TTD sets loop road meeting without telling public
South Lake Tahoe City Council members did not find out about a loop road related meeting until Monday – two days before the event.
Lake Tahoe News has never been formally told about it.
And this is a public meeting.
AIM Consulting sent an email to the Citizens Review Committee on Aug. 12 reminding the members of the Aug. 14 6:30pm meeting at the chamber/LTVA meeting room in Stateline. (Dinner is included, but it’s not known if the public gets to eat. And it’s not known if this is taxpayer money feeding these committee members.) RSVP to Ciara Zanze by calling (916) 442.1168. She works for the consultant hired by the Tahoe Transportation District.
In response to an elected official’s inquiry about why there was the late notice, Alfred Knotts with TTD sent the following group email, “The formal committee members were notified well in advance and the date was selected based on their availability. We have concurrence from a vast majority of the committee members regarding their attendance. I do however concur that limited notification was sent to you and the remaining city council members yesterday in the form of a formal agenda which was developed and sent to comply with the Brown Act and NV Open Meeting Law. The agenda was also posted as required by both of these requirements.”
However, the Brown Act in California requires meetings be posted 72 hours in advance. This means the notification sent Aug. 12 did not comply with those regulations and therefore it could be seen as an illegal meeting and that any action or discussion taken would have to be stricken from the official record.
Future meetings are:
• Aug. 28, 6-8pm
• Sept. 11, 6:30-8:30pm
• Sept. 25, 6-8pm.
All meetings will be at Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority, 169 Highway 50 in Stateline. And dinner will be served at each meeting – at least for committee members.
— Lake Tahoe News staff report
Nice Catch.
Seems the appropriate action would be to Cancel the meeting until the correct lawful notice is given. as the meeting has not yet taken place.
This looks like Lets have the meeting with as little interference as possible and then Strike it from the Record.
From a Not SLT Resident
As I understand the Community Review Committee, it is supposed to be comprised of private citizens who volunteer to review what the TTD alternatives are and provide input from residents, not businesses. The Business Review committee was held earlier. Dinner sounds like a small price to pay for people coming after work to sit through 8 hours of meetings.
It is unclear whether proper notice of this meeting was given. NRS 241.020 (the Nevada Open Meeting Law) in general requires minimum 3 working days advance notification, agenda included, of an upcoming public meeting, posted and sent to all those who have requested such, by no later than 9 AM on the third working day prior to the meeting. So the proper date of this notification would have been no later than 9:00 AM on Friday, August 9.
One would think that the City of South Lake Tahoe would have ordinarily requested in advance to be on this notification list.
And dinner funded by taxpayers would be wholly inappropriate in this taxpayer’s opinion. This is a simple, local 2 hour meeting…not a convention boondoggle.
Sounds a lot like Park Cattle not knowing about the loop road plan. It will end up being a Clinton like play on words “the legal definition of notice” being certified mail to some P.O. Box in Utah or something.
If they didn’t know about the plan it doesn’t bode well for a company that claims to have the pulse of the international high end tourist market.
How could TTD spend God only knows how much money without consulting with the most impacted and benefited land owners???
Also remember when Douglas County paid triple overtime to have deputies march shoulder to shoulder with billy clubs pushing the kids over the fence at new years. Some years fire hoses were turned on them when it was ten degrees. The reason for this was the claimed need to keep the highway open for safety reasons. Now we can’t wait to close it for the summer grand opening or a proposed chili cook off.
The last two years we tried to bribe the young adults to come back at new years with snow globe. Lets face it the powers that be private and public were defeated by a blind Indian with a dull spear riding a tortuous.
Just unbelievable that TTD & THEIR CONSULTANT can’t get it right. Cancel the meeting, and show good faith by giving plenty of notice to all! Very scary that TTD does not seem to have “communication skills”…. and they should not be in charge of anything to do with public issues.
Are the planned “improvements” to the Loop Road located in Nevada? If not, then why would any Nevada law (NRS 241.020) have any effect on this obvious attempt to limit public involvement. This sort of game-playing only underlines the nature of this “project”. It is bad from the start and will continue to be bad.
Dumbfounded
The project affects land in both states. TTD has maps showing all the differant alternatives on their website.
Brown act is a California law, the meeting is in Nevada.
I am not seeing the attempt to limit public involvement. Isn’t is just a committee meeting?