May 2024

Lake Link is a piece of the transit puzzle.

Lake Tahoe’s South Shore

Well over a year ago, my teenage daughter and I applied to volunteer at the El Dorado County Animal Shelter. It took quite awhile for the county to arrange for our fingerprinting and background check (a story in and of itself) and we still have to undergo formal training, but we stop by every so often to visit the cats and dogs and occasional other creatures. It’s hard not to take them all home with you every time. If any of our readers would like to adopt a dog, may I suggest Trex, a three-year-old Siberian husky who has been there nearly 18 months. Trex came from another county where he was on the euthanasia list and while he seems happy and playful and has bonded with his caretakers, he needs a forever home. There have been a few unsuccessful placements and he is looking for just the right family.

In talking with shelter workers about Trex, the word that came up most often was “love.” He loves to play fetch, he loves to go on car rides, he loves to cuddle. He is a bit ill mannered, but not in an aggressive way. He

would do well in a home without small children. Staff described Trex as “a lot of dog,” and suitable for an experienced pet owner. Anyone with room in their life for Trex is encouraged to pay a visit to the shelter and see if he is a match.

Speaking of volunteers, this month’s volunteer opportunity is delivering for the El Dorado County mealson-wheels program. See Heard for more information on this and other chatter.

I continue to remain cautiously optimistic about efforts to combat overtourism in the Tahoe Basin. The Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources is piloting a reservation system for especially popular sites and depending on how the trial run goes, may be bringing it to Sand Harbor in the future.

Also, the Forest Service has indicated a willingness to engage in a dialogue about providing transit service to Emerald Bay to ease congestion and overcrowding. Readers can find out more in this month’s cover story on transit, especially with regards to El Dorado County. While everyone knows VHRs are a hot-button issue, El Dorado County Supervisor Brooke Laine said she received more responses to a public transportation survey than she received regarding vacation rentals, so we thought we’d take a deeper dive as it seems to be of interest to the community..

This month, Tahoe Dad ruminates on building community and what it takes, politically and otherwise. Faith congregations are part of what makes a community and St. Theresa’s Catholic Church is about to lose its leader due to a change in immigration laws. See our story about Father Joe on page 21. After a snowy Cinco de Mayo, the blue, sunny skies are calling and I must go. Adios! -Heather

Civic engagement on steroids

At the April 23 city council meeting, a discussion about minimum wage reached the boiling point when dozens of local small business owners came to City Hall to debunk the myth that business owners are living large while their employees are barely surviving. They shared their struggles to just keep the doors open in a place that routinely turns the dream of business ownership into financial ruin. Scott Robbins lit the fire under this topic by drawing a straight line between minimum wage and rent affordability. He quickly became the whipping boy for many of the public commenters who blamed him for not understanding the broader issues and potential consequences of mandated wage increases. Many businesses are already paying well above the state’s minimum wage of $16, not to mention the customer subsidies provided for table service and the ubiquitous tip jars on the counters of many businesses.

Aside from the casinos and Heavenly (that came close to

filing for bankruptcy in 1978), the economy of our resort town is based on brave (some might say crazy) people risking their life savings to open a business and then losing it all between the boom-and-bust cycles of a seasonal economy. The life cycle of a small business in Tahoe can be painfully short, but there are some notable exceptions like Side Street Boutique (1972), Café Fiore (1986), Sierra Ski and Cycle Works (1980), South Shore Bikes (1991), Red Hut Waffle Shop (1959), Evan’s (1988), Ernie’s (1968), Bert’s (2003), The Design Shoppe (1983), Tahoe Mountain News (1994), and Aspen Hollow (1994).

For thirty years, the creative force behind Aspen Hollow was artist John Fellows, who recently sold the business to local landscape contractor Josh Forte who plans to carry on the tradition of high quality and creativity at this iconic nursery. John Fellows (now retired) is a local legend in the world of landscape and architectural design. Examples of his unique style can be found all

over the South Shore and Fallen Leaf Lake. John has also been a mentor and teacher to many who worked for and alongside him. Thank you, John.

Small businesses are the glue that hold a town together while creating the funk and vibe that becomes a community’s identity. We need places where “everybody knows your name,” places that make us feel like we’re supporting a local, places where you can run into other locals and bitch about the tourists.

The housing crisis won’t be solved with a governmentimposed minimum wage that seeks a solution on the backs of small business owners. Arbitrary and excessive rent increases will quickly outpace that plan.

What we now know is that many business owners are having the same struggles paying their rent and utilities as their employees.

THE VAIL FAIL

Also on April 23, council members expressed their frustration with Heavenly/Vail regarding the possible annexation of Cal Base Lodge into the city.

It seems Vail is ghosting the city, and the council is ready to stop playing nice. There is a balancing act to consider between the economic benefits of having ski resort tourism that supports our businesses and the disruption of too many skiers overwhelming our town and the adjacent neighborhoods. The city has taken steps to manage the situation, but the intrusion of thoughtless entitled tourists who show no respect for the environment and the residents continues. Because the Cal Base Lodge is in EDC, the city receives no tax revenue from this property. To add insult to injury, a previous council during the redevelopment era restricted the city from charging a lift ticket

“There is so much talk about the lake’s microplastic pollution. One report is that of 38 lakes tested in the world, Tahoe ranks No. 3. I thought it might be of interest to explain what micro-plastics are and how it is that Tahoe has so much of it.”

– Water aware

tax on the gondola until the bonds are paid off some 30 to 40 years in the future—another example of controversial policy decisions that tie the hands of future councils. These two situations translate to zero direct lift tax revenue from Vail to the city.

TAHOE GARDENERS

Longer days and warmer nights have local gardeners preparing for another season of joy and disappointment. This is not an activity for anyone who is easily defeated as gardening at 6,200 feet can be an exercise in futility. Between the marauding critters seeking an easy meal of plants and bulbs or an opportunity to dig up every pot on your deck or the uncertainty of freezing temperatures, high altitude gardening is best suited for people with tenacity and a good sense of humor. Gardeners are my favorite people because they “touch the earth and make it bloom.”

To be continued….

While nearly $3 billion has been spent on Lake Tahoe’s clarity in the past quarter century, what’s actually in the water was never a concern until the last handful of years.

Water isn’t the only thing in the lake and that’s a problem because most people who live in Tahoe are consuming water from the lake or well water. Multiple studies have shown an abundance of microplastics in Lake Tahoe.

In fact, Tahoe was the third worst

water,” said Madonna Dunbar, TWSA executive director.

TWSA members are: Cave Rock Water System, Edgewood Water Company, Glenbrook Water Cooperative, Incline Village GID, Kingsbury GID, Lakeside Park Association, North Tahoe PUD, Round Hill GID, Skyland Water Company, South Tahoe PUD, Tahoe City PUD, and Zephyr Water Utility.

Dunbar said the basin has more than 50 water purveyors, mostly small ones that

lake for microplastics in a study published in the journal Nature last year.

Tahoe Water Suppliers Association (TWSA) is working with scientists at Tahoe Environmental Research Center in Incline Village and Desert Research Institute in Reno to combat the problem.

“(We) have done independent sampling of four in-takes. A very small amount of contamination was found on a scale of hardly anything compared to what is being found in other surface waters and what they are finding in bottled

include individual neighborhoods. Because microplastics are anything smaller than 5 mm, which is the size of a grain of rice, they aren’t easy to see. Nor are they something to be picked up on a beach cleanup or by divers scouring the lake’s floor.

“Particles of greatest concern to human health are smaller than 20 microns,” explained Katie Senft, a staff research associate with the Tahoe Environmental Research Center. For perspective, a human hair is 20 to 120 microns.

In the April 2024 issue of the Mountain News an introductory article introduced the Title IX gender inequity issues that are going on at South Tahoe High School in the sports programs. While the article was mostly accurate, there was a closing quote that we would like to provide more context about regarding the need to have more Task Force meetings.

First, the Title IX Task Force at LTUSD is a collaborative group of individuals working on solutions to ensure gender inequities that have been experienced across sports at STHS will be corrected and monitored moving forward with transparency based on data driven decision making.

