Opinion: Denial will not heal what ails South Lake Tahoe
To the community,
I watched and listened to Mayor Hal Cole’s state of the city speech. There are two parts to any speech, substance and tone.
On substance, Mayor Cole outlined the city’s needs and problems comprehensively. He said the city is solvent and will keep a 25 percent general fund reserve. He said we need to fix the streets, clean the city up, attract more tourists, and increase city revenues.
Bill Crawford
On revenues, he said the city will seek a TOT tax increase in the future. And he clearly said the city’s economy depends on resources of others. Those others are agencies such as the Forest Service, the CTC, Caltrans, and grants. Mayor Cole favors more BIDs, business improvement districts like the Ski Run BID. Partnerships between private businesses and the city.
Mayor Cole defended past Redevelopment Agency action. He said redevelopment tax increment revenue, new higher property taxes stay in town. That’s false. By law it goes to serve redevelopment debt, to pay the bondholders.
On tone, he simply recited what was written. The tone was flat. It lacked enthusiasm. That’s understandable considering the city’s fiscal pain.
Mayor Cole made a plea for peace. Please, no finger pointing. The past is the past. It was denial of any consequences of decisions that led to failure(s) such as the convention center. It’s a plea to forget, to erase memory so there can be harmony.
So where is the city now? Mayor Cole said the city must have outside financial support to rebuild the city. If so, the city’s a charity case chasing the rainbow’s pot of gold. And there can’t be peace and harmony until Mayor Cole atones for errors like the convention center. Soon he will have served 16 years on the council and been the mayor many times. He has played a big role in creating the political and economic plight of the city. Atonement heals. Denial does not.
Bill Crawford, South Lake Tahoe
I tire of the complaining of the past. In this “opinion” you call for atonement by Mr. Cole but that will not solve anything. How does that help heal when it was a massive project brought into place by MANY and lead by one and his lawyer. At the time how could the city and others in favor of the project have imagined in their wildest dreams what Lane would cause.
We need vocal opponents of the city to actually do something positive instead of sitting back, pointing fingers and writing editorials to stir up the vocal few. It’s like a broken record that keeps on playing.
Bill have you nothing new to say except criticize the efforts of others and now its come down to literally how well Cole delivered his speech? “His tone was flat.” For pete’s sake, this is the best council I’ve seen in this city in years. They are tackling the worst economic crisis we’ve had, dealing with the hard times and hard decisions, they don’t fight and argue from their seats like we saw for years when you were on there.
And you don’t like his “tone.” I’ll take action over tone and substance over fluff anyday. And we’re getting both actions and substance these days showing past councils How its done.
I believe Bill always has what’s best for the city in mind and given Cole’s hand in so many things Hal does need to take some heat publicly.
To respond to the ‘in their wildest dreams’ comment, well, Hal’s job as Redevelopment Director and Mayor at that time was to both dream big and Cover Our Ass! Somewhere along the line he had to make a conscious decision to not demand a PERFORMANCE BOND by the developer. A PB is standard practice in the industry and being the Mayor, the Redevelopment Director and a General Contractor, Hal was certainly aware of this stop-gap measure to protect the city.
So Bill has a point here, Cole, as a public official, has never publicly commented on his negligence in this manner and he has a duty to come clean on this topic. Hal, are you out there? what’s your side of things?
Just how do you solve problems if you don’t point them out?
Sweeping the problems, and the people that are causing them, under the rug is part of the problem. They keep coming back.
Cole, yours is the lunatic logic of sheeple. Unfathomable to people with good criticle thinking skills. Functional insanity. Drives sane men made.
I’ve seen it written here before…
You are where you are because you follow who you follow.
It appears South Lake Tahoe has more than just a hole in the ground.
Lake Tahoe needs a more diversified economy that enables good
jobs and private enterprise year round.
The focus towards the same old myopic industries centered on tourism has helped devistate the economy.
You need to flush the problem thinkers like this Cole and soooo many of your leaders from your system if you want a chance at fixing it up.
SLT also needs better business people. Very low class experiance when I’ve been through there. Every business owner I met didn’t cut
it in my book. Just plain nasty smucky types.
You guys bring down the whole lake.
