[Here is transcript of the Keep Community First / Chamber of Commerce speakers during public comments at the South Lake Tahoe City Council meeting June 18. I've included my reaction to what they say in brackets here because … it's my blog]
Better headline: Chamber to crush election results, dictate its preferred outcome
[Transcript is AI generated so imperfect, also time code seems to be about 6 mins off from the YouTube video of mtg here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjKxAk85d0s&t=8788s }
***
Good evening
Mr Mayor and members of the council staff ladies and gentlemen Steve Teshara for
the record on behalf of the Tahoe chamber and the Keep Community First Coalition.
was a very instructive
1:55:28
discussion
and presentation on the part of your staff. Our concern with the report is that
it doesn't really meet the intent of the law that requires or allows a
legislative body to have a report like this.
[hasn’t
the Chamber been dead set against this measure since first time they heard of
it? How are they expert on the intent of the law? ]
So the
purpose of the
1:55:42
report
under the law is to help the voters understand what they're voting on and I
think this report fails. We understand it was a limited time and a limited
budget but frankly based on the presentation they should have interviewed your
staff the staff has more pertinent information as to what the impacts would be
than the consultant who went hither and thither and looked at things that
really don't bear on our situation.
With me
tonight are
1:56:08
colleagues
of mine Sharon Kerrigan, South Tahoe Association of
Realtors, Jerry Bendel [general manager
of the Forest Suites Resort, a 120-unit property on the California side tucked
behind the Heavenly Village Shops ‘’ Duane Wallace [he's
everywhere!] we've divided up our comments on the report so that we can meet
your three-minute requirement. So my my purpose is to summarize there are many
assumptions in this report and there's very little to back up why the
assumptions were made. We heard already about the cost of implementing this
it's significant I think your staff understands that it's not a couple people
Dialing for Dollars [sigh hither and thither, dialing for dollars, really? ]
it's a lot
1:56:39
more
complicated than that the setup costs the what happens if it's litigated
[Right, if it's litigated,’ they're probably
already writing briefs.]
[Measure
T passed 50 to 42% in 2018, and realtors et al filed a lawsuit against it weeks
later and it's still tied up in court. These people do not respect the will of
the people when they lose elections. I bet they're the same ones who kicked and
screamed trying to prevent Tahoe from having a retail source of marijuana, even
as medicine, about ten years ago but I have to research that, stay tuned.]
Anti
Measure T claimed “resident exception unconstitutionally
discriminates against nonresident homeowner”
[Jumping
like a virus from a bat in Hunan Market to a constitutional argument, as the
same people are doing now with the vacancy tax. When in doubt, shout
“constitution” and since most Americans have really never read it, how can they
respond. Back to the transcript ]
if
somebody litigates, which they will if it passes and then the role of the
oversight committee as I think council member Wallace pointed out. And the City
attorney concurred that it's no different than any any of your other advisory
committees they don't have the ability to oversee what you're doing so that is
a misnomer and a pretty serious one and then privacy issue that was just raised
these are huge. So I've been on the phone a lot with property owners
1:57:10
who
would be affected by this if it passes. They're crying they're angry they're
mystified.
[Have
they heard anything but the misinformation put out by Stop the Vacancy Tax?
What were those callers saying before they started crying? Did you tell her Communists are coming for your house and make her cry? Or did you say she could always file with the city for an exemption and calm her down with some truth?]
And I
think this puts a black label on the city for a long time to come just that you
would even think about doing to this this to them.
[Nope,
from where I sit, it's the Chamber and other elite groups that have been in charge
of this area for decades are putting a black label on the city already]
and the the terminology in the report is bothersome
units, these are not units. these are people these are their homes that they
struggle to get and they're not all the same.
[If an
owner of multiple properties feels aggrieved, they can appeal to the Council for
an exemption, but no one from the Chamber mentions that. It's the Libertarian
millionaires taking advantage of South Lake’s lax tax attitude while they watch
the value of their investment property grow, that is who this tax aims for. If
the Chamber were concerned about what is going on economically globally and how
it affects locals, they would be ecstatic at finding a revenue source for our
town, and a way to keep our homes from turning into global investment products.]