Second, although multiple meetings with multiple people have already occurred in the three years prior to the time the Task Force updated the School Board at the

Senft in 2018 started studying microplastics at the beaches in the basin. A year’s worth of water samples were taken starting in August 2020. Her group took more samples than the journal study did, but the results were similar.

When money surfaces, Senft hopes to do more studies.

“I’d like to look at atmospheric depositions of plastics,” she said.

What wildfires blow in is a concern.

When Senft and her cohorts took a sample of Lake Tahoe on Aug. 4, 2021, the Caldor Fire had not started, but the Dixie Fire was raging. They recorded a spike in microplastics that day. Just think of all those plastics burning, then floating in the air and eventually landing in your lungs, in the soil, in bodies of water.

“The year we did our monitoring work on Tahoe we got higher levels in the spring and summer. I think (this was because of) the spring run-off over roads and bringing everything that had settled on snow over winter with it,” Senft said.

One reason Tahoe has a microplastic problem is that once the particle gets into the lake it will take on average 650 years to leave, according to Senft. This is because of the “residence time”—or how long it takes a single drop of water to pass through the system. The size of Lake Tahoe is what makes for its long residence time.

“The longer residence time of a lake, the more likely it is to have a high abundance of plastics because it doesn’t have the flush,” Senft said. “That is one of the big pieces. We can’t really change that. That is why it’s important to think about what we can do to minimize the number of plastics entering the lake in the first place.”

DRI is working on a study in conjunction with the League to Save Lake Tahoe

recent March 28th meeting, it is evident that results have been slow coming.

The Title IX Task Force would like to thank all those involved in the meetings to date, and, with due respect, we are concerned with the delay in obtaining quantitative data.

To be clear, The Title IX Task Force is at a point where more meetings aren’t really the answer, but rather, obtaining quantitative data is. The primary and repeated request is for budget information: The district should be reporting its athletic budget to the public with the information detailed by sport and gender. We request that the budget be shared/produced for all aspects of the monies spent. For example, in addition to reviewing the uniforms, fields, and equipment costs, we are requesting to see what is spent on

about how dryer lint is polluting the air with microplastics. So much of our clothing—fleece, rayon, polyester, acrylic, and spandex—contains plastic.

Monica Arienzo, an associate research professor with the Desert Research Institute, later this year expects to release findings from eight South Lake Tahoe citizen scientists who collected the output from their dryers by putting mesh over the outlet.

“We found a lot more material than we thought we would,” Arienzo said. “We wanted to look at dryers because it’s a possible source of microplastics into the environment. It can be in the air, travel longer distances, and get into streams. One reason to study it is it’s something that could be regulated by putting mesh at the end of a dryer or some other technology.”

Microplastics are essentially ground up trash.

“If you are worried about microplastics in the water, the best thing you can do is use less plastic. It has multiple benefits to each person and the planet,” Senft said. “Plastic bag bans and water bottle bans all help.”

Starting on Earth Day this year, South Lake Tahoe banned all bottled water less than one gallon. Truckee approved a similar ordinance in January. Multiple jurisdictions in the area ban plastic bags, though Nevada is lacking in these types of regulations.

GOT A QUESTION?

Email: mountainnews2@gmail.com Mail: P.O. Box 8974, South Lake Tahoe, CA 95618.

physical therapy, weight room training, staffing, and coaches.

Since the time of the April 2024 article, Shephard, Brown, Holmes, Bannister, Owen-Chapman, and others have been discussing next steps, working collaboratively toward the goal of bringing long-term solutions to the sports program culture at STHS. Ultimately, visible systems need to be developed to help the school board and district monitor and ensure equity in sports at the high school level. Once these systems are solidified, they can transfer to STMS and the elementary schools in the LTUSD system.

Kathleen Brown, Tracy Owen-Chapman founders, Title IX Task Force

A manta trawl collects microplastics no deeper than 5 inches at Lake Tahoe.

The second annual growyour-own festival returns to the Tallac Historic Site June 8 from 11am to 2pm. The event focuses on growing edible plants at high elevations. Attendees can pick from among several seeds and seedlings to get a garden going, get hands-on advice from local experts and browse various vendors.

The American Legion will host a Memorial Day Ceremony on May 27 at 11am. Join members for an afternoon of live music, barbeque, horseshoes, darts, badminton and corn hole and a cash bar.

Nevada Division of Forestry recently announced that they have caught up on the backlog of burn piles on all Nevada state lands in the Tahoe Basin. This includes popular sites like Spooner and Sand Harbor state parks, and Van Sickle Bi-State Park, and small urban lots owned by the state. Al Tahoe Firewise Community BBQ. Free to Al Tahoe residents only. June 1 (Saturday) 11am to 3pm. Fire Station #2 (2951 Lake Tahoe Blvd.). Residents of the Al Tahoe neighborhood are invited to come meet their neighbors and learn about the Firewise program. Donations are appreciated.

Congressman Kevin Kiley will be the guest speaker at 11:30am. For more information: altahoefirewise.com. Tahoe Tallac Village I and the Tahoe Keys are the newest Firewise USA designated neighborhoods.

The annual Wildfire Safety Expo is May 18, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at South Tahoe Middle School.

The League to Save Lake Tahoe is creating an environmental and education center at the corner of Highway 50 and Al Tahoe Boulevard in South Lake Tahoe. It will feature an outdoor amphitheater, native plant educational garden, and citizen science laboratory, South Lake Tahoe Fire is showing the documentary Elemental on June 7 at the Lake Tahoe Community College theater. Doors open at 5:30 p.m., movie starts at 6 p.m. A Q&A with Fire Chief Jim Drennan, Fire Marshal Kim George and a guest will follow. Tickets are $5; email fireinfo@cityofslt.us to purchase Former South Tahoe High football standout McCallan Castles has signed a free agent contract with the Philadelphia Eagles as a tight end. His college career included stints at UC Berkeley, UC Davis and the University of Tennessee.

Musician Alan Miller is bringing Tahoe AL’s Songwriter Showcase Concerts to the community, devoted to presenting original songs by dedicated artists living in and around the Lake Tahoe region and intimate live entertainment in a variety of musical styles. The first special event will be at Unity at the Lake the evening of May 25 at 7pm (doors open, 6pm) with Tahoe AL and friends, and more concerts will follow every two to three months. An open mic will follow the concerts, open to all. Cost, $15. More information at tahoealmusic.com.

Black Ice Theater Company will be presenting

First Date a comedy about a blind date, May 16 through May 18 at 7:30pm at the Duke Theatre at Lake Tahoe Community College. Best enjoyed by grownups. Leave the little ones at home.

Local artist Michelle Sweeney will be hosting three wildland conversations on May 14, May 21 and May 28 from noon to 1pm at the Lake Tahoe Community College Roberta Mason Library. Joining her in dialogue will be local author Bruce Rettig, Washoe Cultural Resources Director Herman Fillmore and wildland firefighter Leona Allen. They will focus on climate, language, indigenous culture and storytelling.

Barton Health will be offering free sports physicals for student athletes on May 19 from 9am to 3pm at the urgent care facility at Stateline. Walk-ins only. Parents must be present.

Vitalant will be hosting a blood drive on May 17 from 11:30am to 5pm at the South Lake Tahoe Rec Center on Rufus Allen Blvd.

The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency and the California Tahoe Conservancy have developed an online, climate resilience dashboard

The dashboard draws on data from diverse sources and displays them in relation to their role in climate resilience. For example, the dashboard tracks the resilience of Lake Tahoe’s transportation system by reporting total transit ridership, equitable access to

transportation, miles of bike and pedestrian facilities, a breakdown of people’s transportation choices, and the availability of electric vehicle charging stations.

The information will help measure the results of various climate actions. The dashboard also includes climate-friendly choices people can make for more resilient human and natural communities. The dashboard can be accessed at https://climate. laketahoeinfo.org.

Pope Beach was named one of the top 25 beaches in the country by Travel + Leisure.

David Jinkens former city manager, and former candidate Keith Roberts have each announced they will be running for South Lake Tahoe City Council in the November election. The filing period opens this summer.

