Opinion: TRPA work was much more than a slideshow
By Claire Fortier
Recently, the League to Save Lake Tahoe has called my integrity into question. At issue is whether I disclosed my company’s income from TRPA in the 12 months prior to my appointment to the TRPA Governing Board.
The answer is simple: There was no income.
But nothing in Tahoe is simple.
Claire Fortier
Here’s the story: In November 2009, Dennis Oliver, then the public relations officer for the TRPA, asked me to go through some 20 boxes of documents that the TRPA received from the El Dorado County Library. He wanted me to pull key documents and catalogue the rest for a TRPA’s 40th anniversary project.
At the time, he had the lofty ambition of putting together an extensive website where anyone could access historic documents and news stories about the TRPA. He also asked me to work with him on a 24-page book on the history of the agency.
In December 2009, my company sent a written proposal to the TRPA to do that job, as well as extensive online research. For those who don’t know me, I make my living as a writer and researcher.
I spent countless hours in the TRPA basement, pulling documents, studies and news stories collected by the library over 60 years. It was glamorous and exciting work. I then spent hours online, tracking down documents and news stories. Even more exciting stuff.
All my information was turned over to Dennis Oliver during my final meeting with him in January 2010.
But the mechanics of getting the information online, which wasn’t my job, was simply too costly and time consuming. The TRPA nixed the idea of the book and the website, instead using some of the information in an extensive PowerPoint presentation.
The presentation that the Lake Tahoe News linked on its website was not my work. It was Dennis Oliver’s project for the TRPA’s 40th anniversary. All of my research, as well as the outline for the book, are available to anyone who provides me with a disc.
Who would have thought that a year and almost a month after that project I would be an elected City Council member appointed by council to sit on the TRPA Governing Board?
I certainly didn’t as I sat on a hard concrete floor, dusting off spider webs and going through more mind-numbing documents than a person should read in a lifetime. If I had, I probably would have insisted on a chair.
The Tahoe Mountain News has demeaned the attempt by the League to discredit me as a “pissing match” between Rochelle Nason and me. But I have a different word for it —bullying.
While the League is well within its rights to check all Governing Board members’ disclosure forms, it seems only mine was of interest. In addition, the League has filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the TRPA for all correspondence and emails between the TRPA and me.
Is this a pissing match or an unabashed attempt by the League to intimidated me?
In my opinion, the League would like to discredit me because I have called into question its intent, its tactics and its membership.
Repeated requests by the city and other organizations to get a roster of the League members, its finances and board member affiliations have been ignored or rebuffed. Even requests to attend League board meetings are denied because, as Ms. Nason said during our last City Council meeting, “we spend most of the meeting talking about litigation.”
Shouldn’t the League pledge to the same transparency that it demands of other Tahoe agencies and jurisdictions?
As City Council stated in a letter to the League board: “The League has blocked timely and economically feasible solutions to critical environmental problems. Further, the League’s use of confrontation through veiled threats of litigation or its eleventh -hour demands for more information or study have made collaboration all but impossible. The League’s demands are costly, time-consuming and unnecessary.”
It is my strong belief that the time has come to challenge the League and its stranglehold over the TRPA Governing Board. It’s time to put the League under the same microscope that it has put just about every plan, project or person that has come to the forefront at Lake Tahoe.
Claire Fortier is on the South Lake Tahoe City Council and is the city’s representative to the Governing Board of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.
Bullying? The only bullies I know are the TRPA and City Council. Furthermore, both the TRPA and City Council regularly violate their mission, as well as the law. My upcoming complaint to the grand jury will detail this, but the point is that the League plays by the rules and follows the law. For the City Council to demand disclosure from a private organization is absurdly hypocritical, given that the Council, a public agency, has yet to disclose its fraudulent accounting practices, such as ignoring unfunded liabilities or amortization costs on bonds. One more thing, the League doesn’t throw sick people under the bus as you and the rest of the Council are planning to do next Tuesday. End the pissing match, stop poking your nose where it doesn’t belong and fix the damned potholes.
Supporting the League? Kubby, you just put the nail in any coffin of hope you have of running for city council again. Foolish boy.
TRPA’s response, giving the facts, shows exactly how Rochelle operates. She doesn’t speak for the taxpayers, or advocate for what we need or what, if she did, she would hear what we have to say which is get out of the way lady. You don’t live here, you are not the “lake’s protector” we are. We sacrifice for this lake everyday. We suffer for it, we protect it.
If you had an answer to Mr. Bradford’s question, you’d answer it. He asked if you think the millions of dollars the League spends on lawsuits is justified and I add, do the lawsuits improve the environment? How so? What projects has the league financially contributed to and supported? You sue every project no matter how great the improvement to the environment.
League , lake tahoe doesn’t need saving, it’ll be here for generations to come clear as a bell, but only if we clean up the place and fix up the building around the lake, before long they’ll be falling into the lake. Get out of the way.
It’s not about the agenda of the League, it’s about the rule of law. The League plays by the rules in advocating their beliefs, while the council and TRPA have repeatedly demonstrated contempt for the law. Whether or not you or I agree with the League is irrelevant. What matters is that the League has every legal right to do what it does, while the TRPA and Council Members use dirty tricks and points fingers instead of playing fairly.
