Letter: Lack of memory hurting South Lake Tahoe
To the community,
In his book “Lasso the Wind” Timothy Egan wrote, “There is no institutional memory in the West, only dawn.” That statement fits the city of South Lake like a glove, a perfect fit.
That’s true when one considers the City Council lifers, Hal Cole and Tom Davis. Had they remembered the troubles with redevelopment, the scandal of the $7 million that was quietly lifted from the city’s general fund for redevelopment, and the failure of the city’s parking garage, and the bankruptcies, Cole and Davis should never have blessed the Chateau’s promises of a grand tomorrow. But they thought only of the dawn. And dawn arrived with more failure and sorrow.
Bill Crawford
Instead of memory guiding city government, we have administrators and council members puffed up with imagination. But when imagination isn’t tempered with prudence, too many city attempts to create a new dawn are a gambler’s hope, a roll of the dice, betting with other people’s money.
And an important item to remember is that city government is a representative institution, government by consent that means city councils should be good listeners. But when council hears citizens contrary, council turns off its hearing aid. Thus, a lack of trust creeps in.
And a troubling fact is in the last 12 years the City Council has hired four city managers. Two of the hires were from out of state. The same two resigned only after serving about two years of their contract. So it’s difficult to think that that office has an institutional memory. If there is a memory, it’s short. Also, city managers bring their baggage of what to do. Ideas that do not fit the history and experience of the city. They bring a “new dawn” i.e. SnowGlobe and parking meters to name a couple. The Greeks believed that without memory we live in hell.
Bill Crawford, South Lake Tahoe
A lack of imagination leads to stagnation. Without people possessing new ideas which were considered foolish by many we could still be riding around on horseback or in buggies, lighting our way with kerosene lamps, etc.
Mr. Crawford, if you really want to remain relevant why don’t you use your influence to help Mr. Robert Allen Larson, a man in our community who apparently needs help and an advocate. Do something positive for a change.
4-MER, I hope your post was for a different subject, or are you just anti Bill Crawford? Your comments seem to imply if you try to rob a bank, then decide not to, then the community has to help you. Step up to the plate yourself for Mr. Larson if you want to.
Maybe it is ‘lack of accountability’ (not lack of memory) that plagues “Tahoe South.”
Mr. Pierini:
I and several other people would like to help Mr. Larson. Perhaps if you read the article contained in this publication regarding Mr. Larson and the subsequent reader posts you’d be better informed. If you have read the article and viewed the photograph of Mr. Larson I am disappointed at your lack of compassion.
And yes, I am anti Bill Crawford and his negativity.
4-mer, I don’t wear my compassion on my sleeve.
I am not for or against Bill Crawford, but I am against the STUPIDITY of the voters that continue to put Tom Davis and Hal Cole back in office time after time, please wake up and smell the roses, you can’t all be that STUPID. or can you ???
If Tahoe is going to fail then you have the right men in office.
As the world has revolved, evolved & changed, South Lake Tahoe has stayed in a rut and declined over the years.
It’s evident that the South Tahoe area needs new & innovative ideas, but government is not the solution to our problems. Government is the problem.
Blaming the city council & city manager is futile; they’re the problem – they cannot get out of their own bureaucratic way to foster an environment conducive to increased economic activity and change.
Take a look at anything in the Tahoe area outside of South Lake Tahoe, and you will see newer buildings, commerce, business activity, jobs, new construction & aesthetic appearances. Look at South Lake Tahoe, and you see an old, tired, community that looks like blight.
Those that continue to vote the likes of Cole and Davis
along with Nutting, Nielsen and Upton appear to be those of Low Information.
I addition, I suggest they are the enamored with and depend on Fox@fools.com for more Fair and Balanced information
Ironically, this is one of Mr. Crawford’s better “comments”. . .it continually appears that South Lake Tahoe is in a “past is prologue” mode vis-a-vis trying to continue down the path they at one time considered (perhaps not well enough !) to be a “better” one. . . but it has become more of the Einstein definition of insanity, that is, doing it over & over expecting different results, which are never there.
It takes a certain level of courage to realize and decide that something may not work or is not working properly, and, at the very least, may require a more serious & deeper thought process to own up to that. . .
Even while we have new amenities (most of which were not determined by the City), the old ways still remain, which, for purposes of current stability, earn our new City Manager ratings of ‘excellent’, which unbeknownst to her may be a trap, in that it may inadvertently perpetuate more of those ways than we will need for a long-range, well-managed future, after any “changing of the guard”.
Caveat Emptor !. . .[i.e.,a tacit warning to the buyer that the sellers are not always bound or prone to volunteer negative information about the items they ‘sell’].
hmmmmmm said it best and very succinctly:
‘lack of accountability’
As long as we keep electing the same people we will never see a change in tactics.
New ideas from people whose livelihood doesn’t depend on continuation of the same old,same old is what is needed.
It may indeed be impossible, and too late to bring in a second economic focus outside tourism and all its variants.
Tahoe South is flying in ground effect at maximum power and the end will come when the the first real obstacle taller that the present altitude is encountered.
I predict a miniature Stockton or Detroit.
observer ! When Tom Davis was dumped by Mount Blu or what ever it was named, once again Heres Spanky on the BORED. Where are the CLOWNS, Bring in the Clowns, OMG
THE CLOWNS ARE ON THE BOARD!