Kerry challenging people to be part of Tahoe’s solution
By Kathryn Reed
STATELINE – It could have been the state of the city address, but in actuality was a call to action to the women in the room to get more involved and be part of the change to make South Lake Tahoe the city it can be.
South Lake Tahoe City Manager Nancy Kerry spoke to Soroptimist International South Lake Tahoe on Aug. 15 about getting rid of the roadblocks that plague progress.
When asked if any of them had attended the Lake Tahoe Environmental Summit, not a single hand went up.
Nancy Kerry
She pointed out how at the summit the politicians all talked about what is wrong with Lake Tahoe and not what is right – and how no solutions were presented. Kerry wants the conversation to be about what is working, focus more on whatever that is, stop planning and start doing.
“I think the conversation, the dialogue and the change begin within each of us, and primarily among women. It is our nature to find solutions, agreement and get things done,” Kerry told the women’s organization during their lunch at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe.
To get there, Kerry said it is time to find what binds the people and agencies in Tahoe. Then focus on those similarities and find consensus.
“Capital investors don’t want to invest in a community that doesn’t know what it wants,” Kerry said.
Other locations like Livermore and Monterey – places the Lake Tahoe South Shore Chamber of Commerce led so called community leaders to this summer to demonstrate progress – have control over their own destiny. They don’t have the regional oversight that Tahoe has; which is really state and federal regulators dictating what can and cannot be done.
Pooled leadership is unique to Tahoe.
That is why consensus needs to be found because the city and five counties that make up the Lake Tahoe Basin must bow to others and not do what they envision without others giving their stamp of approval.
Kerry spoke of the 11,000 hotel rooms in the city and how that number far exceeds the room night demand. This in turns means the average daily rate stays low. That in turn means less hotel tax revenue for the city. She pointed out, though, that while people complain about the casinos for myriad reasons, it is Embassy Suites and Marriott in the city limits with the highest ADR on the South Shore.
Kerry also explained how those hotels were environmentally sound projects – not just economic boosters for town.
She said it’s disappointing the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency’s Regional Plan update doesn’t go far enough to help the dilapidated motels that often rent rooms on a weekly or monthly basis to be able to evolve into something more than what they are.
One Soroptimist asked about South Lake Tahoe becoming a pot capital. To this Kerry pointed out when she took office earlier this summer there were three marijuana collectives, now there is one.
“Fifteen thousand people have (medical marijuana) cards. It’s ridiculous to think that many people are sick,” Kerry said. She said the city would be keeping an eye on the remaining collective to ensure it follows the rules.
When it comes to any kind of smoking on city property, that could be resolved Aug. 21 at the City Council meeting. On the agenda will be an emergency ordinance to ban smoking of all kinds in city parks.
Another controversial item the council is expected to vote on – which was an item brought up at Wednesday’s meeting – is SnowGlobe, the three-day music festival that reverberated through the Al Tahoe area and beyond in December. Promoters are asking to bring it back Dec. 29-31. (One of the Soroptimist didn’t even know what SnowGlobe was.)
“I’ll be there at the plug. It’s easier than taking 400 phone calls,” Kerry said in case the music goes past 10pm and is louder than allowed. Those were problems with last year’s event.
Expect a lawsuit against the city if SnowGlobe goes forward. Regarding the rundown motels you have the landlords to blame for not keeping their businesses up to standards. This has forced more tourists into vacation rentals which keep our residents up at night fighting loud noise from those who don’t care about the local residents. It basically boils down to government not enforcing their own ordinances regarding noise and public safety. The city has no one to blame but themselves for playing prostitute to these outside agencies.
Sounds like SLT finally has a LEADER & visionary. I agree that women find solutions and make things happen. Brainstorm ideas & send them tto kboosman@trpa.org (the woman running TRPA outreach & community relations) & hopefully get ideas & solutions added to the TRPA August 29 webinar on the vision for the region’s sustainnable economy, strong economy, etc.
Get “inviteed to the table”! It’s the only way to be seen & heard!
I hope the City Council sees what we saw in Nancy Kerry: an energetic leader that lives here and has worked to improve the City. Rather than pay headhunters to tap their own resources and present a platter of clients from out of town for consideration as City Manager, the Council should appoint Nancy as permanent City Manager. We hired her in the first place, trained her, and now we should take advantage of our investment.
I agree Linda, Nancy would be great for the city!!!!!!!!!! She works hard and can see the full picture.
Monterey is a failure. They had the same city attorney before he came here, J Dennis Crabb. We deserve what we got, bad legal advice. Monterey started redevelopment 36 years ago and it s still unfinished.
Nancy Kerry may be the “breath of fresh air” we need in this city. A pro-active community – what a concept! She really lives here & believes that improvement is possible.
I support Nancy Kerry and think she possesses vision for our community.
I’ve been saying for a long time that industry in this town needs to diversify if we are to survive. Our only economic generator is tourism and when the economy goes bad and people don’t have the discretionary money to spend on entertainment our major source of revenues tanks—again.
