Opinion: S. Tahoe won’t survive without community’s support
By Claire Fortier
One of the critical issues continuously expressed by our citizens has been the condition of our town. “Rundown”, “second rate” and “blighted” are words often used in the same sentence as city of South Lake Tahoe. We love where we live, but we hate how we keep it.
That message was loud and clear in the city’s 2011 Citizen Survey we recently received. More than 70 percent of respondents said the appearance of our town was poor. More than 80 percent considered our roads the same way, poor or worse.
Claire Fortier
City Council has pledged to change this problem. On March 6, 2012, the City Council discussed a bond issuance that would allow us to start rebuilding our roads and cleaning up our town. The problem is how to pay for it.
A year ago, when City Council first considered a bond for capital improvement projects, specifically roads, the city’s financial situation was bleak, but not dire. In that year, the city made some drastic and painful changes to live within its means. We reduced city staff, renegotiated employee benefits and took the city down to bare bones. We did so to ensure that the city was economically sustainable, not just this year but for years to come.
In the meantime, our sources of income in the last year took just as big of a beating as the businesses and residents of this town. That’s because our key sources of revenue are directly linked to the success of our town and its citizens. We collect more transient occupancy tax when the town is hopping. We gain more real estate taxes when house are selling. And we collect more sales tax when people spend their money on the hill.
But now we are at a crossroads. The city has made about all the cuts it can without completely destroying service to its citizens. We cannot afford to borrow money to redo our roads or improve our recreational opportunities without the buy-in from the community.
In order to pay for the reinvestment bonds, the city proposed four sources of revenue:
· Paid parking around our beaches.
· An increase in TOT on our hotels starting in 2014.
· A more equitable business tax.
· An amusement tax on recreational activities and rentals.
The income from those sources, while not enormous, would allow the city to pay for the bond that will generate $5 million a year toward our roads and infrastructure.
Community reaction on several of these topics has been divisive. The parking issue was met with a huge outcry. After a dismal winter, increasing the TOT on our financially strapped hotels simply doesn’t make sense. We are still hoping to achieve a more equitable business tax, which will be decided by voters in June.
But the bottom line is this. We cannot reinvest in the community without your help. In the end, it comes down to what does this town really wants and what are we willing to pay for to get what we want.
Claire Fortier is mayor of South Lake Tahoe.
I think spending the money on roads is a waste of money. Throughout my life here I can’t count how many times the roads have been resurfaced or repaved, only to be redone again the next year. These projects are a waste of time, frankly because we do such a crappy job “fixing” them in the first place. We understand that our roads get beat up from the snow plows and chains, so we need materials that can withstand more than a year of use. Secondly, its not just about infrastructure and roads. Its about the vibrance of this community. We bring in second rate retail chains which are not appealing to most people who spend money here (Ross, Kmart, the outlets). We need names and brands that are not only reputable, but that actually carry quality goods, and not second-hand items that can’t be sold in the name brand stores. We don’t want leftovers. And we need to stop pretending that the majority of the people in this town actually care enough about it to make a change. We need to attract higher educated professionals, bigger business (yes we do need big business), and more competition. We SHOULD be one of those communities that are constantly rated as one of the “top ten” places to live, but we’re slowly dying. Finally, what small town of 20,000 residents can afford to support 3 medical marijuana clinics?? We can!
TOT is paid by the tourist not the hotel owners. It is a shame very, very little auditing has been done to insure tax compliance by individual owners and rental agencies of vacation rentals. Maybe the city believes vacation rental owners are honest to a fault, but that goes against human nature, expecially when the chances of getting caught are slim to none and the penalties very weak and ineffective. And where does the vacation rental owner spend their rental income? Not in SLT I am willing
to bet.
How many millions of dollars have slipped through the city’s butterfingerss we will never know.
This city needs a volunteer citizens auditing group to verify rental usage and then ensure TOT is received by the city to fund critical city business.
Why is the city so against enforcing the collection of all TOT taxes owed to itself?
Jim Morris (thanks Jim) asked this very question in front of a regular city council meeting while the council looked like they were going to sleep. (Maybe an exaggeration)
Its time the council showed some courage and followed there own plan instead of bowing down to the business owners and less than 40 home owners who are located by the proposed parking meters.
Here’s a news flash, things will not get significantly better any time soon. It most likely will be years. By then we can sell our streets as a great place to 4×4 and our strip malls as a great place to play paintball and conduct fire exercises.
