Letter: Out-of-town real estate lobby spends nearly $1 Million to buy SLT election. Will we let them?

A paid canvasser knocked on my front door on Sunday morning. He handed me a flyer with an AI-generated couple in a lakefront home in what looks like upstate New York, but presumably is supposed to be Lake Tahoe.

The creepy-looking flyer and the matching trifold pamphlet delivered to my mailbox are part of a now nearly $1 million campaign funded by the National Association of Realtors and the California Association of REALTORS.

Donations from real estate lobbying groups to the “No on N” campaign now total $899,000, not yet counting contributions made in July. The National Association of Realtors donated more than $600k this week, in addition to the nearly $300k donated by the California Association of REALTORS, the Los Angeles-based real estate lobbying PAC.

This is the most money ever spent by state and national special interest groups to influence a local election in South Lake Tahoe, nearly double what interest groups spent attempting to defeat Measure T. Special interests have now contributed nearly $1 Million to oppose Measure N, our all-volunteer grassroots initiative to address the housing crisis. Measure N works by raising funds for affordable housing, roads, and transit, without taxing local residents. It shifts incentives away from increased vacation home ownership, which has resulted in more than 7,000 homes in the community sitting empty for more than half the year.

In contrast, the “No on N” campaign spent tens of thousands to hire right-wing polling firm Echelon Insights LLC, a Washington DC outfit known for their deceptive tactics. The campaign spent $3,000 in travel expenses to fly in professional consultants to size up local voters in our community. They also hired The Prosper Group, a “Digital Services for Conservative Leadership” based in Indianapolis, which appears to be behind the AI-generated content locals are now seeing everywhere.

Printed ads are starting to flood our mailboxes, repeating misleading talking points developed by professional pollsters. With a budget this size, they won’t be stopping any time soon. We can expect to see these lines repeated with ads across media platforms, and from paid canvassers on our doorsteps.

Small mountain communities should not be for sale to the highest bidder. We need bold policies like Measure N to protect our community from becoming another vacant mountain town, not a million-dollar misinformation campaign by big city consultants.

The real estate lobby knows the power of progressive policy and is willing to spend an absurd amount of money to fight it so that home prices continue to skyrocket, even at the cost of local families and our community.

This deceptive, well-funded lobbying effort by Washington DC strategists seeks to buy our votes and buy our community. The question is, are voters in South Lake Tahoe for sale?

Amelia Richmond is a 15-year Lake Tahoe resident and a co-founder of Locals for Affordable Housing. She is an appointed member of the City of South Lake Tahoe Parks & Rec Commission, and a Court Appointed Special Advocate for CASA El Dorado County.