Opinion: Lake Tahoe should take some pointers from Vail
Publisher’s note: This is the second of four days of stories about issues pertaining to Vail.
By Kathryn Reed
VAIL — After spending the first week of the year in Vail, I was left wondering what would be so bad if Lake Tahoe became the Vail of the Sierra?
It’s not a simple answer because of some basic realities.
First, Lake Tahoe doesn’t have comparable ski terrain to Vail. Squaw comes the closest, but it’s no Vail.
Vail makes it easy to be a pedestrian. Photo/Kathryn Reed
Second, the Lake Tahoe region is so much larger, diverse and spread out than the Vail Valley.
Third, Vail the mountain was developed and then the town at the base of it. In Tahoe, most resorts sprang up after the communities were developed. This makes the village of Vail seem real. No village in Lake Tahoe seems real. They were created for tourists as some bizarre brainchild of a developer to make money, not to create a community or true experience for the guest. Go to the villages at Heavenly, Northstar, Squaw (and Mammoth for that matter) and tell me why any local would go there. Then go to Vail or Whistler to see the difference between the world of make believe in the Sierra and world of functionality at those places.
Fourth, Vail is a company town with much of the commercial entities owned by Vail Resorts or a subsidiary of the company. Tahoe is more diverse with corporate ownership.
Vail has gone through what it calls a renaissance in the last decade. And it’s not done if Ever Vail, the $1 billion proposed development by Vail Resorts goes through.
In Lake Tahoe development is stalled – the convention center and Sierra Colina on the South Shore, Homewood on the West Shore, the Biltmore on the North Shore.
Regulations have something to do with all of that. The Vail Valley doesn’t have anything like a Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.
Better planning also led to completion of projects in Vail, including a Four Seasons opening last month. They got the players in a room, made decisions, hashed out compromises, created consensus and moved forward. It wasn’t easy. Nothing worth doing ever is.
In Tahoe, decisions are made and then lawsuits are filed – and then nothing happens. In Tahoe, personal agendas take priority over what is good for the majority. Lake Tahoe recycles people who aren’t professionals or the best in their field, which leaves the area mired in mediocrity.
Why would Tahoe want to be Vail?
• Vail has free bus service. It always has been. It was so incredibly convenient to use. They even have bus symbols at the stops so people know what it is, unlike the South Shore, which has BlueGo on the signs and no symbol. What is a BlueGo?
According to Mike Rose, transportation manager for Vail, “The bus system carries 3.2 million riders per year at a cost of about $3.2 million. The operating costs are covered by a 4 percent lift ticket tax paid to the town by Vail Associates. Capital replacement is paid for by the town general fund and a small amount of federal grants through the 5309 program.
“The bus service provides 76,000 hours of service per year within the incorporated city limits. There are six routes on the outlying and one in town shuttle. Service is every seven to 30 minutes depending on the route, time of day and season. Our longest route is East Vail at 12 miles round trip, West Vail is 10 miles, all others are in the four to five mile roundtrip range.”
• Vail excels in customer service. Walking into Two Elk, the mid-mountain lodge at Vail, people hand everyone a tissue, asking them how their day is.
People say “please,” “thank you,” “May I help you?” “Please come back.” This is the same level of service I remember from five years ago.
The bar where ski instructors hang out was every bit as friendly as Beano’s Cabin, the high-end dinner restaurant at Beaver Creek. It’s a level of service that is rare in Lake Tahoe.
As someone once said, “You only have one chance to make a first impression.”
Good service should not be reserved for tourists. I want it as a local.
• It’s walkable. Some in Vail don’t like the heated sidewalks, saying a ski town should have some snow on the walkways in winter. Maybe for ambiance that’s true, but I’ll take their walkways over our ice slicks any day.
• The Vail Valley dining options continue to grow, with Edwards on the far side, about 12 miles away, becoming a hot spot. Choices run the gamut from reasonable to outrageous. The diversity is astonishing.
