To the community,

All of us living in this tourist town understand a simple truth: our infrastructure is burdened with more than it can handle. Specifically, our roads. Each year, millions of visitors drive to Tahoe to enjoy the natural beauty of our home, but the damage this causes to our roadways is a serious problem. We need help making our community safer for driving, walking, and biking.

I’m voting yes on Measure C because we have waited too long to address our community’s critical infrastructure needs. While I agree with recent editorials that the city should invest in road safety, our city’s budget simply does not have sufficient funding to cover the many services we provide for year-round residents and tourists – emergency services, fire protection and response, law enforcement, and road maintenance. We need a separate source of funds to ensure our roads get the long-term attention they deserve.

Enter Measure C, a new way to shift the financial burden of roadway repairs off our residents onto the many tourists visiting and shopping in town each year. This smart measure will fix potholes, repave crumbling roads, and ensure that our entire city has safe routes for drivers, pedestrians, and bicyclists. Measure C is the only way for voters to ensure our roads are repaired with revenue that legally cannot be diverted by the City Council for other projects.

But this issue goes beyond City Council. It is up to us as a community to decide that we are fed up with our roads being in constant disrepair. Instead of continuing to ignore our city’s most visible problem, I am voting yes on Measure C to solve it.

Katie Riley, South Lake Tahoe