Mayor blows it with special closed session meeting

By Kathryn Reed

The South Lake Tahoe City Council on Tuesday again demonstrated its dysfunction.

Mayor Wendy David on Monday scheduled a special closed session meeting for March 6 at 5pm.

Only the mayor or a majority of the council may schedule such a meeting. David admitted she called the meeting. She did not elaborate.

The agenda said pending litigation. It’s not known what suddenly became so urgent; not even all the other council members knew.

“I’m uncomfortable with the special meeting coming up at 5 o’clock that was agendized yesterday,” Councilwoman Brooke Laine said Tuesday before the council was supposed to go into closed session for other reasons. Because she believed that special closed session was not agendized correctly she said she would not be attending that meeting.

Councilman Tom Davis as well acknowledged he had concerns about having this scheduled meeting.

Interim City Attorney Nira Doherty admitted it was not agendized correctly. Government Code mandates such notices be published on the governing body’s website, Doherty said. That didn’t happen. It was the city clerk’s job to make that happen.

The city routinely sends out meeting notices electronically. Lake Tahoe News never received the notice about the meeting in question. This begs the question about transparency, with the mayor seeming to be the leader of city secrets.

David said the meeting would be rescheduled. When is unknown. Same with why it is even warranted. Same with why the media isn’t being notified of all meetings.