Transcript begins 1:15:24 into video
(Discussion before vote on "Citations and Fines for Violations
of State Stay at Home Order" in third in a series of emergency meetings Wednesdays of South Lake Tahoe, California, City Council responding to the Covid-19
pandemic.)
***
Assistant City Attorney Beverly Roxas: Fines for violations of
state stay at home order [reviews state law and acts so far by state and city]
Mayor Jason Collin: Questions?
Councilmember Tamara Wallace: This is for VHRs correct?
Roxas: It's more of a general order that encompasses anything in
the governor's stay at home order, an umbrella which VHR violations fall under.
Wallace: We've been inundated with complaints against
specifically the VHRs currently taking them anonymously, is there a way to
assure they use their names?
Roxas: No because P-B
would go in and confirm and they would be the ones with personal knowledge of
stay at home order.
Interim City Manager Brad Kilger: At the end of comments, I can give update on
how enforcement is going. We do have individuals in community who are taking it
upon themselves to, uh, assist in our enforcement and it has become a little
problematic. We're happy to provide
additional information. [OVERLAPPING CONVERSATION]
Wallace: We talked about
the stay at home order for several reasons, can it be extended do inessential
business, such as driving around to VHRs checking driveways looking for people
who are possibly doing something wrong and making frivolous complaints?
Roxas: The order applies to anyone in violation of the
governor's order as clarified in the county's directive. IF they aren’t leaving their homes for
essential purposes, they aren’t in compliance with the orders.
Councilmember Brooke Laine: I guess my concern is what I've been talking about
for years now, the fact that we aren’t able or choose not to, I don't know
which it is, to proactively enforce in our community our own rules, is what the
problem is. The fact that we ask for our
community to turn people in is what has created this- people don’t like VHRs
going out to bust VHR's, we've created that problem by not having a proative
way to enforce our own rules. At this
stage, I would ask the city manager or police chief, is there a way to enforce
this and rigorously? Take our citizens out of the middle of it? [OVERLAPPING
CONVERSATION]
Male: We're prepared to
respond. I'll introduce and then turn it over to the lieutenant. The staff has been very proactive and he will
explain more- the nature of change in orders, we have had to ramp up in the
last week, two weeks ago there wasn’t even a shelter in place order, now it's
changed drastically. They had to triage
it initially, lieutenant will explain.
Acting Chief of Police Shannon Laney: They're not just checking VHR properties,
they are protecting hotels and businesses for what looks like people checking in,
verification that they are one of the exemptions. Last weekend we checked, drove by a hundred
and fifty one VHRs. If they're occupied,
what we're doing is we're trying to contact the owners, see if it's an owner or
vacationer or an exception to order from.
So far we have not found any vacationers in VHRs. We have had a lot of them are owner occupied,
for instance out of eighty three that were occupied, thirty nine of them were
owner occupied. I know complaints from
community members is do we have a way to verify it's an owner and not a
vacationer. We're not running
backgrounds on people contacted, we are having our staff handle most of the
business over the phone, to keep our own staff healthy.
A lot of the questions I've gotten are owners that want to come
up and check their property because nobody is there, there might be repairs
needed, want to come up and stay a couple weeks, what we're telling them is
it's the governor's order to stay in your primary residence.
City Manager Brad Kilger: I think the staff
is being proactive regarding VHRs and hotels.
Second homeowners and VHR owners who come up to their residence, at this
point we're treating them the same.
That's really where the bone of contention is now.
Laine: My follow-up question would be do the police department
feel they can execute this order internally without a need to accept complaints
from the community. Can we go to all
fourteen hundred plus vacation home rentals and make sure they're complying
with order?
Laney: With fifteen
hundred VHRs, two different shifts, they're making headway but we're also
checking hotels and handling day-to-day business too. I do want to caution community members taking
it upon themselves to drive around looking, that's a violation of order. If
they call when we can get to the house, we will check it. A lot of calls come from a small contingent
in our community.
Laine: One final question, since this order was executed March
27th, how many fines have been levied to date?
Laney: We haven’t issued any citations because we haven’t found
one that was a violation at a VHR.
Hotels we were asking for voluntary compliance and gave them time to
have people check out and leave. And
they all have.