The town wants you to stand up and do the right thing on this, TOT, the amusement tax and collecting and auditing current TOT as Mr. Morris describes. And, you already know what that is or you would not be writing this piece. You have been here long enough to know that there will be no parade of supporters or 1,000’s of letters saying put the meters in. Its not in the nature of our town.
Stop the cronyism, stop worrying about your image, stop thinking about re-election and do the right thing! We need to fix the problems you describe and NOW!
Its been a problem across the whole USA, Earl. Build but don’t maintain. Onto the next project say the elected officials. How about some of these elected officials putting a little elbow grease into it and doing some research on how to raise money? Just the other day a guy was talking about the snowmobilers up in Jackson, WY. How they brought in $25 mil to the town – and it was done during the day when people didn’t sleep like that snowfest thing that riled up the neighbors. We could have more outdoor daytime events folks. And they don’t have to be in town to make money. We just need to supply a place for folks to sleep.
As with alcoholics, you can not solve the problem unless you are willing to face the problem.
Excessive Government intrusion into your lives is the problem.
The government has taken your tax money and more and made themselves the one percenters.
They are way over paid and then they retire on your backs with pensions and retirement benefits that are by far out of proportion to their value.
Face it and maybe you can fix it.
Rescind the City’s unwarranted sales tax surcharge, and I will return to purchasing taxable goods in the city instead of making most or all of my purchases out of town.
The paid parking proposal met with strong opposition thankfully. Didn’t the city learn from the parking garage experience that people don’t want to pay to park in the mountains? We want a user friendly environment not one like New York. People might pay to use the beach but they don’t want to pay to park.
The city has formed neighborhood service teams to provide better information to residents. This is a good idea which the neighborhoods should embrace and expand to encourage neighborhood pride by owners. Keeping your property maintained and upgrades in sync with our outdoor/mountain environment should be promoted by all property owners. The remodel on Hwy 50 in Bijou of the building which houses Tep’s Villa Roma is an excellant example of upgrades enhancing the area.
This is more of a question from hearsay that I have not done research on, but perhaps some of the readers are more versed?
I have heard that for instance in India, they use a large percentage of recycled rubber in paving their roadways. The cost mentioned was 3 times as much, but it is supposed to last 10 times as long and hold up much better under adverse weather conditions.
Also, in Europe they use different technology; thicker asphalt base (?), which also cost more, but is offset by the lifespan of the roadway.
Tahoe has weather extremes that contribute to the deterioration of the roadways. Are there alternative material options available that might be cost effective in the long run?
I actually credit the City & Council for trying to do something to improve our town! That’s certainly better than just sitting around doing nothing. And I also appreciate the fact that the 3 new members of the Council walked into a mess!
However, why can’t the City grasp the fact that we are already over taxed? Even with the TOT, while on the surface just taxing tourists, means tourists will have even less money to spend in our town. And this will further damage our economy, thus defeating the purpose of any improvements!
And please don’t try to insist you’ve cut to the bare bones when we see what some people are paid and when I know of retired City employees collecting 101%! of their last pay!
Let me say this again.Less than 40 people show up for a meeting and the council flip-flops on parking meters,cronieism at its finest.Thousands ofs lives disrupted by snow globe,council feeds us bogus figures on money made and every thing is rosey.The city still working on ways to have more night time events to anouy citizens.Why not daytime events celebrating our natural wonders.Any body remember how we agreed to be taxed to build three softball fields so we could cash in on the money making softball tournaments.Oh instead we got one soccer field.
Harold, the people on the council heard about the meters every waking moment. This may suprise you but the council lives in Tahoe and they go to the same grocery stores all of the locals go to. They also have these neat things called telephones and a new invention called email. Its part of the interwebs. Yes 40 people showed up to a meeting I cant go to because of work. But I did call and email.
I wonder why the City does not have a surcharge on the YAHOO’S that use the GONDOLA
that would be the easy fix
the Counsel is probably afraid of thoese VAIL jokers and there plan to take over the whole TOWN
Hello, Claire:
As you are a founding member of the Sustainability Commission, the article above basically says we are still living in an unsustainable place.
‘People, Prosperity & the Planet’ is one of the global tag-lines I’ve worked with in international locales which correctly exemplifies what the citizens of SLT have repeatedly said they wanted – a clean, green town – but to no avail. . .
Sustainability, as practiced elsewhere, is about way more than ‘balancing the books’, as the City’s direction of “fiscal sustainability” implies. Tahoe seems to questionably think that because of all the agency activity here, that our environmental surroundings are taken care of – Not !!