The town of Vail has a population of about 5,000 people. South Lake Tahoe is about five times as large. But Vail’s town manager, Stan Zemler , says, “The budget is equivalent to (a city the with) 25,000 to 30,000 and the staffing because it swells on any given day to those numbers.”
At the end of the day, though, I don’t want any part of Lake Tahoe to totally recreate itself as Vail. Lake Tahoe is special. It’s one of a kind in its own way. The problem is that it is not functioning on all cylinders.
Tahoe’s economy is tourism. People who say we need a second economy are blowing hot air. Tourism, people, that’s our economic base. It’s not going to change. Cottage industries may crop up, but they will be a distant second to tourism.
But tourist areas run the gamut. What does Tahoe want to be? What does it want to look like? Who is going to live here full time? Who is going to visit? Will they return – why or why not? Maybe we need to ask what it is we are striving for? When will enough be enough? Will we ever have enough in the bank? Is there a magic number for when we have attracted the right number of tourists?
If money is the driving force and the end goal, then becoming a destination resort with high-end lodging is a must, along with complementary restaurants and retail. If we just concentrate on the drive-up market, it is going to strain our resources with overcrowding. Vail calls them brown baggers.
If recreation is the driving force and end goal, then someone ought to ask the U.S. Forest Service as land owner of much of the playground in the basin just how much more human traffic the terrain can handle. USFS officials have told me they are at capacity, especially in the summer. If we want more people on the lake, what does that do to the eco-system?
If a pristine lake is the goal, it’s bound to bankrupt all the jurisdictions and reward the wealthy developers who can afford to implement the environmental regulations. The elephant in the room no one acknowledges is the EIP – environmental improvement program. Billions of dollars are being spent on it. For what? Lake clarity is great, but restoring the basin to pre-settlement conditions is a farce and inane goal of the powers that be. People live here. Accept it.
Vail isn’t perfect, but it knows what it is and whom it wants to attract. At the end of the day, I guess I would like Lake Tahoe to be a bit more like Vail if it means knowing who we are and who we want as our customers.
Will an article address how Vail raises the money to fund their budget which was inferred to be equivalent to Tahoe? We have a 2 State infrastructure which they don’t have. I’d like to see how our budgets are funded through this 2 State model. Do Nevada and California pay a fair share for the revenue they each receive from the tourists and locals?
SLT City needs to go and we need to include all of South Shore into some form of a township. This way every individual has a stake. We have too many agendas between SLT City, County, Douglas County?
One thing Vail has is management that looks like they know how to plan and allocate money. I dont think they have people with an ax to grind like we do here.
Ah, that magical lift ticket tax that pays for the impact of the tourists, including day skiers.
Probably time to consider the same here for the only business in the area that’s thriving, healthy, and growing. Cause the locals have been milked dry.
All good points.
The city excluded Heavenly paying any taxes until bonds are paid off, 40 yr. or so. The state could start charging sales tax on tickets and the city would get a % of that. Thats it.
YAYY, KAE! I couldn’t agree more!
A formula to consider:
-SLT gets commuter airservice like Mammoth, Vail, Aspen, Telluride.
-Commuter airservice attracts 2nd homebuyers to the most affordable eco-tourism/ski resort/boating destination in America (2nd homebuyers want to fly to thier house. Not drive from Reno airport).
-Sold 2nd homes greatly improves economy w/ property taxes, employing locals, boosting retail revenue.
-Better economy improves look, feel, mood of SLT.
-Look, feel, mood, AFFORDABILITY attracts luxury accomodations (Vail buys “Hole”. Heavenly is the only Vail owned resort with NO luxury accommotions).
-Luxury accomodations attracts higher spending clientele, Summer and Winter.
-Tahoe is re-branded into the premier year-round eco-tourism destination in North America.