Councilmember Cody Bass: Just to
clarify you've gone by 183, how many did you actually approach people staying
there?
Laney: I don't know the
number, the shift were instructed if there's someone in day hours there to
contact them, try via phone leave message with owner. At night we're not going
to knock on door.
Bass: Order stays people
must stay in primary residence, is there enforcement around people not in
primary residence?
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| photo credit CBS Sacramento |
City Attorney Heather Stroud: The word "usual residence" is in county order.
So it would be a violation of state and of county as clarified. But for a number of reasons, second home owners
don’t have permit or license and we have no way to contact them unlike VHR
owners. There are a number of our own
residents leaving their house to go elsewhere in state and we're not in
position to enforce that when they come back into town after visiting family
elsewhere and the like. It's a question
of resources and where do we best put them. Put on those with greatest public
health impact, where there are large groups of people gathering and or bringing
visitors in for short term lodging.
Bass: I believe in
property rights one hundred percent without a doubt and if someone has a piece
of property here they have a right to use it but we are without a doubt in
unprecedented times and seeing real results in California with governor's
order, I mean look at New York. When
somebody doesn't have a permit, it's difficult to say they are not just
occupying their second home, but if they've gotten a VHR permit, that's proof
it is not their usual home, it's a VHR.
e need to make unprecedented moves in unprecedented times, an
administrative fine- can we enforce it?
-----
Our death rate in
California is much lower than other states that did not take these precautions-
Councilmember Bass
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Mayor Jason Collin: I've gotten numerous emails from angry people saying
they're permanent residents here and live here full time and have VHR permits,
whether to use it as a shared rental or renting their home out when they're on
vacation. They feel like they're being
harassed by people calling in because they see cars there and have a public VHR
permit. That doesn't mean it's not their
usual residence?
Bass: Who would be occupying a VHR as their usual residence? I'm
just trying to point to the governor's order, and "usual residence"
if somebody is down the street and working on this VHR- you can't say that if
the permit has been issued as a second home- this just goes against the grain
of property rights and everything I believe in.
But we need to look at the results of the governor's order and
compare California with New York and do everything we can to be in line with
that order. For me as a usual resident
if there's a permit for a VHR that's not a usual resident, correct?
Collin: Let me give you an example. Prior to getting on city
council, we had a VHR permit at my primary residence because we had basically a
mother-in-law unit. But we did not need
a VHR permit, we got it to make sure everything was in order. We lived in our house and rented the unit out
for about a year. That's probably a very
small subset of the total number but I've heard from people this week. [OVERLAPPING] you don’t have to have it but a
lot of people do.
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It's not fair to kick people out of a home that they pay taxes on, it's just inhumane. Our main home in San Francisco is now being occupied by family who had health issues, there are unique situations -Female caller
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Bass: I'm not trying to say we do this for the long term, but I
think to really be forward about it. The fact is our death rate in California
is much lower than other states that did not take these precautions. And having people come from outside the
community right now, we need to send a strong and clear message. It's unacceptable, it's violating the
governor's orders that clearly worked, and I just feel strongly that we need to
send a strong message. And if things
improve, we can change this next week and open the VHRs back up. We're meeting weekly. But right now we're at a point where we
clearly need to send a strong message.
Collin: We need to take
public comment.
Bass: That did start as a
question. . .
Stroud: Based on example
mayor gave, it's not a black and white issue. VHRs are used for essential
workers, some VHR owners are renting to visiting nursing, construction workers
and others are thinking of doing it but not doing it yet.
Bass: We'd include
exemptions for all those persons.
Stroud: The one we are to
pass today does. [OVERLAPPING CONVERSATION]
Bass: I totally want to see VHRs used for medical staff and for
all those exemptions, can we make the order to the PD those are allowed and
here is list where that is happening.
Other than that VHRs are shut down.
We're meeting every Wednesday we can change this when times change,
times are what they are, we need to take real measures.
Collin: Any more questions before discussion, now to public
comments.
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Comment: I did see
tourists taking pictures of lake, I asked where are you from and why are you
here, received a predictable angry response.
They were aware they were violating the order.