But what if the effort was made to make this community attractive for other types of service industries to relocate to South Lake Tahoe such as telephone call-in computer tech support centers (or via email), or medical coverage support centers, or environmental or other non-profit organizations. All these types of businesses operate from an office building and employ numerous people to service and respond to their companies’ customers. There are plenty of crappy looking old motels or store fronts that could be demolished for new construction or renovated to accommodate this new industry that would employ people, pay a decent wage and provide benefits, and all that money would be recycled into the community. Plus, when tourism is down we’d still have this alternate economic generator.
If ugly little towns in Texas could accomplish something like this you’d think that some smart people in our community could figure out a way to draw industries to South Lake Tahoe that would help diversify our economy, employ people, and infuse some much needed capital into this area.
I’m hopeful that whoever is elected to the City Council in November will have some real vision for the future of our community and focus on new ways to stimulate our economy instead of for example, wasting countless hours of staff and Council time on irrelevant issues such as sandwich board signs and banners, or protecting deadbeats who don’t pay their refuse bills and expect special treatment. I encourage certain Councilmembers to discontinue bringing back to the Council’s meetings the same topics over and over and over again and instead devote the staff’s and Council’s precious time on identifying real solutions to this communities problems.
snowglobe and other events that bring new cash into our economy are necessary. if they shut it off at a reasonable time (10pm) and lawsuits proceed, it will be another example of culture clash, just like the pot situation.
Don’t be fooled issues like Snow Glow are nothing compared to what this city faces. They are brought up as a diversion. The last three of five Grand Juries cited the city for incompetence, mismanagement and petty bickering as well as the fraud on voters with the ice rink deal. The city has no real leadership, no vision. We can not keeping doing the same thongs over and over and expect a new result, mark my words cities all over will soon be talking bankruptcy, why because voters are apathetic and everyone is protection their job. The solutions are out there, no one wants to look.
Let me say right off the bat that I support Nancy Kerry 100%. She is very smart and is looking out for our communities best interest. Her assertion that we have to “stop planning and start doing” has been my mantra for at least the past decade and I back that up with my 20 years of high level community volunteersim and involvement.
The lack of cooperation and coordination and just plain common sense between and among our regions various governmental and non-governmental organizations is a prime reason for the lack of “doing”. This absolutely HAS to change if we are to move forward. This is an OUTDOOR recreation Mecca. That is the foundation of our economy and it needs to be updated and expanded. See the current LTN question of the week on this topic for more info.
NO SMOKING..of anything in our parks..yes…absoloutely! Wanna get high for a concert? Be discreet, do it at home or use edibles. Cigaretts? Our national economy is buckeling under the high cost of treating PREVENTABLE diseases and tobacco smoking is just adding to that burden. Wanna poison yourself? Fine..but don’t expose others to that crap and don’t expect a free ride on Medicare if you live that long.
SnowGlobe? The producers of that event have already shown themselves to be unreliable when it comes to sound levels and time limits. Even if they did stick to the time limits, it’s the volume and intensity of the sound..particularly the bass that is the problem and that music is all about loud, thumping bass. Try living anywhere near the college…or wherever they intend to stage it…and you’ll understand why so many of us are dead set against this. There are many better ways to revive our economy than allowing this sonic assult on our senses, our homes and wildlife. If it happens again…at any time of day or night…I’ll join the lawsuit before the amps are packed up!!
And how does she change things if she is saddled with the same city council that seems to vote in step lately? Cole, Davis and Grego will not allow Nancy to move this town forward especially when they think talking about trash and sandwich boards are worthy of a two hour discussion. Lets help her out and get some new blood in there.
I’m not totally sold on Nancy yet. But I belive she is very passionate about making the city a better place to live and I am on her side. I am not a Sno- Globe supporter, but I also belive she will indeed pull the plug if nessary. 4-mer-usmc I totally agree with you, I think you should run for council your logic is great! Ted Long go seek some professional help, no disrespect meant, I’m serious!! Thanks Kae for having a place to exchage comments!
I get the impression that a lot of people in our community have varying degrees of support for Nancy Kerry and that a majority want to see her make our town more successful. She certainly hasn’t created the firestorm of controversy that Tony O’Rourke did, and fortunately she lacks the perceived apathy that some people thought David Jinkens displayed. I would really like this Council to consider giving this person a chance, allow the community to get behind her, and delay the commencement of the action and expense of a formal City Manager recruitment process for a period later than October. I think the Council should allow a probationary period through the New Year, which would be about 6 months and is the same probationary time period the City provides any other new hire to either make it or break it. Let the community see what she’s made of during this upcoming winter holiday season and if the majority of the public don’t like what she’s doing I’m sure they’ll be very vocal about it.
I suggest that this Council defer a decision on this matter and allow the new Council when seated to make the decision whether they think Kerry is the best person for the job or if they want to conduct a formal recruitment. I urge Mayor Fortier and Councilmember Swanson to pull a page from Davis’ and Grego’s playbook of a Councilmember consensus of two to bring back to a future agenda the extension of Kerry’s probationary period until the first Council meeting in January 2013.
I caution the three sitting male Councilmembers that if the public supports Kerry but you decide you don’t want her around for some extraneous reason, whatever successor City Manager you hire will likely not have the support of the community and may well be destined for failure. Sabotaging Nancy Kerry due to your own personal bias will be recognized by the public and may well come back to bite you on the ass.
tommy baby… you are a somewhat articulate though actually somewhat illiterate voice that is typical of the culture clash here.
articulate someday with intelligence