Lou, For an exact reading of the “Disposition and Development Aggreement” where the deal was made in 1999 go to the Mountain News website and Jan 2010 edition page 8 is where I put it in print in it’s entirety. http://www.mountainnews.net/ As long as there is money owed ie: forever, no tax will be paid. In talking with Tom, who was one of the council members in 99, he was under the impression that it was only 20 years. It has been put forward that HV should buy the Garage, either in part or whole, place advertisment or help out through vouchers and discounts but they won’t and why should they? The way I read that DDA Agreement they could volunteer to pay but again why should they? That DAD was pushed through as an incentive and bribe for the Gondola to be built, same thing now with the Convention Center at The Hole. NO ONE is going to come in and build with the Convention Center the way it is now, watch for the backroom deals when someone does. I was once told by a council member when the Park Avenue project was getting done that “No one will come in a build or invest in this town unless we give away the development right” like we did with ASC ski company who screwed us seven ways to Sunday. I will look up my article on that and try to reprint it.
lol, you all must be high.
The circle always comes back to the bad energy that we let happen with the Gondola and companies that knew the fine print better than the dumb asses signing the contract.
Then they elect one the cronies that was suppose to read the contract back on, to hose us ,yet again.
Brother we deserve it..
People need to remember that the vail valley that runs next to the interstate also has trains that run people up to the resorts from Denver….(that’s the money maker)we have no such ammenties and there is no conceret plans to ever have one either.
HMLT, what makes you think we are high?
Kenny,you know all the same reason we all do,this town was once a mecca of spenders,great prices,good old locals,affordable lodging prices for the greater ca, population…the greedy council and their backers brought in the time share,rent your second home,high retail concept.The main population of real residents were left out the community equation for the better of the people on a cheap sell that we all would benefit.
This is bogus,we all know it’s only for people with large sums of wealth,they don’t share even their dirty socks with the community.
Behold –take a look at our town,streets washed up,airport,garage sucking us dry, but yet we have to keep for the pipe dream of one these f….. days we’ll be a world destinations.(that’s gotten real old)time to move on to using the head forget the money growing on trees theory.)
Why don’t we just take care of our own,common sense needs,blow off all those holes,relax the building codes from those over crazies EPA freaks (trpa) get back to life predawn Tahoe when we all had better things to do than separate the town from it’s true order.
This small mountain town turned into a ball s–t…and nothing ever gets done on a timely basis because we are always in some kind court fight over nothing.
Screw Vail and it’s power hungry investors,the community doesn’t want be another over priced controlled paradise.
I agree that Kae’s observations are, for the most part, correct. What Tahoe is mostly missing for now is confidence and trust – the “community” is mostly disaffected, as the ‘powers-that-be’ have not been sophisticated enough to negotiate what the community actually needs to service other than ‘bare minimum’, which has cost them dearly.
Whistler was, ironically enough, inspired to a great degree by the Olympic experience of Squaw, as in 1965 they were ‘master-planned’ with the idea that they wanted an Olympics sometime in their future, and they got one, although 45 years later – at least they had a long-term goal to focus on, unlike the constant sniping that’s become the norm at Tahoe.
The other thing at play in Whistler was a special Canadian federal designation as a mountain resort area, something hard to accomplish in an area like Lake Tahoe where even the two dozen agencies small & large are all answerable for guidance and dollars from elsewhere, and a lot of the boards are mostly comprised of people who quite often don’t even live here, or know nothing of the subject matter they must deal with, all supposedly in the name of “objectivity”.
Increasing community spirit may require a special dose of ‘subjectivity’ in righting the ship, as there may be more needed than editorializing everything to necessarily get significant outcomes.
Collaboration is not just going to the same meetings. . .
Regaining trust is a key element, as without it all opinions, like our ‘bets’ up ’til now, are off. Confidence came before in signing big-name entertainers, supplanted later by “cost-saving” measures, in disrespect for the built-up clientele who already knew better, and ended up elsewhere.
Overall, these developed attitudes run counter to spending money to make money, which was an essential part of gaining customer confidence that they made the right choice. Tahoe’s beauty can only carry an economy so far – service is man-made, needing proper attitude to bring off successfully, to satisfy all.
Even a Vail, Embassy, or Marriott has no extra incentive to do any more than they already do, given their tax advantages, and the resulting 90%+ occupancies that fill corporate coffers and balance sheets – without having to deal at all with petty political scenarios.