The El Dorado County Senior Nutrition Program is currently seeking volunteer delivery drivers for its meals on wheels program for adults aged 60 and over. Volunteer drivers deliver meals once a week between 10 am and noon. Those who are interested should attend an informational session on May 23 or June 20 from 1pm to 2pm at the Senior Center. For more information, please call Andrea Muzzy at 530-621-4546.

Vail Resorts received Mountain Travel Symposium’s Summit Award in April for its Epic Wellness program. The initiative provides employees with mental health tools and resources.

New trail set to open

Highway 50 is no longer the only route linking the South Shore with Carson City. For those who are into human power, the Capital to Tahoe (C2T) trail will open as soon as the snow melts.

The 9.8-mile trail, which is the first single-track connection between Tahoe and Carson, is accessible to hikers, mountain bikers, equestrians and dogs.

“Cap to Tahoe ends at Laxalt Flat, which is where it makes a connection with the Tahoe Rim Trail. This is a fairly remote location on the TRT; roughly halfway between Mount Rose Highway and Spooner Summit,” explained Gregg Bergen, trails coordinator for Carson City Parks, Recreation and Open Space.

The U.S. Forest Service in April spread about 20 tons of seed on 4,000 acres burned in the Tamarack Fire. The lightningcaused fire charred 68,637 acres in Alpine and Douglas counties in summer 2021.The Nevada Division of Forestry in February 2022 spread nearly 36 tons of seed over 8,000 acres in southern Douglas County.

The Lake Tahoe Educational Foundation is bringing back its popular Celebration of Education on May 16 from 5:30pm to 8:30 pm at the Lake Tahoe Golf Course. The evening will include an awards ceremony for the Lake Tahoe Unified School District Hall of Distinction, student entertainment and appetizers prepared by culinary arts students. Cost, $20. Purchase at ltedf.org.

Looking to shed winter clothing? Tahoe Coalition for the Homeless accepts donations Monday, Wednesday, and Friday noon-4 p.m. at the Red Lodge, 1137 Emerald Bay Road, South Lake Tahoe.

South Lake Tahoe’s Lisa Huard for the past 21 years has been the leader of the annual Drug Store Project that teaches South Shore sixth-graders about drug prevention. Next year Theresa Papandrea will be the leader.

Have a community announcement for Heard? Email mountainnnews2@gmail.com, subject line “Heard”

At this terminus a left would take people south on Marlette Lake Road, with an option to exit the forest near Incline Village. The new trail also intersects with Snow Valley Peak trail. The maximum elevation is 8,382 feet.

With snow melting on the East Shore trails sooner than other areas of the basin, this trail is likely to be open before summer tourists arrive.

Note that it really is a 16.8-mile trek between Carson City and Tahoe because one must be on the Lincoln Bypass trail for 4.4 miles and the Ash-to-Kings trail for 2.6 miles before starting C2T.

Nonetheless, people starting in Carson City can now easily connect with the Tahoe Rim Trail and Pacific Crest Trail. And those starting in Tahoe can get to Nevada’s capital city without driving.

This $160,000 segment was first conceived about a quarter century ago, with real work beginning about eight

years ago by Muscle Powered, Carson City, Nevada State Parks, U.S. Forest Service, Visit Carson City, private land owners and others.

Trail builders finished the project in October, but white stuff covered parts of the trail so it never officially opened.

Visit Carson City says the IMBA rating is blue, or more difficult. Most of the singletrack trail is 2-feet wide. The average grade is 6 percent, with a maximum of 19 percent.

In March, Muscle Powered, the volunteer nonprofit organization that helps build trails in Carson City, received the national achievement award for the C2T from the Coalition for Recreational Trails for outstanding use of recreational trails program funds in the community linkage category.

Muscle Powered is the group responsible for maintaining the trail with the help of Carson City.

An artist's rendering of the new League to Save Lake Tahoe Center.

Kevin Joell, who owns the trail construction and contracting company Sierra Trail Works, uses a miniexcavator to clear a path thorugh the forest for the C2T trail.

Rob Woessner tests out a section of the Capital to Tahoe trail.

Whiteboard jungle

Let’s get this out of the way first: what I wrote in March alarmed some folks and some others also read things into it that weren’t there. So, to be clear, yes!— we have many great kids, like any community, and most kids want to try—and to learn. Heck, even many of those who don’t try in their classes are often fantastic kids.

But that fact doesn’t make what I wrote inaccurate. Two things can be true at the same time.

It’s that old “10/90” rule, like you find any other place: you’re talking about somewhere around 10 percent of the group who cause enough issues—usually on repeat—to require 90 percent of everyone’s energy, attention and time, which then pulls all those resources away from the other 90 percent. And it’s not a silent or “low-key” 10 percent, but one that disrupts every aspect of school and learning.

Insurance karma

You knew I was asking for it, and I got it. A mere week after last month’s column came out, in which I lamented the homeowner’s insurance situation and begged not to be dropped, guess what notice we received in the mail? Yep. That’s right. So, the good times search for other coverage begins. Take-away: don’t openly question insurance companies; you will get the smackdown.

Many of you are rightfully more concerned about health care insurance. Now more than ever before, you need to do your homework before going to your local hospital or you could find yourself facing a bill you previously thought unimaginable. People are reporting Barton bills that will leave you stunned—unless, of course, you’ve had this experience yourself already.

School corner

Here’s another way I can talk about stuff that’ll bite me in the rear, no doubt. The Lake Tahoe Unified School District has been playing games with “data” and information, and worse, using it push decision-making.

Now this gets into fancy math, so bear with me. But here’s the gist: let’s say you survey a group of fruit-lovers, you get responses from 15 percent of the group, and 95 percent of those surveys state that pineapple is the best fruit. This does not mean that 95 percent of the entire group are pineapple crazy. It actually means closer to 14 percent are—at least that you know of. You’ll note that these are almost opposite conclusions—not just a negligible misuse of data.

Well, this is exactly the kind of thing that’s happening with data gathered from parents, staff and students.

To be fair, getting people to give their input is a challenge. In recent surveys, most parent respondents represent Sierra House School, Meyers Elementary and a handful from Tahoe Valley. Bijou came in with three responses. STHS only had 65 total. Of all those, 67 percent reported white ethnicity. So, you can see that we’re missing feedback from significant populations in our school district, and surely these folks have opinions and ideas.

Ok, so why are so few people responding to these surveys?

After all, the request for input is so that the district can gather information to prioritize spending in ways to best serve students, so wouldn’t folks want to respond?

Well, one explanation for the apathy or choice not to participate is in what I just explained.

If you’re routinely seeing survey results being deliberately misinterpreted and used to downplay the issues or make things look

better than they are, then you’re likely to think, why bother? You don’t trust the process. You have found it to be disingenuous. And why is it a problem to make things seem better than they are? Because then you’re not trying to understand the challenges we face, and you’re certainly not trying to address them. And that should bother all of us.

And while I’m at it, it’s this issue of trust that’s at the heart of the upcoming bond measure that LTUSD is going to put before us voters again this fall. Heck, trust is at the heart of everything, isn’t it? And voting for such a big ticket commitment, especially considering how many years you’ll be paying it back, really comes down to how much you can trust the school district and its leadership—not just the current superintendent and current school board, but those you’re likely to see in the coming decades—because they will be the ones to continue carrying out the plans (or not) that your money was supposedly going toward.

I’ll be revisiting this issue of the bond measure in some more depth as we near the fall, but you can bet that the issue of trust is going to be a common theme.

I’ll note that our superintendent, Dr. Cutler hosted a voluntary meeting at STHS at which I shared all of this, and he said he understood the concerns and will look into it. As a side note, there were maybe 10 of us in the room for this meeting— much like the level of survey participation mentioned earlier.

As always, feel free to email mikesmutterings@gmail. com

Inefficient and inadequate are two words people often use to describe public transit on the South Shore—in particular on the California side.

South Lake Tahoe and El Dorado County officials are teaming up to do something about it. The respective elected bodies this year unanimously agreed to have their staffs create a transit joint powers authority, which should be in place by the end of the year.

“The goal of forming the JPA is to have more local control in decision-making and access to funding for transit services. Details of that will get flushed out through agreements,” said Hilary Roverud, South Lake Tahoe assistant city manager.