[The
chamber only cares about businesses, the ones that pay into their coffers. This
ain't your daddy’s chamber of commerce, but Duane et al will never admit it,
Duane probably thinks he's really helping people who live in Tahoe by repeating
the chamber's right wing sound bytes… SMH ]
1:57:40
and
they've come to them by different ways and they don't want to be assessed the
same that's an inequitable situation and as the mayor said this was pushed on
the city
[that's
not what the Mayor just said, jeez]
this is
not the evening that you decided as a council when you thought about this you
didn't want to pursue it litigation. was one one concerns you had
[And boy
are we going to sue you we don’t care how people vote we're going to sue]
other
ones but here it is pushed on the city and I don't think that's fair for the
city if there was a way for the city
1:58:07
to
decline to deal with this you know that would probably be something good so let
me uh pass the Baton on other issues uh to my colleague Sharon Kerrigan thank
you.
My name
is Sharon Kerrigan I'm also with keep Community First Coalition
[doesn't
mention she's from Association of Realtors]
and as
my colleague Steve Teshara pointed out one of the critical ways in which this
9212 report really completely misses the Mark is in the likely massive
bureaucracy
[Every
right wing politician in USA for last sixty years probably longer has used that
“big Bureaucracy” argument against EVERYTHING that progressives, aka people who
want progress, try to accomplish, and LOOK AROUND YOU, see how well that's
working? ]
that
it's going to take to set it up administer and enforce it states it
1:58:41
would
take a million the first year to set up and then just over 600,000 a year after
that and ongoing cost but even a cursory review of that shows how quickly that
assumption falls apart it seems to be based on just a quick chat with the staff
at Oakland who administer their vacancy tax, that's the only other one
operating something similar in California and based on these quick conversations
the consultant concluded only three full-time City staff would [The Arrogance
of telling the staff they couldn't have done more than a cursory look] needed to administer this but if you do the
math.
Iif
Oakland has 4,000 vacant
1:59:13
units
and we have almost 17,000 housing units that sounds to me like four times the
number of staff that would be needed
[and
four times the amount of revenue our city is missing out on because the Chamber
is against it] if they have five or six that sounds like 24 staff to me [wow,
more jobs] so South Lake Tahoe is vastly
different than Oakland
[we have
four times the need to collect this revenue than Oakland then]
as well
uh that is we've got
1:59:35
single
family residences we've got condos we've got mobile homes are those going to
also be un subject to the tax if 40% of these simply refuse to comply is it
really worth it to pursue this there's going to be be thousands of individual
cases files and appeals and people that are trying to avoid this tax
[our
friends don’t want to pay their taxes so let’s give our friends a free ride]
2:00:06
that the
staff is going to have to go through so if the city has just over 200 employees
now 110 in public safety and 90 in other government services we would need to
increase our non-public safety Staffing by over 50% just to administer
[JOBS
JOBS JOBS]
[oh the
chamber only believes in private sector hiring I guess, or their members are
government haters]
this
program and on top of that what about the cost to set up the software the
systems the hardware uh to monitor 177,000 homes when has a government ever set
up a new computer system on time and under
budget even if you charitably call that another million dollar you're now talking
about $10 million or more uh tax which would cost 8.5 million to set up and
[even if
that's accurate it's 1.5 million in new revenue, plus solving the problem of
blight and comatose ghost-town eeriness in some neighborhoods from all the
empty houses, what are you arguing against]
02:40:06
administer
and enforce it would become a tax increase whose proceeds go almost entirely to
pay for the enforcement of the tax and what is the point of that [1.5 million]
so this report completely missed the mark on the cost of enforcement but rest
assured that we are going to be working very hard to get the truth out to the
voters.
[AH
THERE IT IS, the phrase that caused me to want to deconstruct this transcript.
