’t be able to attend meetings in person. Most people get their everyday information online, especially through social media and our local Facebook groups. I appreciate that the city already alternates between daytime and evening meetings, since that helps people with different schedules. As someone with a nine-to-five job, I’ve noticed I can follow the evening meetings much more easily than the daytime ones, so I think that mix is valuable and worth keeping.
That said, the length of our meetings makes it hard for anyone to attend from start to finish, and I want to recognize the residents who show up and stay for the whole thing. Their commitment doesn’t go unnoticed.
My hope is to improve transparency by making information more accessible before people even need to show up to a meeting. That means looking closely at our website and doing outreach or surveys to understand where people actually go for information, then meeting them there. I’ve heard from people who are well connected in this community and still don’t know where to find basic information about how the city works or how to get involved, and that tells me there’s a real gap to close.
Staff has already done good work on this. The housing element and Midtown area project materials that came through the Planning Commission recently are a great example, since they were genuinely accessible to read even though they were very long documents. I’d like to build on that model across more of the city’s work, alongside informal, Brown Act-compliant ways to connect directly with residents, such as office hours.
How important is an ethics policy and decorum policy for City Council, and why? What should these policies include? As an attorney, decorum is something you learn to respect early on, because how you carry yourself in a room signals whether you take the process, and the people in it, seriously. I’ve seen and heard real frustration from residents about the lack of respect on the dais lately, and I think that matters more than people sometimes give it credit for. Formal systems can feel stiff and inflexible, but engaging with them thoughtfully is one of the clearest ways to show your fellow councilmembers, and the community, that you respect the process and the people affected by it.
Throughout my career, I’ve had to be intentional about how I show up in professional spaces, from how I dress to how I speak to staying prepared to be taken seriously in any room. That habit has shaped how I think about decorum, as something that reflects respect rather than a formality.
Trust matters just as much to me, especially from my work with crime victims. I’ve built trust with clients by being transparent about my process and accountable to the ethical principles guiding my decisions, so they always understand the choices I’m making on their behalf. Government works the same way. A council can’t function well if the people on it aren’t treating each other, and the residents they serve, with that same accountability, integrity, and humility.
An ethics and decorum policy should reflect all of that. It should set clear expectations for how councilmembers communicate with each other and with the public, establish real accountability when those expectations aren’t met, and require transparency around conflicts of interest. At its core, it should reflect the trust residents place in their local government.
Is there anything in your past that could come to the surface if elected? If so, what is it? No, nothing comes to mind.
Do you think a councilmember represents the City at all times, and why or why not? Yes, I believe an elected official represents the city at all times, on and off the dais. How a councilmember conducts themselves in public, in their business dealings, and in their personal life reflects on the trust residents place in their local government. When trust is broken, it doesn’t just damage one person’s reputation; it damages the community’s confidence in the institution itself. That’s true even when the person has real expertise and understands the issues better than most. In some ways, that makes the loss worse, because the community loses the benefit of that expertise.
That said, I don’t think holding office should strip someone of their humanity or their right to a personal life. The distinction I’d draw is between living your life and conducting yourself in ways that damage public trust or bring the city into disrepute. Councilmembers should be held to a high standard of judgment and accountability because the community deserves leaders who understand that their conduct carries weight beyond their own names. As an attorney, I already operate under a professional code of ethics that holds my license on the line, so I understand what accountability requires.
When council divides up the list of assignments for councilmembers, what boards would you want to sit on and why? If I have the opportunity to choose board and committee assignments, I’d be especially interested in the TRPA Governing Board. My time on the Planning Commission and the TRPA Tahoe Living Working Group has given me a real appreciation for how complex the intersection of TRPA regulations, state law, and our local code can be, and I’d want to bring that experience directly into shaping regional decisions at that level.
I’d also be interested in representing the city with the League of California Cities, since it’s a partner agency I’m already familiar with through my policy work, and staying connected to how other California cities are approaching shared challenges is valuable.