Tahoe Transportation District (TTD) took over transit on the South Shore after South Tahoe Areas Transit Authority (STATA) filed for bankruptcy in August 2010. STATA was made up of public and private entities including local governments, casinos, Heavenly Mountain Resort and Ridge Tahoe.

Tahoe Regional Planning Agency serves as the TMPO (Tahoe Metropolitan Planning Organization). As such, it receives the transportation dollars from the states and federal government, and then passes those on to TTD.

Once the transit JPA is functioning, it could apply for those dollars. It would be up to the TRPA Governing Board to decide who gets the money.

For this fiscal year California contributed $3.5 million and $4.3 million came from Washington, D.C.

“We have believed money for years for residents in the city and county is being used for other projects around the basin. We feel like the money that should rightly be spent on the California side is being siphoned off into other areas without anyone being held responsible,” EDC Supervisor Brooke Laine said. “There is no traction with TTD to correct that.”

Today, TTD has two fixed routes along Highway 50, but

Transit needs to get a move on

they don’t go to Meyers. Paratransit—for older residents and people with disabilities—operates in El Dorado County on an on-call basis.

Roverud said, “There is some frustration with TTD which is currently running transit; that

• I would most likely use it to get to the clubs for the airport shuttle or special events.

• With expensive parking at Stateline, efficient public transportation to shopping, restaurants and events there would be useful.

• Lake Link is a great re-

said one block was all they would hoof it.

Thirty-nine percent would use it once or twice a week, 23 percent more than twice a week, 8 percent more than four times a week and 27 percent would use it only once a month.

they are not exploring new and innovative ways to deliver transit.”

El Dorado County has eliminated future allocations to TTD. This fiscal year it received $270,000 in discretionary transient occupancy tax dollars. In April, the Board of Supervisors unanimously agreed the figure for 2024-25 would be zero.

Transit survey

El Dorado County in February conducted a transit survey of residents in the unincorporated area of the South Shore.

More than 500 people responded, with more than 200 writing specific comments. Those included:

• Please bring back the trolley or a bus that goes through Emerald Bay between Tahoma and SLT.

source that I would love to use but it doesn't come to Black Bart or the Y so I’ve been unable to use it.

• We need road repairs, not a free transit.

• For the love of god, please bring more transit—buses, door-to-door, express from one area to another, especially to the ski resorts.

“The most mind-blowing part of the whole thing is that 80 percent of all the people who responded said they would be interested in microtransit, fixed route or both,” Laine said.

Most (85.4 percent) want transit to go to recreation sites, while work and errands were other reasons.

Almost 60 percent said they were willing to walk a half mile for a bus, while nearly 30 percent

Laine would like the JPA to work with the U.S. Forest Service to provide transit to recreation sites. She has floated the idea of closing the parking lot at Eagle Falls assuming public transit is available.

Local Forest Service Supervisor Erick Walker is willing to have conversations with Laine, but would not comment further for this story.

Laine is also working with the El Dorado Transit board to get the Amtrak bus between Tahoe and Sacramento to establish a stop in Meyers.

Transit today

Carl Hasty is the leader of Tahoe Transportation District. TTD was created through the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Compact.

Hasty knows the system needs improvement.

“1974 is when Placer County and South Lake Tahoe first started public transit,” Hasty said. “Here we are 50 years later and we don't have a regionally connected transit plan for Tahoe. And we are trying still to get more local service.”

Money, he says, is the problem. The inability to get enough drivers also keeps more buses from rolling.

Hasty applauds the idea of the city-county transit JPA if it “brings a greater amount of money to the South Shore;” in the same breath, he said, it’s not logical “if they are just talking about moving around existing money.”

His agency is in the process of updating its short-range transit plan, which will include input by local jurisdictions. The public will be able to comment on it this year.

In addition to the two routes on Highway 50, TTD has buses going to and from Carson Valley which connect to Carson City.

Hasty is a supporter of Lake Link, the microtransit service on the South Shore that connects to his agency’s fixed routes by using smaller vehicles in neighborhoods. Lake Link is overseen by South Shore Transit Management Agency.

SSTMA has been around since 1994. Its website says the agency was “the outcome of a study to determine the most effective way to engage the private sector in planning, developing, and implementing transportation, transit, and mobility projects throughout the South Shore.”

Its first project was the now-defunct seasonal trolleys.

SSTMA’s board is comprised of reps from lodging (Jerry Bindel), casinos (Karie Hall), business community (Carol Chaplin and Steve Teshara), community mobility (Gavin Feiger), social services (Frank Gerdeman), environment (Darcie Goodman Collins), health (Chris Proctor), city (Hilary Roverud), recreation (Ryan Smith), and Douglas County (Sharla Hales).

Note that El Dorado County does not have a seat on that board.

Lake Link microtransit goes from Round Hill to Grocery Outlet in South Lake Tahoe. In its inaugural year last year, it carried more than 120,000 people, with projections close to 200,000 this year.

A fleet of four has grown to six. Some seat six, others 12. Some are equipped with wheelchair lifts and bike-ski-snowboard racks

“We are working in partnership with the states to get some dedicated funding; $1.2 million from Nevada over two years for increased microtransit is how we increased service to Round Hill to the Safeway there,” SSTMA Executive Director Raymond Suarez said.

The city contributed $500,000 for expanded service area and hours.

“We have been in conversations with the city and TTD about city-wide expansion, but that is sometime in the future,” Suarez said. “It’s all contingent upon funding.”

Money matters

Another regional transit plan should come out next year.

The bi-state regulatory agency’s Transportation Action Plan from October 2023 calls for: “Providing 15-minute service between town centers and recreation destinations, 30- to 60-minute service between neighborhoods and town centers, and inter-regional service for commuters and visitors from neighboring regions.”

TRPA blames money for why goals have not been met.

“We don’t think transit is broken in any way. It just needs more funding to run more regularly,” TRPA spokesman Jeff Cowen said.

Cowen said if Congress would fully fund the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act of 2016 this would bring transportation dollars here. Only $110 million of $440 million allocated in the bill has arrived.

If that legislation expires in September, the money goes with it.

However, Placer County seems to have its stuff together when it comes to providing functional transit.

Years ago it opted to run transit in the basin. In addition to the federal and state dollars it receives, it gets transient occupan-

TRPA clearly has failed to meet the 2017 Regional Transportation Plan goal calling for free transit throughout the Lake Tahoe Basin, integrated between the shores, and with service every 30 minutes by 2021.

cy tax money that is collected in Lake Tahoe. For this fiscal year, that amounted to $2,685,526.

TART Connect started in June 2021 in Placer and Washoe counties. The microtransit service this year recorded its one-millionth rider in the North Lake Tahoe-Truckee region.

Laine said Placer County is one of the models being looked at by El Dorado County and South Lake Tahoe officials.

TART Connect expanded to Truckee in June 2022. TART ridership in Truckee has increased by more than 500 percent from two years ago.

The 2023 TRPA transit document says, “Unfunded needs for priority projects total $400 million over the next 20 years, or a minimum of $20 million annually to achieve the goals of the Regional Transportation Plan. Without this funding, the region will not be able to meet statewide objectives.”

The 7-7-7 strategy was created last year to fill that $20 million gap. Fingers are crossed for another $7 million from the federal government, $4.5 million from California, $2.5 million via Nevada, and $7 million in local/ private dollars. Cowen said taxes and fees are ways to raise those dollars. That plan calls for a basin entry fee. Cowen acknowledges it is not a popular idea.

“But there are other options that don’t need wide support,” Cowen said. “Instead of creating toll roads we could have toll corridors like for Emerald Bay where there is a lot of traffic on peak days.”

Lake Link shuttles are able to accommodate two bikes at a time.

Lake Link uses small vehicles like this to move people around the South Shore.

These insects be-long in Tahoe

When it comes to naming wildlife in the Lake Tahoe Basin bees might not be in the top 10. This is unfortunate because of how important they are to the ecosystem.

Rachel Vannette, a chancellor’s fellow with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, on April 25 gave a talk at Sunnyside in Tahoe City put on by the Tahoe Environmental Research Center.

