Swanson enters El Dorado County supes race

By Kathryn Reed

Experience, knowledge and the ability to get things done are what Angela Swanson believes she would bring to the job of El Dorado County supervisor.

The 53-year-old officially threw her hat in the ring this week when at the Nov. 5 South Lake Tahoe City Council meeting she told her peers she would not be seeking re-election to that body but instead would be going for the county position in 2014.

When she isn’t at the twice-monthly council meetings she is either at the Board of Supervisors meeting in Placerville or watching it online. She believes in relationship building, and has been doing so on the West Slope to grasp a better understanding of countywide issues.

Angela Swanson

“District 5 is very different than in the past with the inclusion of the district going to Pollock Pines. We are no longer the lake district. We are the eastern end of El Dorado County,” Swanson told Lake Tahoe News. “We have to know how to play in the big sandbox.”

Swanson is entering her fourth year on the City Council. In the past three years she said, “I had to expand my base knowledge of Tahoe and El Dorado County to understand environmental politics, transportation, growth, development, management of public safety and fire, and more.”

She says her city appointments have helped her gain a breadth of knowledge. For two years she was on the California Tahoe Conservancy board, is in her third year on the Tahoe Transportation District, three years on the Cal-Tahoe Joint Powers Authority, and has been on the Waste Disposal board.

Swanson is also active in the League of California Cities. She is on the Transportation, Communication, and Public Works Policy Committee as well as the Women’s Caucus dealing with pensions.

Outside of the city responsibilities Swanson is part of Lake Tahoe Collaborative, advisory board member of the Boys & Girls Club of Lake Tahoe and on the Lake Tahoe Educational Foundation board.

It is the latter role and that of being a council member that put her name in headlines in August 2012. The ed foundation accepted money from a man who had business before the council and who subsequently went to prison on drug charges. The District Attorney’s Office has never filed charges nor exonerated her in that case, with DA Vern Pierson telling Lake Tahoe News there is still an active investigation involving Swanson.

Swanson said she has only spoken with Pierson twice in the last 15 months.

“My focus needs to be not on worrying about forces outside my control, but continuing to do what I have done since last August – come prepared, come with a plan, do hard work, and execute projects on behalf of the city at the policy level,” Swanson said.

Prior to being elected to the council, Swanson was on the Lake Tahoe Unified School District board from 2005-09. She left before the term expired “to focus on my family after a job loss.”

She is still working in school facility planning arena, though most of her emphasis is on grant writing projects.

The other declared candidates for the fifth district seat are Gerri Grego and Sue Novasel.