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City Clerk Sue Blankenship: These are emails I've received since beginning of
meeting. Noel F: It says, the VHR
activity and tourist activity in my neighborhood, Heavenly Valley area, thank
you for closing them to protect our systems, also thank you to the VHR
companies that operate- as you know, my neighborhood is overrun with homes with
indoor pools and elevators, without exception they were empty this
weekend. It was apparent few were renter
owned. I did see tourists taking pictures of lake, I asked where are you from
and why are you here, received a predictable angry response. They were aware they were violating the
order. I checked the VHR enforcement site to discover it was not updated for
several weeks so emailed their office, attached is that correspondence. This is
vital information for the citizens who live adjacent to these properties.
Social media indicated a number of violations reported, so staff is acting in
contrary to the council's ordiance. I question who actually runs the city, the
council or the staff.
This one is from Diane R:
This is a time when decisive action has to be practiced. Last week's meeting mentioned
"warnings" before citations, calls from community best, flexibility
with dates- were all part of the conversation.
The mandate says all residents must shelter in place in their primary
home. Covid-19 is a clear and present
danger, we are relying on people we elect to ensure our safety. Bass says this is not a joking matter and the
community felt our voice was being heard.
Next comment from Pam S:
I understand that the number of U.S. cities established fines for
violations of stay at home orders. I feel that proposed thousand dollar fine is
heavy handed for a first violation. I request the council clarify whether use
of and travel to postal service is essential- please clarify. The city has
acted to activate police powers, the city has taken action contrary to public
health and welfare by constructing cell phone towers that emit microwaves,
which can hurt immune systems in their fight against Covid-19 or other
coronaviruses. The city should close
down the cell towers.
Stu R: Thank you for
implementing this strict enforcement for violating shelter in place order. How will enforcement be carried out in short
term lodging such as hotels and motels, and for owners of second homes,
regardless of permit, will the thousand dollar fine be issued for owners who
leave their primary residence to shelter in South Lake Tahoe?
Blankenship: That is all the public comments we've received via email, now
open the phone lines for people to call in:
You have three minutes to address council:
Male: Thanks for taking my call, I'm a concerned local, concerned
about the flow of people coming to shelter in place in Tahoe. It limits our supplies here, it bothers me
that Bay Area homeowners here will stock their shelves and we as locals go and
there's still no toilet paper or paper towels, it burdens our supply
chain. Also it seems that from a lodging
standpoint, a population coming up here with this virus, we can't be allowing
it to happen. My question is are second home owners in violation of the state
order. If they are, then with all these
people coming up here to shelter in place in Tahoe, are in violation then we
need to do everything we can to make sure that they leave. Easy things to do, we have chain controls on
the highways, we can use that to check people coming up, if they don’t live
here, tell them they have to turn around. Use news channels, signs on all
entrances and exits of stores, the ones open, you need to go to your residence
where the infrastructure supports you, not here. WE could be checking licences
at the checkstands at stores, compassionately of course, but we need as Mr.
Bass said to send a strong and clar message, if you are here and don’t live
here, you need to go home. Think about
the worst case scenario, if the worst case scenario happens is our city capable
of handling the population that comes in. In Barton hospital there is only so
many beds, so what are we going to do.
Blankenship: Thank you sir your
time is up, your name? Thank you Mike. City Council meeting: I'll put you on
speaker phone you'll have three minutes :
Female: Hi I'm calling as a second homeowner who has been up in
South Lake Tahoe for the past three weeks.
We came up here before the shelter in place order. We have been just staying in our home, our
main home in San Francisco is now being occupied by family who had health
issues, so we aren’t able to go back there.
So some people's situations are a little bit different. I'm here with my family and my three boys and
we're staying in place and we got here before the order was issued and other
people are staying in our primary residence.
There are unique situations out there that need to be taking into
consideration. We're not taking anymore than we need, we have stuff at our
home, but there are situations and I think that that needs to be taken into
account. It's not fair to kick people out of a home that they pay taxes on,
it's just inhumane. We don’t have a home to go to, other people are staying
there. I'd like to think the people of
South Lake Tahoe would understand that.