Finally, I’d want to be part of the Ethics Code Ad Hoc Subcommittee. Given my focus on decorum and trust, and my background as an attorney who operates under a professional code of ethics, I think I could contribute meaningfully to modernizing the city’s ethics policy.
Beyond these, I’m open to any assignment where my legal background, policy experience, or commission work would be useful to the council and the community.
What are the top concerns the council should be focusing on? My top priority is getting council back on track so we can actually move efficiently and implement the plans we’ve already committed to. I’m not running for future political ambitions. I’m running because I want to bring my skill set in efficient program management and my experience as an attorney to help council function better and move things forward.
Right now, we’re behind on too many fronts. We spent close to a dozen meetings on VHR policy alone, without allowing sufficient time to identify the actual kinks in the regulation’s application. It took twelve months to even develop the ad hoc committee tasked with updating the city’s ethics policy. The Midtown Area Plan review also saw significant delays. There’s a lot of public frustration about how long it takes to get through agenda items, and I think some of that stems from a lack of self-reflection about staying focused on the task at hand rather than using our time on the dais to make a point.
Once we’re moving efficiently, housing remains our number one priority. We need to keep expanding housing opportunities, incentivize long-term rentals, and find creative ways to increase housing availability. I think the city has made a good start here, and I want to dedicate more council time to securing the funding these efforts need to actually get built.
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? I think the council’s role in economic development is to identify the gaps in our local economy and help create pathways to fill them, rather than trying to pick winners or force growth in a particular direction. As someone born and raised here, I know how hard it is to come back after college. Tahoe is missing a whole tier of jobs, the kind of mid-level, professional positions that give people something to grow into. And for jobs that don’t require a degree, there’s often no path upward either.
The city has taken a real step here. Earlier this year, the city put out a call for consultants to help figure out what other industries could take root here, ones that don’t rely on tourists to survive. I want to make sure that work turns into action once it’s done, rather than sitting on a shelf.
In terms of what we should attract, I think it’s less about chasing a single industry and more about diversifying into the kinds of professional and skilled service jobs that don’t currently exist here in sufficient numbers. Coming back as a lawyer, I’ve seen real gaps in interpreters, notaries, legal assistance, and administrative roles- positions that need training more than a four-year degree. Programs like ADVANCE, which bridge the gap between education and job experience, are a model worth building on. If we identify what our economy actually needs and help residents qualify for it, we can minimize recruiting from outside and start building careers that people can stay for right here.
What are your favorite things to do in Tahoe? I’ll admit I’m probably one of the few candidates who isn’t out there skiing or hiking every weekend. I’m more of an outside-adjacent person. I love reading and knitting in my backyard, soaking up the incredible weather without necessarily being the one on the trail. A perfect Tahoe day for me is an easy beach day with a good book. I also volunteer at the library, shelving in the fiction section, which means I get a first peek at all the new arrivals, and I love doing little coffee tours around town, trying out the seasonal drinks at all our local coffee shops.
Is there anything else you’d like to add? When I came back to Tahoe, I thought hard about why I wanted to stay. My family’s roots here run three generations deep. My grandparents on both sides came to Tahoe with extended family to work in the hospitality and tourism industries. I’m a Tahoe kid through and through, and I was lucky enough to leave for my education and come back by choice, but so many people with backgrounds like mine have voices that still aren’t represented in our local government.
That’s not for lack of care. The city has made real efforts to be inclusive. But local government is bureaucratic by nature, often conducted in a dominant language and style that can leave people feeling that the process isn’t built for them, even when they’re the ones who built this community.
I was born and raised here, and I struggled at times to find my place. I think it matters to have someone at the table who represents the people who found these roots, not because they were drawn here by the scenery, but because they needed a job and built a life here anyway. And I think it matters for the kids growing up here now to see that this community wants their involvement, and that opportunity to lead and belong here is real.