There are 4,000 bee species native to North America, with almost 2,000 of them living in California and nearly 1,000 calling Nevada home. Ones native to the basin include bumble bees, mason bees, sweat bees, leafcutter bees, and carpenter bees.

almost nothing and that reduced visitation by the native bees. And it turns out honeybees are really bad pollinators for the quamash,” Vannette said.

The end result was the quamash visited by honeybees did not repopulate.

Vannette said the best way to help bees in the basin is to conserve natural areas with high wildflower diversity. Plant native willow, lupine, penstemon, sage and buckwheat because bees are attracted to them.

“And if you plant things throughout the season, you are more likely to support healthy populations of bees,” Vannette said.

Honeybees, though, are not native to the United States. They have been imported mostly for agricultural purposes.

“They are our domesticated livestock of the insect world,” Vannette said.

While honey bees are often in the news because of their dwindling populations, Vannette is not an advocate of beekeepers in the flatlands bringing their boxes of bees to our forests.

She quoted a recent study done by UC Davis about the nectar availability of the quamash plant when honeybees were brought here.

“(The researcher) found that with increasing honeybee abundance the nectar availability in that plant decreased to

She suggests leaving some ground bare around homes because that is where bees make nests.

While no one wants another Angora or Caldor fire to rip through the basin, bees actually benefit from fire because a cleared canopy is a good thing for them.

“The light can get through to the ground and that flush of nutrients hits the ground and all of these wildflowers will spring back,” Vannette said. “In a number of different regions it has been shown that bee populations increase (and) the diversity increases for a number of years following wildfire. A healthy forest means a healthy bee population.”

Carpenter bees are native to Lake Tahoe.

U.S.

tells Father Joe to leave

Father Joe was ecstatic in March when the letter from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services arrived. That was until he opened it.

Joseph Sebastian has been the priest of St. Theresa Catholic Church in South Lake Tahoe since July 2022. Now his days are numbered.

He was expecting his green card in the mail. Instead, the correspondence was to notify him he was denied that document. This means he has to leave the country because his temporary work visa expires at the end of June.

Since that March 26 letter, he has received a three-month reprieve, so he will be in Tahoe through October.

Most dioceses are run by foreign-born priests,” Sebastian said. He said countless priests and nuns are affected. And it’s not just Catholics—it’s any religious group employing non-citizens. “It’s a big problem.”

Last year the federal government changed some of its green card categories, which has affected foreign-born religious workers.

The Associated Press reported, “Attorneys estimate so many people are now in the queue that the wait is at least a decade long, because only 10,000 of these green cards can

be granted annually.”

Sebastian came to California in October 2019 from his home country of India. He has worked as a priest in Rancho Cordova, Vacaville and South Tahoe.

The 46-year-old began his religious career with 10 years in Calcutta doing work with Mother Teresa’s order, then five years as a high school principal. Sebastian is part of the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate order.

Sebastian said his shock about the green card denial lasted no more than five minutes after he took the letter and went to church.

While leaving isn’t what he had planned, he is resolute about the consequences and believes God knows what he is doing.

Sebastian plans to leave for India in late fall to spend a month visiting his parents, who he has not seen since coming to the United States. Then he will be off to Ecuador to become fluent in Spanish through an immersion program.

“I am lacking one thing clearly and that is my Spanish. I’m going to Ecuador to learn Spanish so I can come back and be helpful to my people here,” Sebastian said. “After coming here, I learned Spanish is very important here.”

The law today allows people to leave the country for a year, then reapply for a work visa, which is good for five years.

Sebastian said the bishop at the Sacramento Diocese, which oversees the South Lake church, wants him back. No one at the diocese was available to talk.

Life at the church

Parishioners at St. Theresa don’t want Sebastian to go. He informed them about his predicament shortly after he was notified.

“I’m disappointed that the immigration authorities don’t see that foreign nationals are filling a really important role that can’t be done just by anyone,” Chris Campion, a lector and member of the parish finance committee, said. “They are certainly not taking a job away from another U.S. citizen. There is a priest shortage in the United States.”

Judy Finn, another member of the congregation, said, “The thing that I like about him is he is always smiling, he is always happy. His homilies are very inspiring.”

She has been impressed with his desire to improve his English and Spanish by taking classes at Lake Tahoe Community College.

Sebastian’s thick accent can make understanding him

difficult at times. Recognizing this, he has his homilies printed in the church bulletin each week to ensure he connects with his people.

Finn and others have volunteered to write letters to whomever would be appropriate, but Sebastian has told them the diocese and attorneys are doing what can be done.

Lisa Huard, a regular at St. T’s, is sad Sebastian must leave.

“He has just worked so hard not only with the language, but just with trying to keep our community in the church going,” Huard said. “It’s not just affecting our community, but everyone in the religious sector.”

Sebastian is at the church every day. Mass is celebrated every weekday, once Saturday night, and three times on Sunday—with the evening one in Spanish. Then there are funeral Masses, confessions and other church business to attend to.

“I’m always here. And I put my cell phone in the bulletin. They call me for many things,” Sebastian said. “My primary duty is to be available to the people.”

He is inspired by Mother Teresa’s belief that one’s availability is more important than their abilities.

Adjusting to Tahoe

Besides becoming a student again, Sebastian has had to learn how to cope with snow.

“This was the first time I see snow in my life. I never see snow. My state (in India) it is like tropical weather, like a humid place. I only see snow like in movies,” he said. He shoveled so much his first winter, that record-setting one of 2022-23, he pulled a tendon and had to wear a brace for months.

The move to Tahoe brought other firsts. This is the only time in his life he has lived alone because the religious order he belongs to is monastic, which means they live communally.

Sebastian has no idea how to cook, so he is grateful for the meals people provide. Others have taught him how to ski, while some have taken him hiking and fishing.

“People love me and I love them,” he said. That’s why he intends to return. He feels very much at home at St. Theresa, in South Lake Tahoe, and believes he has more work to do.

Sebastian is looking at the year leave as a sabbatical of sorts where he can learn Spanish and become even more of a resource for his parishioners at St. Theresa.

Priest Joseph Sebastian's days at St. Theresa's are numbered.

Who can vote on the vacancy tax?

While it won’t be known until the end of this month whether the vacancy tax proposal will move forward, the idea of taxing unoccupied dwellings in South Lake Tahoe is dividing locals and property owners.

It’s also bringing up the question of whether a second homeowner can change her voter registration in order to vote in the city this November.

First, though, the tax needs to qualify for the Nov. 5 ballot.

The petition was filed with Sue Blankenship, city clerk, on April 22.

“They had enough signatures for me to send the petition to the (El Dorado County) registrar of voters for certification of sufficient or insufficient,” Blankenship said.

The county has 30 business days to certify there are at least 1,159 valid signatures. Assuming it does so, the City Council on June 4 or June 18 will be asked to certify that the measure qualifies for the ballot. The council action is a matter of checking off a box in the whole process that is akin to the vice president certifying an election—just ministerial.

As written, anyone who leaves their home vacant more than 182 days would be taxed $3,000 starting in 2026, and then $6,000 every year after that, with the rate going up based on the Consumer Price Index. In other words, it would be OK to use your Tahoe home seasonally for six months to avoid the tax.

The lack of housing, not just affordable places, is what’s driving proponents. The goal is to bring more housing stock into the market for locals to rent or buy— the latter assuming the owner doesn’t want to contend with the tax and sells the property.

single largest revenue source.”

That assumes people pay the fine and don’t actually rent their place.

The South Lake Tahoe Residential Vacancy Tax Ordinance states money would be used for “the creation and operation of local housing, road infrastructure, transit infrastructure and operations, and related programs.”

Building more housing isn’t just about money. The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency oversees housing allocations. One of its mandates from the get-go when the bi-state Compact was signed by President Richard Nixon in 1969 was to limit growth.

tation is fixed, and where you intend to remain and return to whenever you are absent from it. (Elec. Code, §§ 321, 349, 20202034.)”

The handbook also says, “Generally, your domicile is where your family lives, where you physically reside, the place you intend to return to whenever you are gone from it, where your driver’s license says you reside, and where you claim your homeowner’s property tax exemption or renter’s tax credit. (Elec. Code, §§ 349, 2020- 2034.)”