Short-shrifting a sustainable lifestyle only reverts everything back to the dichotomy of “is it to be the economy or the environment(?)” – an obsolete divide.
Yesterday, I answered the query into the road improvements by saying that “the savings have to exceed the debt service” (a sustainable way of thinking if ever there was one), which by definition also provides an apt description of conservation measures that assure civic balance.
That is the future: fiscal AND ecologic responsibility. . . eliminating waste.
I have provided an example of what my work with Harvard would call a “civic entrepreneur” project, but to no avail: no comment, no suggestion, no acknowledgment at all, from anyone supposedly concerned with the vitality of the community. Let this serve as but one example.
This to my mind is an answer to your title above, that of “community support” – if particularly motivated & capable people can’t get any response at all to viable directions, what exactly is meant by community support ?
Until you on the Council can answer that question, survival will remain a serious question. . .
To the South Lake Tahoe City Council, “community support” has always been a euphemism for one thing: higher taxes, higher fees, surcharges, special taxes, special assessments, higher animal control fee surcharges, parking fees, and so on. Why not sell the airport back to the county for the $1 it paid?
Unfortunately, some things never change.
ALL BOILS DOWN THEY WANT THE LOCALS TO FOOT THE BILL THAT TOURITS DON’T.
Every frigging thing that done has to include tourist. It’s Grown too commercial not community friendly to the people who live here..
People don’t have any equity left in their homes, doing business in this town takes a rocket science degree just to understand how open a hot dog stand. Regulation on every corner, how big a sign can be, deck space coverage, parking problems, ticket writers for the unaware, no sidewalks, handicap laws, noise levels, VACATION HOME RENTALS IN every neighborhood with people who don’t give a heck about your lifestyle, I’m here paying money, I’m going to raise hell, leave my trash for you and the wild life to eat, goes on forever!
Just because our town not a brand new shiny places doesn’t mean it has to be rebuilt. When it was funky before the Village Tale, it had good business. People liked the old floors in lots the places in town; it’s all about the people.
The people attitudes have changed, the lending hands have changed, some the best customer service business were sold, new people took over ,the place was never the same.(They brought their city ideas to the mountains)they want a city, not a resort town.
The new business owners came town with nuggets of gold in their plans, dreams, changed what was a good thing.
The ignorant public doesn’t show anything other than, they need this, and they need that! This town buried itself by letting the Attorneys; few old red necks drive the screws into the whole bunch.
Wow, the grants ran out, they had years to do something for the community with roads, sidewalks, good shopping centers and all sudden the world took a hit in pocketbook.
If all the foreclosed homes in the states were foreclosed all at once, the banks would go broke, we would have a depression, so they are slowly but surely foreclosing homes on a time scale. Mean time who needs to buy a home, build a home when the bottom still moves from one day to the next with the market.
Two thirds of all bankruptcies are health related, the boomers who banked on selling ,owning a home for retirement are more less a theory now.
I feel good when I go some the places in this town where the real locals go, support, you can tell locals, weather faces, dented up cars , pickups, rough around the edges, beards, long hair, and real laughter about the headlines we read every day.
They know, realized years ago, that nothing changing here in this town, we let the Big shoots drive their big new shiny cars, their big new homes, their brainy ideas to build the New City, while we sat in our yards, watch the tourist drive bye, look cool, never even make out to the woods, or beaches and are gone when the cold comes, we sit back in our little ruin down homes be Happy they are Gone, enjoy no traffic, all the fancy cloths ,styles, city madness, went back down the hill, to fight the city jungle life styles, shoot each other over parking spaces, Bart tickets.
Just keep the heat turned on, the grocery store open, the welfare coming, the dish cleaned off, a place to take friends, family to enjoy the view be left alone without the inner city nightmares.
here’s another adjective for the town…dingy.
your choice on how to use the ‘G’.
The good old days of Cole and Davis are here to stay.
Claire ! Apparently the 2011 Citizen Survey responders are non voters.
70%/80% return out of how many distributed, mailed,picked up or what ever ????
Another adjective for this town – run down. I personally don’t like my town being run down but then I don’t like my house or car to look like s**t either. Some people just don’t care though.
Abolish the City (and entire waste of money police force), Abolish the TRPA and create an environment were business can fluorish. That is literally all you need to do.
Regulations are what is killing us, we too overregulated for our current economic environment. Alot of these regs were written when we were in a very differnt economic environment.
I like Steve’s idea.