-----
When you're surrounded
by six VHRs and second homes right next door to you and two across the street
and four behind and everybody decides to come up this weekend, there's
obviously an issue. And my doctors
office tells me that there are cases of Covid at Barton, where we have limited
beds and supplies. -Caller
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Blankenship: City Council, hold
the line one second I will put you on.
Female: Okay, I understand everything that Mike said because I tried to email the mayor about that, closing down the roads would be easy, it's used for chain controls, it should be easy for this epidemic. As far as people going around trying to find people to fine, that's just crazy. I can understand the boonies, but when you're surrounded by six VHR and second home VHRs right next door to you and two across the street and four behind me and everybody decides to come up this weekend, there's obviously an issue. And my doctors office tells me that there are cases of Covid at Barton, we only have sixty three beds and limited supplies. You guys caused this epidemic, not the violence, all this VHR stuff by allowing them, and thank goodness people voted no more, but as many as there are already, he's right, it needs to be announced on the news, in Sacramento also, that no-
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| Barton Hospital personnel |
The city of South Lake
Tahoe is closed. And that lady who called is an exception, I bet she's the only
one, just like no fines have been ordered with the cops going to doors. Listen to the locals, they know who is not
supposed to be in their neighborhood, and mine say oh we just wanted a change
of scenery. Right not nobody is going
into Barton, why can't the grocery stores do that, don’t tell me that lady has
been up here the whole time and not gone to the grocery store. Shut down Tahoe, to anything but emergency
vehicles, VHRs it's just going to be more time. The governor said stay at home,
people who aren’t abiding by that need to be fined. Stay out of Tahoe, Tahoe is not open, don’t
go to our grocery stores, do not come here.
Blankenship: Thank you Miss
Johnson. We'll wait and see, here's
another call.
Male: I'm from South Tahoe and I have some people coming from
out of town, and they're going to shop here.
When are the grocery stores going to sanitize the stores? Do you have
any information about that?
Blankenship: Sorry, Council will
not respond, you can just make a comment, thank you sir. All right, Mayor, I'm not receiving anymore
telephone calls.
Mayor Collin: To clarify a few things. One, it's important for
people to remember the governor himself said his initiative is to educate, even
at the state level they're not enforcing.
We're levying fines if they're necessary, but education is very
important first. A lot of the comments today have been addressed in regional
news, four times last week telling people to stay away. We want our visitors back here when this is
all over. We've put messages on boards discouraging travel as well.
Really take a look at everything that's going on, we used a
multi modal approach to get messaging and to follow the governor's
direction. Be thoughtful that we're
doing what we can, we don’t have authority to close roads down. Rules are
important things for everybody to remember, also locals. I've been told of
people who travel off the hill for non essential travel, and then coming back,
we can impose a risk to our own community as well. WE need to protect ourselves and our
community.
Okay bring it back to council.
Blankenship: If a caller tried to get through,
please send an email and I'll forward it to council. I'm sorry I couldn't take
every call.
Bass: Again I think we
need to send a stronger message. I agree
we did, I just don’t know if it's being followed. There are still people coming
in from out of town, you hear it from stores that are open. I appreciate the
governor for making this order early, but it's going to take a bit longer to
get the epidemic to flatten. Yes there's
going to be unique situations, but to me it's very clear, if there's a VHR
permit it's usually not the person's usual home. Then you have local owners, there's going to
be situations.
I want people to know, we can change this next week, we're right
in the middle of this and we should do what we can. We're also very unique to a lot of places, to
come to Tahoe is a desire of people in San Francisco and Sacramento, we need to
get the message out.
Collin: That's what we're trying to do, get the message out.
What do you think gets the message out faster if someone is levied a thousand
dollar fine or if they are educated that they should leave?
Bass: I totally don’t
want to give people fines, but there's a lot of people who say they're the
second homeowner, then we need to make the call, fourteen hundred VHRs clearly
are not someone's usual homes. There's lots of things we'd love to have them
occupied for and if they're not for something essential,
Even the people who own the VHR's we don’t want you occupying
them, the governor put order in place to protect the whole society. Obviously
I'm not the type of person who wants to go around enforcing laws and giving out
fines, that's not my M-O. Regardless if
it's acceptable or not, the citizens enforce it because the ordinance was
written that way, so we need to do something else. This is not by any means long term, we need
to help with the governor's order.