Locals weigh-in

A private Facebook group called South Lake Tahoe Community Patriots Group was formed to combat the tax. It says the group is for: “True locals who wish to save South Lake Tahoe from the onslaught of radical socialist agendas. Re-establish South Lake Tahoe as the world's greatest vacation destination.”

The administrator is city Councilmember Tami Wallace.

Erick Asbury on Nextdoor described the group as “a great group organizing and exchanging ideas to combat the proposed tyrannical vacancy tax.”

“The 2022 American Community Survey census indicates 7,150 out of 16,275 total housing units in the city of South Lake Tahoe are vacant. These vacant homes now account for approximately 44 percent of the total housing supply in South Lake Tahoe, up from approximately 33 percent in 2000,” the petition says. “The increase in vacant units has reduced available housing, contributing to a shrinking population, shortage of local workers, decline in school enrollment, and rising housing costs. Median home prices in the area have more than doubled since 2013. Approximately half of workers in the Tahoe area now live outside the region, and of those who do live here, nearly two-thirds do not earn enough to afford the living expenses of a typical family.”

Some on Nextdoor question how the city will know if someone is at their residence the required number of days to avoid the vacancy tax.

Some on the social media site talked about having dog or house sitters visit multiple properties in a day to consider it being used. After all, the initiative doesn’t say how many hours a day someone has to occupy the dwelling.

Roberta G. on Nextdoor had this suggestion: “How about a grandfathering out of the VT for existing owners, and just applying to newer construction or those purchased going forward from say 2025? As I posted before, I get so sad seeing all the completely unused homes in the Sierra Tract. COMPLETELY UNUSED! It feels downright wasteful and immoral to me. Certainly not conducive to a family, neighborhood vibe.”

Tax and growth

The ballot title and summary written by the city attorney says, “This measure would require every owner of a residen-

tial unit in the city to submit an annual declaration of occupancy.

The city would be required to establish a process to annually audit residential units to confirm occupancy. Making a false declaration would result in a penalty of at least 100 percent of the tax owed in addition to other penalties and interest.”

What the accountability and enforcement processes will be remains to be defined.

The petition has a few exceptions for who would be taxed. “(It includes) exclusions for properties under renovation, seasonal cabins, elderly residents in care facilities, wildland firefighters, and active-duty military, among others.”

It could have ramifications for otherwise full-time residents who take an extended trip, have to leave to care for an ill or aging relative-friend, are temporarily relocated for work, or for some other reason are not in Tahoe for 182 days.

It’s unknown how many millions of dollars might be raised by the tax, but the petition says it “could become the city’s

While likely no one 55 years ago anticipated what the Tahoe basin would be like in 2024, one goal was to not pave over paradise. This means the demand for housing will probably forever outpace the supply even if all the houses were occupied by locals. More people permanently in the basin also comes with other impacts to infrastructure like roads and the environment.

Whether the trifecta of balancing housing equity with environmental protections and growth constraints can be achieved is a question to be answered in the future.

Fraud vs. personal choice

A simple majority is needed to pass this tax. That is one reason there is chatter on social media to get people to change their voter registration to South Lake Tahoe prior to November in order to vote on the initiative.

California Election Codes 2022-2035 govern where people can vote. It’s written in a bit of convoluted lawyer-speak.

Easier to understand is the Voting Law Compliance Handbook: A Voter’s Guide to Safeguard California’s Election Process that was updated by the Secretary of State in January.

It says, “The Elections Code requires you to register to vote using the address of your domicile in the county in which you reside. ‘Domicile’ is defined as the place where you live, where your habi-

It’s up to the Secretary of State’s Office (SOS) and possibly the El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office to investigate allegations of voter fraud.

The South Shore was the subject of such an investigation

in 2010 when voters in the Fallen Leaf Lake Community Services District were accused of voting irregularities.

In September 2011, District Attorney Vern Pierson issued a letter to every voter registered at the time of the August 2010 recall election outlining the department’s decision.

• Residential units vacant more than 182 days in a calendar year would be taxed beginning Jan. 1, 2026.

• First year of vacancy would be a $3,000 tax.

• Each subsequent year the tax would be $6,000 per unit.

• Rates would increase based on the Consumer Price Index.

• Tax revenues would be used for: repayment of bonds or other debt for housing projects and housing assistance, subsidy, and incentive programs; roads, bicycle and multi-use paths; stormwater infrastructure; transit; and administrative costs to South Lake Tahoe and any legal defense of the measure.

• A five-member committee would oversee the administration of the tax and make recommendations to the City Council.

Source: City of South Lake Tahoe

The letter stated, “This investigation revealed that improprieties had in fact occurred, and were criminally subject to prosecution as felony-grade offenses. Largely because the acts appear to have been precipitated by poor judgment, some misinformation which was circulating in the community, and a failure by some to accurately and fully appreciate the requirements of the pertinent law, this office has determined to decline prosecution at this time.”

The letter went on to say that any similar future violations would be prosecuted.

While Pierson is still the DA, he didn’t respond to multiple calls.

All Assistant District Attorney Lisette Suder said was, “As to the facts or evidence of what constitutes a violation of voter registration, we would have to see the police reports and evaluate the facts of the particular case.”

Changes in local voter registration numbers might be relevant six months from now.

Linda Webster, El Dorado County assistant registrar of voters, said, “We are not an enforcement agency. When you sign to register to vote you do so under penalty of perjury that this is your residence or domicile. That is a legal document they are signing.”

Blankenship is South Lake Tahoe’s elections official—not the county. She has received inquiries about second homeowners wanting to vote in South Lake Tahoe.

“It is not up to me to contact people who have changed their voter registration address,” Blankenship said when questioned about whether she tells people

about the Election Code. She also is not an enforcer.

Blankenship reached out to the Secretary of State’s Office about voter registration since that department has the ultimate authority over such matters in California.

She asked: “May a person change their voter registration address to their second home—not primary residence—in order to vote in the area of their second home?”

(a) ‘Residence’ for voting purposes means a person's domicile.

(b) The domicile of a person is that place in which his or her habitation is fixed, wherein the person has the intention of remaining, and to which, whenever he or she is absent, the person has the intention of returning. At a given time, a person may have only one domicile.

(c) The residence of a person is that place in which the person's habitation is fixed for some period of time, but wherein he or she does not have the intention of remaining. At a given time, a person may have more than one residence.”

The SOS emailed her saying: “The address you include in your voter registration must be the address of your permanent residence. The California Elections Code section 349 stipulates the following regarding residence and domicile:

The Secretary of State's Office enforces voting laws in California.

It may be up to voters in November to decide whether South Lake Tahoe has a vacancy tax.

You know what would be fun to do this month? Build a house. Well, maybe not fun-fun. More like repeatedly hit your thumb with a hammer fun. It hurts, but it’s kind of funny knowing you did it to yourself.

So let’s all grab a hammer. As you navigate the stressful process of building a home, I’ve found banging your thumb is a helpful distraction. And, when used on your head, it works as an over-thecounter sleep aid. Warning! This has been known to be addictive. Remember to seek advice from experts who are industrious and highly skilled at home building, like our local beavers. However, I’d recommend going with a professional contractor, as they are cute, buff, and the sexiest thing of all, they can fix stuff. Before we get carried away with our hammer wielding, buff contractor imaginations, let’s find a draftsman who will answer their phone. It will please you to know your draftsman will work diligently on your plans every business day, excluding holidays,

Hammer time

full moons, a negative horoscope, taco-Tuesdays, pajama Fridays, midday siestas, and the inevitable alien abductions.

But don’t be discouraged. All you need to move forward is the patience of a Buddhist monk, the life span of a bowhead whale and the bank account of Jeff Bezos. Or that hammer and a well-stocked wine cellar.

Start by meeting with your draftsman. This is much like a first date. So, if he fails to respond to basic inquires, do what you would do on any first date. Check to make sure he has a pulse. Then kick him squarely in the chest. Shortly after, he should be revived enough to ask for your phone number. And your mailing address, so he can send you an invoice.

When you receive the invoice, ask why he charged you for a two-hour meeting, as you were only together for an hour. He will explain that after you left the meeting, he was still totally thinking about it for another hour. Even though it hasn’t been

discovered yet, I’m sure there’s a planet in our solar system where this makes perfect sense.

