council

“You’ve got to count to three.” Those were the words of advice attributed to Norm Woods one of the first five city council members. The Cityhood project in 1965 was spearheaded by the South Lake Tahoe Chamber of Commerce with all five of that first council members coming from the Chamber Board ranks. Norm served as one of the first rotating Mayors and many times thereafter. His advice was offered to the citizens who were newly elected to subsequent councils.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - The Lake Tahoe Unified School District (LTUSD) Superintendent Dr. Todd Cutler has notified teachers, students and staff that they will have to postpone the reopening of in-person classrooms. Citing COVID-19 case levels not dropping to the desired levels in El Dorado County, and testing/tracing capacity, LTUSD will continue with distance learning at this time.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - The South Lake Tahoe City Council approved two programs during their meeting on Tuesday, both to help small businesses in the city limits as well as helping locals spending money locally.

The approved $75,000 to be used for the purchase of bonus gift cards with the Tahoe Chamber. While a person purchases gift cards for use at local businesses they get a bonus gift card paid through the City's funding.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - There is a very short window for small businesses to apply for the latest round in COVID-19 relief grants. From December 30 2020 - January 8, 2021, businesses can apply for some of the $475 million that will be made available in two rounds.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Paying it forward has spread quickly through the South Lake Tahoe community this holiday season, and now the City is joining in to help those in need while at the same time helping out small locally-owned restaurants.

The “Pay It Forward” initiative involves community members and organizations contributing money to open tabs at local restaurants. It’s a program that helps those in need and helps support the restaurants when they need it the most.

DOUGLAS COUNTY, Nev. - A new "In God We Trust" display has been added to the wall of the Douglas County Board Chamber. In 2019, the County Commissioners passed a resolution supporting the display of the national motto in the chambers and after fundraising efforts the sign was created by the winning bidder, YESCO, LLC.

The new "In God We Trust" was installed during the commissioner's December 10, 2020 meeting.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - A true trailblazer in the forming of the City of South Lake Tahoe has died at the age of 90. Del Laine, passed away from natural causes with her family at her side.

She served on South Lake Tahoe's City Council from 1976-1980, and then again from 1984-1988 and became the City's first female Mayor in 1977. She would go on to serve one more term as Mayor during her time on council.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - During the city council meeting on Tuesday, funds were approved to further assist the community during the pandemic.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - There is a new mayor in town. During its December 1 meeting, City Council unanimously voted in current Mayor Pro Tem Tamara Wallace as mayor and Devin Middlebrook as mayor pro tem.

To start off the Tuesday meeting, City Clerk Sue Blankenship swore in the two newest members to the council after November's election. Cristi Creegan and John Friedrich each began their four-year terms after being sworn in as councilmembers.

Both Wallace and Middlebrook have been on the council for two years, along with Councilmember Cody Bass.

EL DORADO COUNTY, Calif. - A new court commissioner has been announced by the El Dorado County Superior Court. After an extensive search and vetting process, Gary
S. Slossberg was appointed by Presiding Judge Suzanne Kingsbury.

Slossberg will be based in Placerville but will serve in all of the courts in El Dorado County. He will specialize in cases involving family law, child support, domestic violence and civil harassment, juvenile dependency and delinquency, traffic, limited civil cases, as well as overflow matters as assigned by the Presiding Judge.

EL DORADO COUNTY, Calif. - The final tabulations are now complete for El Dorado County and the November Presidential election results for the county have been certified.

Here are the final results:

City of South Lake Tahoe - Measure S (Majority to Pass)

9,667 / 12,739 75.89% of registered voters counted
558 Undervotes
2 Overvotes

Yes - 5,804 60.04%
No - 3,303 34.17%

South Lake Tahoe City Council (Top Two Win)

9,667 / 12,739 75.89% of registered voters counted
4,406 Undervotes
38 Overvotes

More ballot counts have been released by the elections departments at both El Dorado and Douglas Counties.

