Public comment changes for South Lake Tahoe City Council meetings

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Starting with its Tuesday, February 2, 2021 meeting, the South Lake Tahoe City Council will no longer have emails read into public record during meetings due to abuse by one or more persons. All emails will continue to be added to the record and distributed to council.

For months City Clerk Sue Blankenship has read each email into the record. Most are lengthy, targeting the public including teachers, City Council and staff, and are created without using real identities. With the COVID-19 regulations concerning public meetings and ensuring the following of the Brown Act, extra avenues were opened up for the public to still participate in City Council meetings, and all will still be there except for the reading of emails publicly.

"I will no longer be reading written Public Communication or Public Comment," said Blankenship. "The reading of written comments during City Council meetings was abused by one or more persons of the public and I will no longer participate it its facilitation. Instead, any writings received before the close of Public Comment on an item will be distributed to City Council and made part of the administrative record. Under the Brown Act I have noticed how the public may participate and directly address City Council. Any person who would like to have their voice heard may call into the meeting and do so."

The emails in question have come with names that don't match those of local citizens, or group names using the high school and middle school or other entities, with no such formal organizations. They have all been to attack people personally and most do not give comment to issues facing the City.

South Tahoe Now did a search of the IP addresses these emails came from, and most had been routed through a European company specializing in hiding origins. The email addresses used for this Tuesday's barrage of public comment come from @barmail.ch, journalisticmail.ch, pressmail.ch, and attorneymail.ch disguised email servers (the "ch" is the country code for Switzerland).

As Blankenship stated, the public still has opportunity to address the Council by calling in during the meeting, or emails that will be added to the record.

To do so, find the information and agenda here - https://www.cityofslt.us/84/Watch-City-CouncilPlanning-Commission-Me.