It is surprising the voters of South Lake Tahoe re-elect those that have shown so much incompetence and tunnelvision . . .
30 Yr local,
The reason people write about the problems of SLT is because they care enough to want to fix them. Shine the light of truth on the issues. Identify and Fix.
Your approach of ignoring them gets you where you are. Among the worst economies in the entire country.
I personally think the only way to fix the problem of the over-reaching cronified, arrogant, liberal government is to starve the beast.
That’s why I encourage people to stop supporting what I see as an immoral “slave state” that is being created. Starve the beast by moving out of the State.
Exercise your rights as free people.
Why do I say it’s immoral? Simple, Indentured servitude is a form of slavery and that is in effect what you have.
The citizens owe so much to your civil servants that you have become the servants.
That’s the way I see it so I left.
GBA
THWC
Gee Bill, are you ready to atone for your behavior as a member of the city council?
Bill, the above criticism leveled at you is indicative reasoning as to why SLT and Pville are a mess. Think Davis, Sweeney Nutting add Cole.The Rusty Machine may one day add Upton.
I have known Crawford for over 50 years, maybe I should write a book on “what ever it is, it wasn’t my fault and I am against it”.
I”ll actually credit Councilman Cole’s speech in that there’s FINALLY an attempt to be visionary on the Council! And I’ll also credit him in that he seems to have seen the error in his ways in that he’s now actually for marketing the area AND is trying to move beyond the previously dysfunctional Council! Cole actually read the Grand Juror report and is trying to address some of its findings!
However, for Councilman Cole to say the past is past is first hypocritical! He always whines saying his hand was forced by decisions of the past! And for Mr. Cole not to take any responsibility for the Convention Hole, failed and expensive lawsuits and no past budget restraint, shows he could make the same mistakes in the future.
And for Mr. Cole to say the 140k budgeted for the sign would only cover 1.5 employees?!?! 140k only covers 1.5 employees?!?!?! Wow! I think he’s failing to address why we have a budget problem in the first place!
And Mr. Crawford, your opinion pieces are clearly thought provoking. As usual I agree with some things and disagree with others. But it would be great if you wrote a piece actually stating what you’re actually for and/or would actually do!
Where to start ?
From the latter back. . . as to vision, there’s a huge difference between “looking” and “seeing” and between “doing something” and actually “getting it”. . . interest in running for office does not necessarily equate with knowing what exactly is the best avenue to pursue.
A great example would be for a City with a Visitor-based economy to continually consider their TOT (Transient Occupancy Tax) as their “professional” piggybank to overcome deficits caused by earlier poor vision and mediocre management, absent correct use of other tax revenue streams – this qualifies as “shooting yourself in the foot” by taking away any reasonable way to promote yourself to the outside world (Duh! where your clientele actually comes from). . .
If in response one of our petty-trained political process says, which they’re likely to, “We don’t trust what the Visitors’ Authority does with our money”, back up and regroup with someone who actually knows what they’re doing to promote Tahoe, versus simply using “not trusting or knowing” as an excuse to simply use that money to offset what you can’t otherwise do without using it. . .
That’s the only authentic & legitimate answer: for a serious rethinking of what it is to be a citizen in South Lake Tahoe, versus being a “resident” who opines on everything, but thinks that once they’re “in office”, that somehow it will all get better – it doesn’t, and it hasn’t. But it better – soon. . .
The other inherent problem here is that everyone seems to cede the “answer” to others (think TRPA, the League, the Conservancy, etc.) without realizing that they are doing the same thing – expecting more out of their constituencies than they get – after all, we send our tax money to them, don’t we ?
No oversight, no participation, only resulting in the “overworked, underpaid” scenarios about why it didn’t work – send us more money!!
From where – now ? . . .
For a council that says they had to make cuts to city Service Workers, it is frivilous to be adding over $10,000 dollars worth of xmas lights and decorations to the tree at the Y which is located on private property.
Next, the City is hosting a luncheon, with the Chamber & LTVA to thank the Hwy 50 road workers for a job well done. Way to spend the reserves councilmen.
Again, where’s the proof they all claimed of having to make these cuts now. These two new wasteful expenditures by this council and city manager prove there was NO real necessity and everyone better keep their eyes on the uppermanagement, city manager and councilmen.