The CofC promise a massive “information campaign” that will fill our heads with
Chamber of Commerce right wing anti-tax anti government sound bytes for the
next four months]
2:01:03
Thank
you for the record Jerry Bendell also with the keep Community First Coalition I
want to drill down on some points about the enforcement that the the report
actually completely missed even though the measure starts costing taxpayer
money to the tune of millions of dollars starting in early 2025 that Sharon
just outlined the start of the vacancy tax period calculations don't begin
until
2:01:33
2026
that means we won't see any revenue from the measure until 2027 after the city
figures out which homes in 2026 were subject to the tax and which weren't where
will all this money come from we could spend Millions from early 2025
[Nice to
see the Chamber being so cooperative when you know they will be the biggest
obstruction to this tax ever succeeding. We're going to hear right wing
libertarian anti tax anti government sound bytes nonstop from them instead of
the community working together to make this revenue source work]
2:01:52
to the
spring of 2027 when the first tax receipts do arrive will the vital programs of
the city such as police fire rescue Parks and Recreation pothole repair and yes
even our existing Housing Programs be cut to pay for this vacancy tax
bureaucracy
[Scare
Tactics]
will we
empty our carefully managed reserves which the city set up for a rainy day for
a rainy day fund for emergencies and downturns an economy will we tap will we
tap into that worse
2:02:27
yet will
the city go into debt borrowing against the hope that vacancy tax collections
will eventually happen as this measure authorizes in 2027 I'd like to discuss
some of the report's assumptions as well as was pointed out by council members
this report was thrown together too fast with
[I don't
think any council person said “thrown together too fast" but I’ll check]
nowhere
near enough resources to do a proper job analyzing a measure this
2:02:57
complex
the report makes some wild assumptions about the housing in South Lake Tahoe it
surmises that roughly half of the 177,000 homes are not occupied full-time based on the sole fact that
property tax bills are being sent to a different address it assumes that between
30 and 60% of these homes are actually vacant but do not outline how they came
to that measurement the report assumes that 40% of the vacant homeowners will
simply refuse to pay the tax and that the city could just accept this as a cost
of
[I guess
if you're a friend of the real estate association or chamber of commerce you
can just refuse to pay taxes]
enforcement later the report acknowledges that
this cost could get a lot more expensive the city chooses to get aggressive
further into the report another assumption is made that the tax
2:03:46
will
result in 1,500 new full-time residents generating 500,000 a year in Revenue it
misses that the 34 million per year which is paid by some Not so wealthy taxpayers
will result in a massive tax increase that could decrease their
[Everybody
on both sides is speculating here, the difference is a vacancy tax will at
least start to address the problems, and voting down the tax means nothing will
be done at all and leaves the issues that need addressing to deteriorate
further, pretty clear choice to me, and if 20 more people get good paying jobs
with the city out of it, great.]
2:04:06
spending
offsetting any of those tax gains thank you and I turn over to Duane. e thank
you Mr Bendel Mr Wallace
Duane
Wallace with Keep Community First
[Okay I
went to this group’s website and there's a list of names, it's apparently
formed solely to stop the Vacancy Tax, it doesn't say if it's a nonprofit or a
paid lobbyist group, it doesn't say where they're getting their money. I
googled and googled and this one website with five names on it is all I could
find, and their letter to South Tahoe Now announcing they're formation April
this year solely to stop this tax. Pretty shadowy, pretty sneaky, pretty much
what the seven or so people who run this town have counted on getting away with
for decades, that no one would question them ]
on the way over here I had to take my
granddaughter and get her something to eat real quick so uh the advertisement
says how great Happy Meals are so drove her through McDonald's got through
ordered a Happy Meal with cheese by the
2:04:38
way I
let her splurge and as we drove away she says wait a minute there's no Burger
there and that's exactly what's going on here this is a burger short of a Happy
Meal. [a riffle of polite laughter] type
of proposal and the reason I say that is because if when I try to describe it
to somebody I have to say well our Council didn't do this they voted it down
the staff City staff didn't want it they saw that there were problems with it
so one council member and a group of friends got
2:05:11
together
and told people they were all going to get new houses if they voted for this
and wouldn't have to pay for
[THAT'S
A LIE!!! Duane Wallace is LYING here]
[Where?