-----
In these trying times,
everyone remember we also need to have empathy and sympathy for our fellow
human beings. I understand the community is upset and scared and I'm scared.
-Councilmember Devin Middlebrook
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Middlebrook: I agree we need to be stricter with enforcement,
but in these trying times, everyone remember we also need to have empathy and
sympathy for our fellow human beings. I understand the community is upset and
scared and I'm scared. No one knows what all is going on but the calls and the
comments were very much us versus them and the tourist and homeowner is vicious
evil people and it's not helpful in this situation. We do need to enforce more
and go down Mr. Bass's line of logic where is this really their- occasional or
frequent residence or is it regularly rented out as a VHR. We should be
enforcing that. I just encourage everyone in the community to have some empathy
for other people in other situations, and just because there's a car in a
driveway doesn't mean someone is up here to play in the snow and cough on
doorknobs, I want everyone to be sympathetic during these times.
Collin: Another thing to clarify from comments is that while the
supply chain has been taxed at times, toilet paper is an interesting one, you
talk to grocers and they say there's plenty of food. We have the necessities to fill the needs of
this community and we are still actively asking people not to come to Tahoe
now, so our essential needs are not at risk for the community at large. It's important especially the produce area,
there's lots of great produce out there right now, great time to get healthy.
Laine: It's interesting listening to the conversation, I agree
with Councilmember Bass and position he's coming from, no point in making laws
if you don’t enforce them and no point if you choose- if people have the job of
enforcement choose not to enforce, I don't understand how that process would
run. We're being asked to ratify this as
a permanent ordinance a thousand dollar fine and needs to be strictly enforced.
I was surprised to hear from police department there's only one
community service officer, I find that surprising. We're not at the point where Measure T has
eliminated VHRs, we're not having a lot of income to date, but we've had a lot
of income in the enforcement pool and I think we need to beef up our
CSO's. Not out there asking for you to
write that tickeg, but only a couple need to get that ticket. When we issued thousand dollar parking fines
for VHRs we were on national news. I
support this ordinance.
Wallace: I'm supportive of this order: however, also support
what police department is doing. I agree with Ms. Laine we need more than one
CSO- at last meeting I heard there are five. Maybe we need to put more out
there and be more proactive. Making the calls, I prefer we are not complaint
driven, because it can be a vigilante approach that can exacerbate the problem,
it is not helpful. It is making it us
versus them that has gone on in this community with regards to VHRs so much
worse and we need to stop that. If
anything that this Covid-19 situation has produced, it's that we all need to
work together to get through this. Not all VHRs are bad and not all second
homeowners are coming here, it's a few and we need to work through this. I'm in
support of this order but also in support of more staff time so we can be more
proactive.
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The VHRs in there, a lot that were occupied before March 20 which makes it allowable, they're here for the long term. And there are residents who rent it out during seasons. It's hard to have a hard and fast. Lt. Laney
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Collin: My understanding
is there were five as well and that they have been actively canvassing. Can you give a number and describe that?
Laney: First of all I'm getting corrected by my staff- we have
checked all fifteen hundred VHR's driven by them got our eyes on them. A hundred and fifty one were occupied. Just
to clarify those numbers, we only stopped at ten, there were some internal
questions about CSO's where they're going to land. We did double up on weekend, we had one on
overtime, we plan to again this weekend. I think that answers the question.
Collin: There was just one on at a time but we have five.
Laney: We have four
coming in to work and one staying home because he's working at home, making
phone calls and follow-up. The ones on
during week are normal staff, the ones checking VHRs we're increasing that to
two.
Collin: What is the geographic area they'll drive?
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| Bear seeks VHR scofflaws |
Laney: They each have a zone, they become familiar with the VHRs
in there, a lot that were occupied were before March 20 which makes it
allowable, they're here for the long term.
And there are residents who rent it out during seasons. It's hard to have a hard and fast if it's
occupied write a ticket, but do we want to- VHR owners coming up here and
staying in their own residence. I have the same conflicts as Councilmember Bass
does but I also understand that council wants to cite them, and if you don’t
get compliance, then you do the citation route. There are different options,
that's the direction we're looking for from Council for the police department. [Procedural discussion ]
SB: Sam was wondering if grocery stores are cleaning and are we
enforcing them cleaning their shelves and surfaces.
