South Tahoe mayor controls board appointments
By Kathryn Reed
In a bit of gamesmanship, South Lake Tahoe Mayor Tom Davis bumped colleague Angela Swanson from the California Tahoe Conservancy board and got himself appointed to it.
Davis filled out the council assignments for the various boards and then the council voted on his recommendations. While this process has been done in the past, the norm in recent years has been for the council to volunteer to be on a board in open session and then the council votes.
Tom Davis
“I think it’s more efficient,” Davis told Lake Tahoe News of how he did things this year.
He said during the Jan. 8 discussion, “Sometimes I just think change is good.” But he didn’t take himself off his pet boards – the Lake Tahoe South Shore Chamber of Commerce and Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority – to embrace change.
Davis gave no reason for initially recommending Councilman Hal Cole be on the CTC board. Swanson made is well known she wanted to retain the seat and asked if the council was not satisfied with the work she was doing. No one responded.
Instead, Cole nominated Davis for the CTC board. That was approved with a 3-1 vote, with Swanson the dissenter.
It is possible when the fifth council member is seated that the assignments could be changed. As of the morning of Jan. 8 only Kathay Lovell had applied. She was on the CTC board when she was previously on the council.
At Tuesday’s council meeting the four decided to interview the candidates on Jan. 29 at 9am. This way if they cannot find consensus, they could call for an election in June. The deadline to make that decision is Jan. 30.
People have until Jan. 25 to apply for the seat vacated by Claire Fortier.
Other key board appointments:
• Tahoe Regional Planning Agency – Cole
• Tahoe Transportation District – Swanson
• Cal-Tahoe JPA – Swanson, JoAnn Conner
• Recreation JPA – Conner
• South Tahoe Chamber of Commerce – Davis.
• Waste Management JPA – Conner.
Sounds like the good ole’ boys network is running wild once again. How long before we have another grand jury investigate these guys.
Tom Davis is an upstanding member of the community. He has given his all to South Lake Tahoe and the greater region.
I find it appalling that this article was written with the bias against Tom.
Revenge for Angela calling Hal a racist several months ago? Are they sending her a message and do they want her to resign by removing her from her pet commission?
Has Tom already decided that they won’t agree on anyone and is lining up the election? Is this council dysfunctional by agreeing to conduct an appointment and now setting the stage for a June election?
And so the world turns with another episode of city council soap opera.
Do us a favor and show us some ethical and adult behavior. Today’s meeting was embarrassing.
Who will decide on the Airport Commission positions?
Big Fish, Little Pond.
@tahoeadvocate –
I think they de-commissioned the airport commission.
Straight from the casino operations playbook of yesteryear. Are we moving forward or backward?
Congratulating himself for the swell job he’s doing. Well, somebody needed to.
You folks voted for them and now you have to live with them.
Tom Davis and Hal Cole have been having their way for years and you people are to blind to see what they have done to this City. They have no value to this town and have spent years messing it up.
Typical local chatter, never happy, always pointing fingers, never provide any answers or positive feedback. Any of you are welcome to run for office, you might find that it’s easier to do what your doing, point fingers… It is clear that few of you actually know Tom Davis otherwise you would not make such comments. He’s biggest problem is that he cares. Thankless job for sure.
Until these good ole boys are voted out we have to put up with this kind of stuff. These are little fish who think they are biger than they actually are. Davis may be a nice guy but that isn’t helping us out at all here in the south shore. I’m beginging to wonder if the casinos sign their paychecks.
Davis says he wants diversity on these commissions and he acheives that by naming himself to all the commissions… Can you say “Grand Jury”?
The Airport Land Use Commission was, to my knowledge, not done away with; I was sent the form, filled it out, and applied, 13 December. No word yet. This is not one of the ‘boards’ that is run by combinations of city council members.
@tSnowbum – They de-commissioned the airport commission. Not sure if Tom will bring it back!
There are only four voting Councilmembers on the City Council at this time which means for Angela Swanson not to be selected to continue service on the CTC Board required three no votes, anything less than that would have been a tie vote (the vote was 3 to 1 against). That means that the newest City Councilmember, JoAnn Conner, voted against Swanson’s appointment. So when did JoAnn Conner become a “good ole boy”? This is only her second Council meeting for goodness sake.
For all the people saying that it’s the “good ole boys” running everything and insinuating that this requires a Grand Jury investigation, neither Davis or Cole appointed themselves to every commission that needed filling so that the City would have a representative present at those upcoming commission/board meetings, and if one watches that portion of the City Council meeting on their website at
http://slt.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=6&clip_id=559
what was decided was that some appointments were subject to change once the fifth Councilmember comes onto the Council.
This is the classic you can please some of the people some of the time but you’ll never please some people ever. A modicum attempt should be made to get the facts correct if people are going to make insinuations.
“It is possible when the fifth council member is seated that the assignments could be changed. As of the morning of Jan. 8 only Kathay Lovell had applied. She was on the CTC board when she was previously on the council. At Tuesday’s council meeting the four decided to interview the candidates on Jan. 29 at 9am. This way if they cannot find consensus, they could call for an election in June. The deadline to make that decision is Jan. 30.”
I would recommend that local residents so unhappy with the City Council seize this opportunity to submit their application to serve as the 5th Councilmember so you can work toward making the changes that you believe need to occur. Applying doesn’t even require incurring the expenses or time of running an election campaign, and then you can say that you did your part to make things better in future critical posts.
I would like too, but yall know Spanky and Hal !
Dissolve the city and turn over to county control.
Worse snow removal, higher taxes, useless and unnecessary commissions, too much duplicity, redundancy, and overlapping of identical functions, too many foolish and costly blunders. If Tahoe City and Incline Village can do it, so can South Shore.