Letter: Conner knows how to listen

To the community,

John Runnels, Mile Wallace, three good people who shall remain nameless at this time, City Councilperson JoAnn Conner and now me, have, or have had, a target securely affixed to their back side.

I received an email that stated, “Angie harassed, abused and yelled at a city employee and must be banned- the employees need to be protected from her.”This is a lie. Never happened. Not even close, but it sounds suspiciously close to the lies being said and written about JoAnn Conner. Close as well to what has been reported about every other person walking around with that aforementioned “target”.

In my case, I never raised my voice, abused or harassed anybody at the city. I did however use a bad word while discussing the city’s new fee schedule, which raised the cost of a sign permit from $145 to a whopping $878. This is what was said, verbatim, “The city promised to readdress the permit fee in September, now you are saying that the city has decided to adopt the TRPA’s sign ordinance instead? Where did that come from? It would be a huge mistake to throw away our sign ordinance, please don’t do that, the businesses of South Lake Tahoe will be so ______ ( pseudonym for screwed).”

There you have it, one bad word, which I would apologize for, to the person I said it to, but I am banned from the city. Makes me wonder just how many ridiculous lies were generated to discredit JoAnn Conner?

I will not apologize for speaking the truth or speaking out for my customers. Nor should JoAnn Conner apologize for standing up on behalf of the small businesses in our community. She has done a lot of good work for us and, by the way, was voted into office fair and square because she does speaks up. Look, we know how she is going to vote and represent us, she is honest and forthcoming. She is also accessible, something extremely important in a councilperson. In fact, she’s the only council member that called me regarding the city’s new fee schedule, after my letter, after the press letter and after my call to the city attorney. Let me say this again, Councilperson JoAnn Conner read my letter, responded and listened — thank you JoAnn — when no one else did.

JoAnn Conner is an asset to this council and this community, and, I believe the wrong person is being censured.

Angela Olson, Meyers