When? Show me the quotes, this is a lie the Chamber et al have been spreading
in Tahoe for months, no one said this but people against the tax, claiming
the proponents said it. SO SHADY, like I said, Maga Republicans only know
deceit and lies as a way to win elections because the grass roots would never
support them if they heard the truth. For Shame ]
[Nobody
told “people they were all going to get new houses” except people against the
tax lying about the tax aaaarrghh ]
2:05:16
And so
that's what happened people said okay so it's on the ballot it only took um uh
I don't know four or 500 bad signatures but they got it they got it on the
ballot
[Once
again Duane makes stuff up about those deadbeats that seem to live in right
wing anti everything humans’ brains because they don’t believe in helping
anyone ]
now
you're faced with pretending that you're that you're okay or that you can uh
work with this when in the truth I haven't talked to one city employee of any
kind that thinks that this is a good idea for one thing they don't don't see
any money going to
2:05:48
police
and fire Services they see it taking up and consuming consuming all the hours
and time of the entire city not only that but you're going to create an uh IRS
a city IRS and the first thing you have to do is go against the Constitution
and say you are guilty until you're proven innocent
[Oh man,
Duane is really getting carried away here, the Constitution does not prohibit a
city from levying property taxes…. ]
2:06:12
those
people will have to come to you and prove they're innocent I've looked into the
Vancouver tax now it's obviously Canada and they do things different but the
people there with just two years back notice have to go through their receipts
and show that they bought gas at a local gas station that they went to a local
doctor that they that they have used local services and they're frantic because
if
[Canadian
and irrelevant to an American city, wow Duane, I expected better from you]
2:06:41
they
don't get those receipts in to these inspectors who evidently maybe get a bonus
[Duane
sounds a lot like Donald Trump going on a mind-wandering rant, they must eat
the same nuggets ]
for
collecting they're scared to death and now Vancouver is talking about making it
$30,000 so when you rob Peter to pay Paul, Paul's always happy but it goes against
so many aspects of the Constitution our City attorney is excellent and she's
trying to be stoic
[when
she knows these very people are going to be the ones who slam her with court
filings on November 5 if this tax passes]
2:07:08
here but
when we get to the actual point where this has to be implemented there are so
many taking Clauses and things that she mentioned it just scares me to death so
please keep that in mind okay..
2:07:21
End of
chamber of commerce / Keep Community First tag team presentation
***
So vote
no because the vacancy tax scares Duane Wallace right.
No, vote
yes so Duane Wallace and a small group of his friends can stop intimidating voters
and obstructing progress in South Lake Tahoe.
And intimidating us. Stop intimidating voters and make a genuine argument. Oh, you don't have one so all you've got is voter intimidation...
I'm done for now as the Intimidators are attacking me on social media again,
***
Deconstructing Public Comments is an ongoing series at City of Angels Blog here are previous entries:
Part One
[AI generated transcript so not perfect]
My name is Bob poet and I'd like to focus on
2:11:31
Part Two
More Deconstructing Public Comments from last week's South Lake Tahoe city council mtg
[AI generated transcript so not perfect]
2:38:21
Alternate Headlines:
Chamber to dictate VT election results
Paid Lobbyists lord over Tahoe with MAGA sensitivities
Patriots refuse to accept election results if VT passes
Chamber / Patriots / unelected MAGA leaders crush Tahoe voters
Chamber to crush election results, dictate its preferred outcome
People think the Chamber is a nonprofit when it's actually paid lobbyists
Paid lobbyists to dictate election results for city
***
Recent related posts:
Council gets a promise, what Chamber will do if voters pass vacancy tax, so much for democracy
City Council holds its meetings in a place you can't get to on transit. So how do people in South Lake get to pubic hearings if they don’t drive, for
***
Here is what Chamber et al plan like they did with Measure T, no matter how election turns out, obstruction and lawsuits, From TDT Dec 29 2023
And they say the Pro Voters are dividing the city...
Measure T back in trial court where lawsuit began five years ago
...
Dec 29, 2023 — SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – The City of South Lake Tahoe and opposing South Lake Tahoe Property Owners Group are scheduled back in El Dorado ...
[Aargh]
*
Posted By Kay Ebeling
Not just LA, the city of angels is everywhere
