Publisher’s note: This letter was sent to El Dorado County and Lake Tahoe News.

To the community,

While the storms have been relentless and I understand the many needs you have to address, there is no excuse for poor practices while doing the job of plowing. 

We live on Wailaki Street in Tahoe Par 60.  Last week I called to report of a driver not lowering the gate on the blade when hitting driveways. A number of driveways were left with a 3-foot berm. Our neighbor is a director in the Planning Department for the city of South Lake Tahoe and had come home for lunch and completely cleared his driveway. As his wife came home shortly after, she found the large berm in front of the just cleared driveway and she got high-centered on it. It left her car halfway in the road. It took a number of neighbors to push her car into the driveway and a nice job undone for them.

While I got a return call from the county Transportation Division, I had just boarded a plane for a trip and referred the lady that called to please talk to my wife and I gave her the number. My wife never received a call.

The word must have gotten out because in the latest pass through our neighborhood, the driver had lowered the gate for other driveways, except for ours. My son had just worked so hard to keep the area clear of snow and the plow driver undid all that work in mere seconds. We have my wife’s elderly mother living with us and we need to have access in case of any medical emergency. This sort of retaliation by your employees is not to be tolerated.

My son took pictures of the driveways to show comparison of those cleared yet ours was buried. I will provide them if you need further proof.

We can appreciate the scale of the work in this series of storms, but good practices during the execution of that work goes a long way when trying to gain public support.

Jeffrey L. Spencer, executive director Sacramento Transportation Authority