A good draftsperson has excellent communication and technical skills and problem solving abilities. However, this is not the one you hired. Yours still isn’t communicating with you, other than sending you an invoice for chest thumping him. Along with charges for imaginary meetings.

As for your draftsman’s technical skills, he passed the project off to someone in the office at the time, who might have been the pizza delivery kid. This leaves the “problem-solving abilities” to you, which underscores the need to keep that hammer and wine bottle within reach.

Small bumps in the drafting road are to be expected, such as loss of your surveys, and plans. Or a lien against your empty lot. Or draftsmen creating two different plans, one being a Mongolian hut, and the other the Winchester Mystery House. And neither comply with building ordinances in the county, or on Mars, which is known to have very flexible building codes.

These errors are easily rectified when you point them out to someone who cares, will listen to you attentively and not leave the room, like your goldfish. On a positive note, the newly hired, lovelorn Gen X-er and a receptionist with a flip-flop fetish will pitch in to help. Naturally, you will be expected to pay for their mistakes.

Once completed, your plans will be submitted to a building agency for approval. They will require extensive review, while also serving as placemats, drink coasters and toilet seat liners for the staff.

Four years later, the draftsman will whine about how hard it is to draw a house on a mountain.

This is a good time to remind him that he chose to open his business in Tahoe, where mountains are rumored to exist.

Now the Gen x-er decides to chase his paramour across the country. And takes the company computer. You know, the one with your home plans on them?

And simultaneously, the entire office goes dark as a black hole. You begin to suspect that they’re hiding in their wine cellar. And, maybe asking themselves, “Do you think our client still has that hammer?”

However, I’m determined to learn from this experience. So, if we get the chance to meet, and I’m still thinking about you later, prepare to receive my invoice in the mail.

Trish is the author of the newly released, “Tahoe Local” — now available everywhere books aren’t banned. Feel free to contact her at trishtomer.com

Funky and free thinking

The April 23 South Lake Tahoe City Council meeting discussed among other things a potential minimum wage increase. Our kiddo, Jack spoke during the allotted public comment time about the unintended consequences of a $23 per hour local wage. He received almost universal applause and even a shouted, “You’re Hired!” from one attendee among the numerous local business owners who came to share their opposition to raising the minimum wage. It was heartwarming not only to see my

Philadelphia gentrification wave was how Wifey and I were able to buy our home here in South Lake Tahoe back in 2006. Real estate builds wealth and home ownership, conveys pride and encourages community. That’s what we want: community.

I’ve been to Aspen, Jackson Hole, and Vail and, hell, even Olympic Valley. They are empty husks of their former selves. These ski towns are like zombies: no heart, no soul. South Lake Tahoe has wonderful middleclass anchors (LTCC, Barton, USFS, LTUSD, Marriott, Liberty

want the funky local businesses to board up because no one is here to support them. We don’t want to lose our more gritty and tough mystique and become just another “boujee” shell of fakeness and f@$k-offery. And as much as I disagree with some policies and tactics by certain members of our city council, they have a point with the vacancy tax initiative. And it’s definitely struck a nerve here in town. I don’t necessarily like the proposed solution, but we do as a community (if we want to remain a community) need to find an answer and it will likely not be something that makes everyone happy.

My father often says that “the devil is in the details” and the details of this proposed vacancy tax suck. According to the SLT Vacancy Tax website, “Enforcement will be handled through spot audits and penalties for fraudulent declarations.”

rental agreements. We should be looking at ways to encourage more local, first-time home buyers to purchase and fix up older homes in town. We should also be finding ways to creatively rezone and convert dilapidated commercial properties into mixed-use or higher density and more affordable real estate.

To do this, we need more of a carrot approach than a stick one. We could incentivize builders and developers with streamlined approvals and even favorable construction loans. We could have grants for new homeowners or incentivized loans for proof of continued residency for a period of time.

son speak with confidence and poise in a high-profile setting, but to see our community come together, support each other, and agree that we love all the wild, wacky and wonderful small businesses in town and we don’t want a reckless wage hike to jeopardize them.

One topic that also came up during the meeting was the ballot initiative for establishing a “Vacancy Tax.” It’s clear that there are a lot of strong feelings in our community on this issue and rightfully so. As Americans we have an inalienable right to buy a home, and if we are fortunate enough, a second one, too. Thomas Jefferson actually borrowed the Declaration of Independence phrase, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” from John Locke’s “life, liberty, and the pursuit of property,” so the roots of this issue run deep.” And the phrase, oft repeated during the meeting, “no taxation without representation,” is a pretty clear encapsulation of the issue.

I’m a believer in real estate investment; riding the

Utilities, STPUD, Sierra-atTahoe) and a plethora of eccentric local businesses. These employers ground us as a community and keep our heads and wallets out of the stratosphere. We also have a gritty working-class stigma; this is the affordable end of the lake for vacationers where you can pack yourself a lunch and walk or bike to beach for free. The people who live here and most of the people who vacation here are authentic. I think we all would like to keep it that way.

So it is with this backdrop, the need to preserve our identity and our “Tahome,” that we come face-to-face with the reality of increasingly vacant homes. The pandemic-fueled real estate boom that made Steamboat Springs inaccessible and has gutted many a mountain town, has its fingers into South Lake Tahoe too. Fortyfour percent of our homes sit vacant most of the year. There has been a precipitous 36 percent drop in school enrollment since 2000. This could result in closing schools like in Nevada. There also has been a glaring increase in vacant storefronts. We don’t

That sounds awful. Two of my neighbors are second homeowners and they are delightful people who contribute vigorously to the local economy when they are in town. I don’t think we should spy on them to see if the home is a primary residence. The text of the initiative states that, “The City would be required to establish a process to annually audit residential units to confirm occupancy.” That’s a sure way to tear our community apart. In one case, my neighbors spend almost six months in an RV touring and visiting friends and family. Their house next door to mine is not their second home, it’s their primary residence. They just happen to not be residing in it all that often. Do they get penalized for “vacancy”?

The SLT Vacancy Tax site goes on to state, “Renting to a local resident for 6 months of the year would exempt a second homeowner from the tax.” Great, but isn’t that shortsighted. What happens to that resident for the other six months of the year? Are they supposed to go camping?

Community is built through home ownership, not six-month

If we need to tax anyone for alleged vacancy, it should be done with a scalpel, not a sledgehammer. As a long-time resident, I don’t want my local government targeting the 900 sq.ft. vacation cabin that has been in a California family for generations. That legacy is part of our identity as a town and community. A vacancy tax should be on a sliding scale, not $6,000 for everyone. The larger the property, the higher the tax. When Wifey and I bought our home in town, we chose to live in an older neighborhood with houses closer together, smaller lots, and lots of kids running around. Fifteen years later, those kids free-ranging the streets are ours. They bike to friends’ homes, to school and sports, and even the corner “liquor store” (as they call it) for candy.

This is community. When your neighbor’s snowblower breaks down and your kid helps shovel their driveway, when a tree or (last year) an ice dam needs to be removed with a chainsaw from a friend’s roof—this is community. When a local business generously donates to the Tahoe Arts Project and the whole town comes to Dancing with the Tahoe Stars— this is community. When there are enough kiddos playing softball or soccer that we can have four or five different teams to play games against—this is community. And that sort of community doesn’t exist on the north side of the lake. That sort of community died in Telluride and Crested Butte and Mammoth.

If we want to keep our Tahome, if we want to keep our funky and free-thinking little mountain town, we have to fight for it, and yes, we may have to make some hard choices that not everyone will like. A vacancy tax is a tool in the toolbox. It may not be the best answer to the problems we’re facing, but we need to do something. And as much as I don’t care for the details, I would vote for it on a ballot.

M.C. Behm is a full-time resident of South Lake Tahoe and author of “Once Upon a Quarantine” and “The Elixir of Yosemite.” Available locally and online. To learn more or respond to columns visit www.behmbooks. com or email mcbehmbooks@ gmail.com.