Heavenly Village then becomes the isolated, money-making machine of today, irrespective of what else goes on in town.
Trust, anyone ?
Restoring confidence will come with a new appreciation for what Tahoe could become, if all ‘powers-that-be’ try to gain additional autonomy to assist in becoming masters of civic engagement, rather than ‘gatekeepers’ for those they answer to above them, in improving & securing corporate goals within the Tahoe Basin.
Confidence is even better for corporate stances, in consideration of more productive and secure positions in the marketplace – less turnover, better returns, and re-bookings over & over.
This takes a combination of vision and innovation that is not possible while everyone is looking over everyone else’s shoulder, lacking confidence in the ability to get something done in other than inept ways, not being able to trust anyone other than themselves to “get it done”.
New ideas are often soon rendered incompetent, even before they can properly germinate, by those who still swear “that’ll never happen here”. Then they feel justified and somehow complete in saying it, rather than working to set up ways for success to happen.
Might this mean learning from mistakes, rather than simply making them again, and again ? Perhaps actually listening for others’ contributions might be a start in moving in the right direction.
How about learning from success, as Kae is doing ?. . .
Appropriate service is hard to achieve with an insecure workforce, easily distracted by political misgivings, always aired as important and prominent.
Confidence and trust are right now the most important missing elements to garnering a viable future for Lake Tahoe.
HMLT, you have me at a disadvantage when you use my first name as I do not know you. No biggy but if you are going to respond to me personally I wish you wouldn’t, respond to Skibum as I respond to you as HMLT. I don’t know you. You often have strong opinions and they are evident with the CAPS. You don’t have to use caps to get your point accross, I think we get them. But as I have said in previous postings and articles, posters who do not use their real name when giving opinions or suggestions on what someone should do mean squat. The City reads them but do not hear them. I got a phone call the other day about my last article but the person would not let me know who they were so I listened to what they had to say then told them I couldn’t do anything or even respond publicly beacause I did not know who they were. I would never reveal where I get information or comments when writing my stuff but I need to know who that person is. Anyway, disadvantage aside, please respond to Skibum as I don’t know you. Thanks
and you wonder why the Brothers are watched so closely..get a clue become a underground local that mengals with the biggies.
You got a bigger advantage that some Popsicle news stand.
Take it for what it’s worth..My present in the crowd is pretty relaxed.But I’m here .
SOMETIME YOUR BEST FRIENDS CAN BE YOUR WORST ENEMY.
you have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.
I bet these great ski towns didn’t waste valuable space on convention centers. Upscale shopping and lodging and eating is where they spend money. Close hwy 50 by re-routing it around the “village” and turn the whole area into a real, pedestrian friendly village.
Ok, I give up, you put me in my place with your wisdom and caps. I never learn lol. Why bring up bmc? Is this another little I know you you don’t know me private power trip? Stick to the subject at hand and comment on what we are talking about please. Thanks. Btw, I agree with most of what you say and have written about it. We need to take our town back and as evident of the last council meeting it won’t happen soon as they are falling into the same trap as before with closed door meetings and stacking commitees. Going skiing and waiting with baited breath to see what’s on when I get back lol.
Steven, I noticed something years ago about the Y area shopping,they had a good business going there, But when they put in the Ignorant stop light out on 50 in Myers(Tahoe Paradise) the out town spenders took the shorter route…….that my friend is a true story of why all traffic returns bypass the y shopping center..no kidding.
The stop light signal changed the Y area spenders just like the Red Hawk changed our towns business.
People tend to follow the lost sheep to business that are closer,cheaper, and offer the same product for a better price.
American know how.
Sounds like the main thing we need is someone who can build community trust, and is a good communicator,and negotiator, so they can balance the needs of all the various organizations, as well as Joe Public. This could be more than one person, but maybe one solid person heading it up.
HMLT, when Embassy first opened at Stateline there was a billboard just outside of Pville advertising them. Their directions were “Turn right at Pioneer Trail” Not very nice now was it but accurate as to the thinking of the Stateline area in regards to the rest of the town.