Letter: Anti-paid parking petitions in circulation

To the community,

There are plenty of people in this town that would have you believe that South Lake Tahoe is on the road to ruin. The City Council’s vote last December to put parking meters at our beaches and on public streets just fuels that kind of thinking.

Because paid parking is opposed by the majority of the community citizens feel their leaders are not listening or worse don’t care what we think.

Most people that live here believe that this entire paid parking program along with the aggressive ticketing that came with it needs to be eliminated. The problem is: Giving up on this paid parking program would mean that somebody would have to admit that the decision should never have been made and most people would rather be tortured than admit they were wrong.

So here we are one year later, with our citizens lining up to sign petitions to qualify for a ballot initiative to repeal paid parking.

Creating a controversy of this magnitude has the consequence of having the community believe that our leaders can’t get anything right. To be honest, we probably have more things to be proud of in this city than to be ridiculed, but it is always the screw-ups that people remember.

The community’s enthusiasm for an opportunity to vote on this issue is a demonstration of how passionate they are about free access to the lake. For many, it is the reason they live here.

The grass-roots citizen’s group Tahoe 4 Tahoe was born out of this parking controversy and they remain focused on getting this initiative to the voters.

Starting today petitions for the Initiative to Repeal Paid Parking in South Lake Tahoe will be available at the following locations:

Bruce Grego’s Law Office, 2262 Barton Ave.; Gaialicious, 987 Tallac Ave.; The Design Shoppe, 3053 Harrison Ave.; Sessions Salon, 3320 Sandy Way; Sierra Ski and Cycle Works, 3430 Lake Tahoe Blvd; League to Save Lake Tahoe, 2608 Lake Tahoe Blvd.; South Tahoe Standup Paddle, 3115 Harrison Ave.; and Tahoe Keys Office, 356 Ali Wai Blvd.

The challenge will be getting the 940 registered voter signatures that will be needed by the Jan. 13 deadline. We may need our own Miracle on 34th Street this holiday season to reach that goal.

This year I’m asking Santa for peace on Earth and to never hear the words “parking kiosk” again.

Let’s do this and Keep Tahoe Tahoe.

Peggy Bourland-Madison, Tahoe 4 Tahoe committee