Spring cleaning

Change is in the air, isn’t it? We all feel it, enjoy it and take part in it. That change of seasons is one of the best parts of living in this area. We never get bored with the same old, same old. This change of season, though, has its own set of signs that are the indicators we can not miss. Things coming out of hibernation: all kinds of little critters, chipmunks, squirrels, some insects may hibernate, I don’t know, I don’t care, ugh! But two big ones that suddenly appear are bears and bikes, not necessarily in that order, but both just as needy when they appear. Our furry friend is hungry and fired up when she comes out of the winter hide out, and she may even have a newborn cub or two to care for. Do not inter-

fere with that need to get going for the summer and more importantly do not help her get food, either! Certainly, don’t feed them, but also take care of your garbage. Bear boxes and bearproof cans work. Most locals know this, but to our new neighbors and visitors, treat it like you are camping; put it in the box and close it properly. Don’t leave any food or anything smelly in your car and be sure to lock it, not just for the a-holes who want to steal your stereo but for the bears who are getting to know how to open car doors. The real problem happens, though, when the door closes on them once they get inside. We hear plenty of sto-

ries of car interiors being totaled by a trapped bear trying to get out. Oh sorry, so sidetracked. We love our beers, oops, bears. So, the other hibernating critters that we love that are coming back to life now are our bikes. They have been sitting there in a dark, possibly damp, probably dusty corner of our homes all winter. There is a real good chance they were left there after that final ride last fall, which may have even included some good old mud. Now that mud has properly aged, stuck to various parts of that sweet machine as a reminder of how good that last ride was. Our friend Mama Bear probably had some of the same mud in her fur, but I suspect it is self-cleaning.

Alright, climb out of that cave and start coming to life. Start with a good cleaning. The best way is a rag, a toothbrush and some good household cleaner, nonabrasive, and hopefully not too stinky (you know, fresh pine air, new sparkling fresh scent). Sit down with your newly awakened, blurry-eyed buddy and start to get reacquainted. Resist the urge to hose her off because it introduces water into bearings, cables and pivot points on the derailleurs, de-lubing those small crucial moving parts. The ideal method is a spray bottle and rag touching every inch. The toothbrush comes in when you get to the drivetrain parts. This is where it pays to be meticulous. Get into all the teeth—it is a toothbrush, after all—both rear cogs and front chainring teeth. You can spray your kitchen degreaser liberally on the chain to help break down some of the old chain lube, give it a minute to work on that old stuff, then start scrubbin’. The ideal way to clean the chain is to remove and soak it, but that’s going to be another day.

An important area to clean that many people don’t pay enough attention to is around the rubber seals of both the front fork and the rear shock. One of the jobs the seal does is to wipe dust and debris off the stanchion or the sliding portion of the shock. This dust then builds up around the seal and can cause more wear on those moving parts, so wipe that area after every few rides.

Strangely enough, there is also an area that you do not want to clean. The disc brake rotors and brake pads are generally going to be self-cleaning, and if you get soap or other cleaners on that area, it will often leave a residue that will give you the gift of horribly squealing brakes. If your brakes are already noisy, that is going to be a project for another day, too; Mama Bear needs to get going, the cubs want to play.

If you are feeling good about the spring clean up and getting antsy to go, you have one more operation to do. Lube your chain back up. Make sure the chain has dried after cleaning—a few minutes in that warm spring sun should do. Grab your favorite lube, pedal backwards dripping lube on the inside of the chain. Be especially mindful not to get lubricant on the rear brake anywhere. This is more of a problem with spray lubricants, which fortunately are a thing of the past as most are drip bottles now. Alright, get going.

I’ll bet you just stuck your boards or skis in that same dark corner—hmm, the only critter that summer hibernates. Let’s play

I really love it when I catch a movie that is surprisingly different a film that steps outside the usual fare in some way. It might be a unique way of telling a story or combining settings and camerawork into something different and/ or unexpected. Of course, on a big scale it has been the films that changed the industry—blockbusters like the first Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark. Not new stories, but new ways of making the stories come to life that had never been seen before. Also, something like Moonrise Kingdom, which, for me, was the first Wes Anderson film that really captured his total style and it was so unique. The storytelling style of Blair Witch Project is another example of a new and different way to tell a story. There are also those smaller films that do not start a new trend or shake up the industry, but still surprise with something completely new to me. Or maybe not new but using known elements in different ways, to combine into something different as a whole.

So, how about a film called Hundreds of Beavers (2022, available now on Prime)? The title alone gets you thinking that this might be an unusual film. The hard part here is how do I even begin to describe Hundreds of Beavers? Well, what if you took a Warner Brothers cartoon, something like

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Bugs and Elmer Fudd or the coyote and roadrunner, and combined it with a mix of live action, animation, puppetry and miniatures creating a virtual cartoon world?

The film takes place somewhere in the great north during the 19th century where an applejack salesman, Jean Kayak, has his apple farm destroyed when a beaver eats one of the support beams of a giant keg of Applejack, which rolls into his house and his fireplace and explodes. He wakes up buried in snow with his entire farm gone. Trying to stay alive, he spends a long time trying to catch food à la Wile E. Coyote (with similar results). During this time, he also stumbles upon a group of beavers building a massive structure. He eventually catches some fish, which he sells to a local merchant to trade for hunting supplies. He takes a shine to the merchant’s daughter but to win her he must become the world’s greatest fur trapper, defeating hundreds of beavers. But that road will be difficult with twists and turns that he (and we) would never have imagined. That sounds different right? And that is just the basic plot; there is so much more in there.

The film itself is structured like a 1920s silent classic. It looks much like a Buster Keaton comedy, on drugs. It is in black and white and with the style of set-

tings and animations looking like that era. And indeed, there is no dialogue, though the live action people are given sounds such as grunts, groans, sighs or screams. The character sounds are not live,

modern connections, so it’s not simply a period style film. If this sounds even remotely interesting, I think you will have great fun with this film. If not, it may not be your cup of tea.

Bottoms is basically a raunchy high school teen comedy, but what makes it different is that instead of the traditional raunchy teen boy comedy, this is raunchy teen lesbian girl comedy.

but part of the recorded soundtrack which has classic silent film music. All the animals—beavers, rabbits, raccoons, wolves and the like—are all played by real people dressed in full-sized animal costumes, like furries. There is not a single live animal in the film. Even the fish are crocheted. All the film’s effects are also done in ‘20s style, no CGI or modern animation.

And like I said, most of the action is Coyote / Roadrunner style except in this case animals do die. Which you can tell because they get cartoon X’s over their eyes.

Overall Hundreds of Beavers is a Looney Toons adventure that looks homemade, but in actuality shows real artistry in its creation. The humor will still have many

Another film that isn’t fully original, but still provides a different perspective, is Bottoms (2023, also on Prime). Bottoms is basically a raunchy high school teen comedy, but what makes it different is that instead of the traditional raunchy teen boy comedy, this is raunchy teen lesbian girl comedy. The film focuses on two girls, PJ and Josie, seniors in high school who don’t want to graduate as virgins. When they realize that other girls pay more attention to them when they think they are “bad” girls (from a rumor that they went to juvie over the summer), they start a self-defense club as a way to get close to a couple of cheerleaders they have crushes on. Their bizarre plan works in that the club gains traction and soon some of the most popular girls in

school are beating the crap out of each other in the name of self-defense, because since PJ and Josie don’t have any idea how to teach self-defense, it is basically just a fight club where the girls wail on each other while building sisterhood and self-esteem. But the two girls find themselves in over their heads and in need of a way out before their plan is exposed. The film doesn’t attempt to hold on to reality. It plays like a long-form Saturday Night Live sketch, but a very good one. The narrative is patchy, the characters are very overt, but it’s still relatable and when you really look, it is much smarter than it seems. It uses the outrageous elements to point out the absurd realities that many high school students do face. It’s reality wrapped up in full parody and slapstick right down to the boys football team, which is mostly in the background, but everything they do looks more like a gay men’s chorus playing at being football players. The film does actually reach some predictable but heartfelt conclusions. Overall Bottoms is a raunchy teen comedy, but the raunch isn’t simply there for effect; there is also wit and purpose.

Unfortunately, I have to report that Teresa missed both films as she was out of town when I watched them. I apologize.

Bottoms is a raunchy teen comedy with a twist.