Wallace: Okay, I didn't understand. I would make comment, the PD are ones on
ground, contacting and reaching out, I would hesitate making decisions for
them, when we're not the ones talking to the individuals in the home. It's like micro managing, when they're the
ones on the street going up to the door. We can say if violations are flagrant
enforce and fine them, but they're the ones- every case is an exception,
special instances, we can't make a blanket statement.
Bass: The police
department use discretion every day and they're still able to use
discretion. But asking for a policy
decision, which is basically do we give citations or warning before the
citation to get people to move along. A hundred and fifty one occupied VHRs and
out of all of them, that's a lot more than a hundred and fifty one
visited. I agree, there's exceptions,
but I don't believe there's a hundred and fifty one of them. We just got another order to extend it to
April thirtieth, if we don’t make it a heavy handed message, it's going to grow
to a lot more than 151 with people having excuses. And again, it goes against my grain you can't
occupy your house. If it's somebody's
second home it's a different legal- we have a strong legal ground to stand
on. Nobody can occupy the home unless
there's a building permit or some other kind of of action happening there.
Wallace: I saw the 151 in
complete opposite light, out of four hundred VHRs, 151 I can absolutely see
that there might be 151 exceptions, people using them where they live in the
home, using them for nurses, I can see absolutely twelve percent of them being
exceptions.
Bass: Okay maybe so, I guess
what I would ask Lieutenant Laney- when you're checking somebody's ID, do they
show Tahoe addresses or a lot out of San Francisco or Bay Area. Main thing with
this virus is we don’t want people who are coming from high infection places in
our grocery stores, the virus spreads in ways- they're trying to get everybody
to stay in their region- Tahoe is a huge region to escape to. So in my opinion I would say we allow the
police department to give a warning rather than right off the bat- out- but we
need to give them direction to enforce more than they have.
Collin: I agree with you,
Mr. Bass, and levying a fine, education is very important whether it's a full
time resident or second home owner, or residents just out and about. Should the vigilantes be given a thousand
dollar fine or educated and the police lieutenant said that he educated people.
And I think that's the appropriate thing.
A week from now, once we get the message out there, I definitely agree
with Ms. Laine and the rest of council, we need to back it up-
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| Reno Tahoe airport recently |
If you listen to public comments and emails we're getting are
people saying things that we absolutely need to do that we've done
already. Week ago, multiple times.
People are paying attention, get information from one place or another, it
hasn’t trickled into their funnel. We
owe it to the community at large to educate and get it to people outside of
here. People told me they saw me in Sacramento saying last week, stay away from
Tahoe right now. Also somebody in L.A. and in Colorado saw that message. So the message-
Bass: That's why I'm
saying give a warning before you write a ticket, and if the police department
does use discretion and there's a situation like the lady that called in, they
use it like they do every day.
Collin: That's what I want to reinforce. We need to continue to
get the message out there loud and clear, don’t come to Tahoe, and let the
police department levy penalties. The biggest piece is fines or education?
But we are seeing a dramatic decrease in traffic and people
coming up here. So while there are
people who are disregarding it, it is working and it doesn't mean we need to
put our foot off the gas, but we are seeing far fewer people coming to town.
Mr. Kilger?
-----
Private property
rights are somewhat lessened during a time like this of emergency. However, there's always the risk of taking it
too far and ultimately it's a policy decision.
It's not an easy question. - City Attorney Heather Stroud
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Kilger: I agree that it has had an effect, are there still
people coming up, yes, but it's dropped dramatically. The first policy we need
to be clear on is enforcement- we have been. The issue is around how does the
order from state correlate with private property rights, which our city
attorney was counseled on. I'm not
talking about exceptions just whether it's occupied by individuals who own it,
are we respecting private property rights.
A secondary issue is citation versus initial warning, I think the
lieutenant explained that. The first level is notwithstanding exceptions,
addressing the issue of treating second homes and VHRs similarly.
Wallace: You're asking us to let you know if an owner of the
home and permit is in the home, whether you would enforce that?
