Fortier pledges collaborative leadership
To the publisher,
South Lake Tahoe is at a tipping point. I am running for City Council to help push us toward creating a first-class, eco-resort that embraces recreation as a major economic driver. From AYSO to the Olympics to families looking for an active vacation, the South Shore should be a place the world comes to play.
I want to see South Lake Tahoe as a vibrant community that thinks differently – a community focused on a stable and sustainable future. Well planned and well maintained, South Lake Tahoe should be a place we are proud to call home.
I am sure you have the same vision, only to look around at the dim reality of our city. The lack of cohesive strategic planning, the crumbling infrastructure and the inability to play well with others is crippling our town.
As a 17-year resident of the city, I am passionate about rebuilding a thriving community. I am an independent thinker who believes great things can be accomplished with the collective power of collaborative leadership.
Collaborative leadership helped us stop the decline in lake clarity. It also spurred the Prosperity Plan, a model of regional foresight and cooperation. While “doing battle” is invigorating rhetoric, I know from experience that working together is what gets results for our town.
I believe blue can be green: We can reach economic and environmental sustainability here in the Lake Tahoe Basin and with it, a new vitality for South Lake Tahoe. It will take hard work, compromise and a sincere belief in the outcome.
And it will require leaders with the knowledge, passion and courage to move us forward.
That’s what I offer to City Council.
Think clear. Think Claire. Please vote for Claire Fortier for City Council.
Thank you,
Claire Fortier, South Lake Tahoe
Can I get an Amen? Now THAT’s the kind of thinking and sincerity we need from our city leaders. Claire and any other candidate who agrees with everything Claire has said has my vote!
I have one question about the focus on “green” or “eco” tourism for the future economy of South Lake Tahoe. How will it be any different than what we have now? Won’t “eco” jobs still be low paying, service or seasonal employment just like we have now? Tell me what I’m not understanding. What I would really like to see is for the city of South Lake Tahoe to pass a “Minimum Living Wage” ordinance, and then have that spread to the rest of the basin(California side).
@Tom, couldn’t have stated it better. @John, will it be more realistic for any city funded venture to be a living wage situation?
Jonathan, Why don’t you look at France and see how that whole Govt. controlled wage thing is working out? If you don’t want to get paid for seasonal work, don’t work a seasonal job. Get a promotion, stick around for a raise or ask Mom and Dad for cash. The government is not your bank.
You go, girl! Even though I live in the county I am very interested in the race for City Council. We all know that what happens in the City has an effect on the county. We need leadership and sensibility on the City Council and Claire will bring it. Vote for Claire!!
I’d like to hear more specifics then pie in the sky talk. What exactly are your plans Claire?
Well said, Claire: our council needs that collaborative, open, honest approach that also brings a positive plan for improvement to our city. Having attended many of the forums, I know that your plan includes improving the infrastructure, real bike paths, and looking toward enticing all levels of recreational tournaments and events to choose our town for their venue.
I can offer the ‘Amen’ that Tom asks for, but as that word means “so be it”, then the type of collaboration that Claire thinks will do the job had better be well-defined to achieve the “stable and sustainable future” talked about. . .
I also agree with Tom as to the well-written sincerity in Claire’s letter,
but the necessary political will needs to be seriously shored up with infrastructural policies that are “equal to the scenery”, instead of simply pandering to the ‘almighty dollar’ at both ends of the spectrum, and not the community-at-large.
On one end, TRPA cedes to those who can afford what they want to charge, and at the City level they want to forego most of the improvements that constitute becoming green and sustainable for the sake of those who “can’t” afford it.
Absent the “happy medium”, where most of the divisive & opinionated gap resides here, collaboration stays pretty much engendered at the agency level, as they all go to the same meetings all the time.
True collaboration and civic togetherness will require that a lot more citizens become one with the spirit of her letter, and not just operate from a “job description”, hers or any other.
As Tom well knows bike paths are, and have been, an absolute necessity for our economic and ecologic health here for oh- so-long (in our case, way over a decade)consistent as it is with TRPA’s #2 charge, “Reduce automobile usage”.
The fact of that being strategically a well-reasoned “feed-in” to Number One, the ever-present political football known as Lake Clarity makes perfect sense, doesn’ mean that #2 been done at the level necessary to realize any desired effect.
Lastly, the recent articles I wrote are, if looked at correctly, a testament to another of Claire’s points:
“the lack of cohesive strategic planning”.
That may be a serious understatement, as it is obvious to anyone that may have been elsewhere at any time during those 17 years, that Tahoe has deteriorated into a series of reactive tactics, versus the end-game strategies of reward.
Strategic and sustainable economic development – with reasons for every step: perhaps then it can be said as: ‘So Be It’. . .
Gary nothing changing till we get rid the TRPA..or least have a panel that lives,works here, not out Towners or worn out council members that are there for their own get rich agendas on the board with the TRPA.
For far too long the candidates from yesteryear still have many haunting results that were suppose to bring back the luster,the dancing dollars, the communities wants ,needs ,I’ve yet to see this in many years since we got into the redevelopment business with crooks,shady bank deals,structures the developers such paid for ,not the taxed residents,second home owners that have no VOICE.
I have to take my hat off to Vail buying North-Star Resort,there they got all the amenities under one price tag,rooms,timeshares,golf course,a resort not hung up in Blight fights with businesses,great mountain, without all Th TRPA BULL–IT!
Why would you want buy a hole with all it’s troubles when you just found a great deal with better options,a cleaner place to start,less heart breaks on your investments.
In a world of good deals we don’t rate high on affordable deals with commercial or retail.
Business and tourists have have better places to spend their money without all the gouging that happens here,and all the so called regulations of red tape.
South Shore , BEG YOUR pardon, my opinion is living proof of too many agencies representing too many different laws,ordinances, to make any bean counter Happy with the bottom line,profit,steady income, from one year to the next IS NEXT TO NOTHING IN WHAT GOES IN THE REGISTER.
Strategic and sustainable economic development is great on paper but it doesn’t work with any logic on the South Lake Tahoe shore lines.