Good points Satori! Councilman Cole wants to promote the area, but with what? Years ago a TOT increase was approved for promotion. And Mr. Cole always voted to take that money away to pay for the City’s wasteful spending. And the TOT does continue to be viewed as some sort of limitless trust fund. If it’s true tourists pay it without caring, then heck, let’s raise it to 50%!
It would be great to promote the new Lakeview Commons project-“Come check out the new view and beach here at the Lake!” And if you don’t want to go through the LTVA, fine! The City should do its promotion!
And Tahoan25, are they really having a lunch for the CalTrans saying it’s a job well done? If that’s the standard for a job well done, (I mean could they have taken longer?), our govt. has no clue as to the meanings of the words efficiency, timeliness or cost-effectiveness!
The city hosted a thank you lunch for about 50 construction workers on Oct. 27 at the rec center.
The LTVA and Lake Tahoe South Shore Chamber of Commerce each contributed $150. The city’s costs are not all totaled, but are expected to be less than $150.
Kathryn Reed, LTN publisher
Thank you for clarifying the $150 charge for those that jumped on the rumor mill of a huge bill!
The city has no idea on how to plan road inpact projects, thats obvious. Let the city at least notice these projects in advance so the public has imput before these projects start.
FYI, I merely asked if it was true. And it sort of was. Granted, the bill is pretty insignificant. But I am irked in that I don’t why the City, Chamber or LTVA is thanking them? Don’t see what they did that took so long and CalTrans clearly cost the town business with the traffic delays!
But thanks LTN for researching and clarifying! And in a previous post I meant to say, “The City should do its ‘own’ promotion!”
Caltrans work on Highway 50 included a lot of unseen underground work to capture and treat stormwater runoff in their efforts to comply with the TMDL related to the restoration of Lake clarity which was why this project took so long. It wasn’t just paving and installing gutters. And the City doesn’t have the funds or staffing to perform marketing/advertising/promotion of South Lake Tahoe themselves; that’s left up to the LTVA, Chambers or individual businesses.
This, and all further “opinions” from Mr. Crawford should simply be titled Blame. For that seems to be the corner stone of Bills current contribution to this town.
Maybe Bill can have a fund raiser to cover the cost of dragging all of the accused into the street and throw stones at them until they crawl away in defeat. That will show them!
In the mean time there are several hundred people in this community that are looking and working toward the future with the determination to make it over the next mountain. I believe the saying is “lead or follow…but get out of the way”.
There…now I feel better:)
The City DID have a funding mechanism to promote itself!! There was a TOT increase specifically for that purpose! But politicians, including Councilman Cole, were always trying to grab that money! When people got behind a sales tax increase to feed the bureaucratic trough so as to stop the TOT grab, the sales tax passed and The City still took the TOT. The claim was, “Oh but we’re broke! It’s a crisis!” And it was such a crisis The City proceeded to hand out 30% raises to top mgt. (Not to mention other raises and staff increases.)
Part of the rationale given for the TOT grab was also, “Oh we don’t like how the LTVA promotes us. They’re just promoting gaming.” Of course, it was never then followed up with, “So let’s do our own promotion!”, which we could now really use to hype the Lakeview Commons project!
And as far as the Hwy. 50 project, I have lived all over California, and CalTrans never finishes projects promptly and always has an excuse. Plus, don’t we have 2 more Summers of this construction? And then when that’s done, I’m sure it’ll be time to start all over again?!
Mayor Cole atones for errors like the convention center. Soon he will have served 16 years on the council and been the mayor TIMES.
LOL .
BILL, MAYOR COLE IS NO REAL MAYOR!None of them are!
“HE JUST WASTED 16 YEARS OF THIS CITY PROGRESS”.
To the majority of locals, he’s a Joke that gathers quite a lot GOOD DIRTY COMMENTS from the year round Residents.
YOU WOULD NOT BELIEF THE JOKES FELLOW CONTRACTORS TELL THAT BEEN HERE 40 YEARS!
YOU WOULD FALL OUT YOUR CHAIR BILL!
Keep writting Bill, cause there are some locals that still love your HEAD.
More complaining…no solutions, no ideas…
Maybe Bill should run for City Council….