Kilger: Let's start with second home owners first.
Stroud: Are private
property rights implicated if we cite owners for staying in their own home,
potentially yes. I think the state order
does encourage but not require persons to stay in their permanent residence, so
private property rights are somewhat lessened during a time like this of
emergency. However, there's always the
risk of taking it too far and ultimately it's a policy decision. It's not an easy question.
Wallace: My opinion is if they own their homes, whether they are
a VHR permit or second home owner and occupying a home that they own, although
it was bad judgment that- they own that home, they can be in that home. It was bad judgment that went against
government orders, I would be against giving them any kind of fine.
Bass: Can I propose
something okay we've got the 151 that are here and we know are going to be
here. What we're trying to do is we don’t want the other VHR owners to be
invited to come up. So can we make an
order saying okay, the hundred and fifty one that we know are here are
here. But these other twelve hundred and
fifty that are not occupied cannot be occupied.
Because we know that if they become occupied after today, it's somebody
coming from outside our community to stay in the house. That way the police department is not having
to kick somebody out who's already been here such as the lady in the public
comment.
Collin: We also have to come back to resources that it's
takes. We intend to allocate-
[discussion of procedures] the ones that are still advertising places for rent
should be top priority, because that's encouraging people and essentially
luring people to come to Tahoe. We need to do whatever we can- with the fines
the message will get out but I think we need to do everything we can to keep people
from coming up here. That's what the officers are paid to do, use their
judgment.
Bass: My only other
thought is if we took the twelve hundred and fifty other VHRs sent a letter to
those permit holders about the council's decision- there will be a thousand
dollar fine- we are not going to allow them to be occupied. There is going to
be situations, but we're in a three week critical time with the virus, so the
stronger the order the better.
Collin: That comes down to administration they've got eyes on
the ones that are occupied- once they leave, that people don’t show up
again. Any more discussion? Around
second homeowners, that's the tough one, we don’t have any idea how many second
homeowners are up here. People have six month ski leases and use that as
primary residence, that gets gray and we need to leave it to a judgment call
for law enforcement.
Cody: I agree and if a
second homeowner doesn't have a VHR permit, that's completely different than a
VHR. I think- more strong messaging around second homes- aligned with state
order as well. [procedural discussion]
Council then voted as reported in these news stories:
Tahoe Daily Tribune:
April 1, 2020
And South Tahoe Now:
Wednesday, April 1,
2020 - 5:44pm
POST NOTES:
Found on Twitter Sunday April 5:
Gov. Newsom, Please re-issue stay- at-home orders focusing
on people who have vacation homes around Truckee-Tahoe area. Nevada
County Eastside is experiencing disproportionate outbreaks of COVID 19
likely caused by vacationers and individuals escaping the city to stay.
***
Next meeting Wednesday April 8 and I will transcribe it, as I think the story of South Lake Tahoe, VHRs, and the coronavirus pandemic is very interesting.
*
Links:
The Covid-19 Transcripts
https://cityofangels25.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-covid-19-transcripts-origin.html
SLT City Council Meeting April 1
https://slt.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=6&clip_id=1087
*
Posted by Kay Ebeling
Producer,
City of Angels Blog
the
city of angels is everywhere
*
NOTE: I transcribe The Covid-19 Transcripts as the virus killed my job as an online transcriber living in Tahoe. The transcripts distribute information
that I don't think is available in print anywhere else about the coronavirus pandemic. Please show your
appreciation by clicking some cash to me through PayPal using
"Donate" button at top of left hand column. Thank you.)
***
Related story in news:
Why an Idaho Ski Destination Has One of theHighest COVID-19 Infection Rates in the Nation,
New Yorker April 3, 2020
Ski-resort areas in California, Colorado, and elsewhere “show higher infection rates than more densely populated cities nearby,” Adventure Journal noted, including Mono County, California, the home of Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, which now has the highest per-capita rate of covid-19 in the state. In Europe, several governments tracked hundreds of coronavirus cases to one Austrian ski town, with some epidemiological reports identifying beer-pong tables as a potential source of infection. In Mexico, the chairman of the Mexican Stock Exchange tested positive after returning from a ski trip to Colorado’s Vail resort.....
*
-ke