Who would want a book on the history of the TRPA? That’s how selfish agencies like the League to KILL and the TRPA have become. They are so obsessed with themselves they’ve lost touch with the public. Now their only concerns are to keep themselves in a job by filing lawsuits and stories about the people who oppose them.
Bullying? Pissing contests? Good analogy in that we live in nature, and there are within creatures that circumscribe their own “territory”, sometimes hundreds of square miles, by pissing at specific parameters.
In human terms, the League, TRPA, the City Council and so-called “Boards of Directors” are continuing on a co-dependent, passive/agressive route of self-destruction, due to the increasing irrelevancy of both positions.
The City Council wants to support Nevada’s departure from the TRPA while looking at CA”s participation as well – which of course begs the question: will the City Council be able to take up the “leadership” void if they succeed in dismantling all other?
Even the question is laughable even as it’s answer is hilarious – if Tahoe’s future were not at stake with all this “scratching & clawing” each other’s eyes out.
Ms.Fortier makes sure the defense of her “integrity” is defended over a minor $ 9 ,000 project, that true integrity would suggest shouldn’t be dignified with a response.
If these questionable mindset directions weren’t enough,, we have jumping into the fray yet another territorial pisser, into on defending the “sick” (hear the Mighty Mouse theme playing somewhere in your mind? ) with a mention of the rule of law.
He credits & defends the League for following the rule of law when the real issue in all of this urinalysis is both the letter and SPIRIT of the law.
What happened to the spirit of the law? the spirit of community? the human sprit?
Spirit of cooperation or collaboration on the real issues, anyone? Everyone raise your sights – please !?
I urge anyone who is interested in this issue to watch the online video of my presentation to the South Lake Tahoe City Council. It is available here:
http://slt.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=4&clip_id=440
My presentation runs from 1:07.10 through 1:34:00 – you can use the ‘slider’ at the bottom of the video to move to 1:07:10 mark where it starts.
Judge for yourself whether Claire is fairly characterizing the League’s position.
Also judge for yourself her integrity in quoting me as saying ““we spend most of the [League Board of Directors] meeting talking about litigation.” I most certainly never said such a thing.
Like any Board of Directors, the League’s Board has private closed sessions when it must discuss litigation. But this is never ‘most’ of any League Board meeting, and my supposed ‘quote’ is a fake – as you can see for yourself.
Facts matter. That is why it is so important for legitimate journalists to check details, and for the public to have access to actual documents.
Claire may well be telling the truth about her work for the TRPA. But she may be misremembering, or she may be making things up as she goes along – as she did with the ‘quote’ from my presentation.
In any event, how could it possibly be considered ‘bullying’ or ‘intimidating’ for a public interest organization to ask to examine public documents? We learned in mid-April about TRPA’s paying Claire in 2010, checked her disclosure form and found no such payment disclosed, and asked for public disclosure of the matter.
If Claire isn’t hiding anything, there is nothing for her to fear. Let’s just get the public documents into the public arena so we can all judge the matter for ourselves.
Sunshine is the best disinfectant.
Rochelle,please move to another town with a lake. We tire of your agenda, legal challenges and efforts to protect your job. Do your donators really want their money spent on lawsuits? Why don’t you use some of your funding to purchase buildings that contribute to scenic and water quality pollution and tear them down?
Perhaps members of this community will show up at the next star studded fund raiser you have every year with a few protest signs and chants of The League and Rochelle should Go. I wonder how many of your big givers would feel comfortable with such a turnout.
Those who know me, know that I have never posted a comment on this site nor I have I posted on the Tribune’s site not because I don’t read the stories or the comments but I generally don’t like to get involved in “internet politics”. However, this issue is very important to local politics and should not be dismissed as a “pissing match”. Claire, I enjoyed attending forums with you and I think you are a very talented public speaker with intelligent ideas, but you messed up here and you need to come clean. If your company worked for TRPA, and was paid $9,000 for that work, that is income and needs to be disclosed. There is nothing wrong with working and getting paid for that work but if you are going to run for public office you need to disclose anything that may be construed as a conflict of interest. Most likely, if you would have disclosed this income in good faith, you would have not lost any votes over it. Rochelle is correct in this point and she should not be attacked for bringing up.
alice, I understand the work performed was outside the time requirement to report. Why is anyone questioning this unless it is to further a political agenda?
I have need to very closely listen to the City Council meetings. When Ms. Nason and the Councilmembers were conducting discussion, various Councilmembers requested on numerous occasions that the League Board and the City Council meet to discuss the problems/issues related to the League’s litigation and other actions that the Council believes are obstructionist. Nason continually side-stepped those requests and it appeared obvious that she did not advocate a meeting of the League’s Board and City Council. This has left me wondering if Ms. Nason is trying to keep something from her Board and if this attack on Fortier is a smokescreen of sorts. There didn’t appear to be any more contentiousness between Fortier and Nason than was present between Nason and the rest of the Councilmembers.