Letter: Chamber endorsement process flawed

To the community,

On July 24 at noon, I was contacted by the Tahoe Chamber to participate in their endorsement process. At 3:50pm, I contacted them to ask a question and meet with them and I was told because they were under rules of the FPPC I could not contact them individually. At 4:04, I declined to participate in their selection process.

In the Tahoe Chamber’s press release of the criteria of selection they said that the selection for whatever political endorsement they would make was based on personal interviews and answers from their questioner. Since I participated in neither I found it interesting that information was not released. I also found it interesting that the District V criteria page was missing from the press release.

Kenny Curtzwiler

Several other political candidates also chose not to participate: City Council – Bruce Grego, Austin Sass and Tom Davis; STPUD board – Jim Jones and Duane Wallace; El Dorado County District V – Kenny Curtzwiler.

I can say I found the Tahoe Chamber process flawed, their actual members (650) were uninformed as to the decisions and completely left out of the loop in the decision-making, for the chamber to represent the feelings of the entire chamber is incorrect. There were eight members who selected the candidates of their choice of which three are Nevada based, one who is a rabbi (separation of church and state comes to mind), one who works for LTCC, one who works in the same building as Austin Sass (who did not participate) and one who works for the real estate company that handles all of the city of South Lake Tahoe redevelopment land sales.

I found the whole process rather comical and flawed from the beginning and do not feel the chamber should be involved in the endorsement process when the majority of the chamber members did not participate. I was not asked and I am a chamber member and their endorsements do not reflect what my choices would have been. This is a very small town with a big future ahead of it and we should be very wary of endorsements from a very small percentage of Tahoe Chamber members. I and the other candidates who did not participate are asking the community to contact all the candidates and make their own decision as to whom they would like to see in office. We all know each other in this town and for the chamber to get involved is wrong, immoral and causing a further divide here that may or not may be able to be corrected with an election.

Remember to vote on Nov. 4.

Kenny Curtzwiler, El Dorado County supervisor candidate