EL DORADO COUNTY

El Dorado County election officials have released another tally of ballots counted. The results remain the same as of the November 10 count. Votes Cast: 116,744 of 135,554, or 86.12 percent of eligible voters.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - The El Dorado County Elections Department has tabulated another 16,320 ballots. They plan to have the count of 9,200 mail-in ballots completed Friday. Then there will be about 1,200 provisional ballots left to count and some ballots that were waiting on signature corrections.

At this time, 105,725 ballots have been counted of the possible 135,554 voters (77.99%).

4:00 p.m. UPDATE: There will be no more updates to the El Dorado County ballot count on Wednesday. According to election officials, mail in ballots are being counted but nothing will be updated on their website until tabulations occur Thursday afternoon.

There have been no updates since Tuesday night to the Douglas County election results.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Officers with the South Lake Tahoe Police Department (SLTPD) are now using a new system of body and vehicle cameras. After City Council approved $470,000 Body Worn Camera (BWC) system on July 28, 42 body cameras, 28 in-car cameras, and the associated cloud based storage were ordered, training was completed and procedures were created.

The ban on Vacation Home Rentals (VHRs) in South Lake Tahoe is looming and the City is now working on putting holes in it. The first attempt is being presented Tuesday, Nov 3 at the City Council meeting. The City plans to allow 200 “Hosted” short term rentals in our neighborhoods. It will require a tenant or owner to host guests in their ‘homes’ to be available to respond to complaints within 60 minutes of issues being reported. On the surface this seems a reasonable alternative until we consider the realities and how this might actually be used.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - During their last meeting, the South Lake Tahoe City Council voted unanimously to adopt a Climate Action Plan (CAP).

This plan will be used as a dynamic, policy-guiding roadmap to provide insight on strategies and actions that can be taken in the community to help move towards is two climate goals - 100 percent renewable community electricity by 2032 and a 80 percent reduction in community greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.

After listening to some TedX speeches and my own observations and common knowledge of science, I have come to understand one of the major problems of renewable energy that I believe will make most of the wind mill and solar panel energy producing processes obsolete within a few years.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - City Council made another attempt to create a Hosted Rental Ordinance but they decided at their meeting Tuesday to hand back to staff for some revisions.

After much discussion they decided to have staff clean up rules that could be potential loopholes for homeowners and/or tenants. This is the second time a first reading has been turned down for more fine tuning.

The following changes were added for Council to review October 20:

(1) Increase the required tenancy for a tenant to qualify as a hosted rental applicant from six months to two years;

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - The South Tahoe Chamber of Commerce Board recently asked the nine City Council candidates ten questions they felt were of most importance to its members. The questions focused mainly on topics relating to things that will or may affect both the local small businesses and the community in general.

Their board made the decision to not endorse a specific candidate this election, but instead rank them based on how much they align with the South Tahoe Chamber of Commerce goals based on their answers to the questions below.

It's a great thing to call for unity. It sounds good and feels good. But for far too long hollow calls for "working together" have become excuses for bulldozing over the needs of the people who live and work here in favor of the needs of the developers, resorts and casinos.

I chose the locals.

I choose to give a voice to those who are marginalized.

And if this seems like I’m causing trouble, then it is, as John Lewis called it, good trouble.

We are both running for South Lake Tahoe City Council to move our community past division, negativity, misinformation and finger pointing, and toward common ground solutions on critical issues. We’re all in this together.

The desperation evident in those in our community, including some other candidates for City Council, who hope to maintain the status quo and deny us the opportunity to evolve is reaching fever pitch. As indicated in the Form 460 I filed as required by the FPPC, I received a campaign contribution of $5,000 from a Nevada resident, a retired businessman with philanthropic leanings. Aside from our one conversation in which we discussed our love of Tahoe, some local nonprofit organizations we'd both supported, and our love for our own daughters, I've never spoken with him.

At this point in time, the intersection between equity and climate change has never been clearer. The Sunrise Movement is a national youth climate group that is seeking a future that’s not only sustainable, but also just. With only 11 years left to transform our economy away from fossil fuels to avoid the worst effects of climate change, we need to elect officials now who will defend our future. The remedies for unsustainable practices must work for everyone in this city. That’s why we’re endorsing John Friedrich and Scott Robbins for the city council of South Lake Tahoe.