PlumpJack employees stranded at work and sleeping in guest rooms, delivery trucks chaining up on Squaw Valley Road, double yellow lines buried under snow banks days after the storm – these are a few of the complaints that surfaced during the latest attempt by Squaw Valley merchants and residents to wring additional plow service from Placer County. To the people involved, the county’s snow removal efforts have been a source of angst for years, but the latest flurry of activity was triggered when Placer’s operations faltered during the storm that dropped multiple feet of snow on Squaw Valley Road in the last days of January.
According to Ken Grehm, Placer County’s Director of Public Works, it wasn’t the depth of the accumulation that caused the problems, it was the fact that so much of the white stuff fell where it usually doesn’t. Grehm stated that his crews were clearing roads from Forest Hill to the Tahoe basin. In the face of such widespread snow the County ran out of employees qualified to drive its graders, blowers, and plow trucks and was forced to abandon the 24-hour operations it tries to maintain during storms.
In Squaw Valley the shortage of staff resulted in spinouts, stranded vehicles, and a narrow, rutted main road that remained so for days. Eventually, Squaw Valley Ski Corporation dispatched its own equipment to help clear the road and dig out stuck vehicles, but by the time the skies cleared, the long standing frustrations of Squaw stakeholders had been rekindled. On February 11, the business association organized a meeting on the issue and invited Grehm and Fifth District Supervisor Bruce Kranz to attend. Snow removal was discussed again at the Squaw Valley Municipal Advisory Council (MAC) meeting on February 28, and again, Grehm and Kranz took part.
At both meetings, Squaw stakeholders argued that Squaw Valley Road is an important commercial artery and should receive better plow treatment than residential roads.
‘I’ve been beating this drum myself for about four or five years,’ said Russell Poulsen, chairman of the Squaw Valley MAC and manager for Poulsen Commercial Properties. ‘The real problem here is a question of perception. Placer County Director of Public Works gives the exact same importance to Squaw Valley Road or Alpine Meadows Road as he does to Sandy Way or National Avenue or any small back road where there might be four or five homes.’
According to Poulsen, as many as 30,000 cars travel the Valley’s main road on a weekend day. Although he hasn’t found a way to quantify the commercial impact of poor plowing he’s certain it’s significant.
‘Squaw Valley Road is absolutely critical to … maintaining our reputation,’ Poulsen said. ‘Every time someone gets stuck in a spin or gets in an accident they’re going to go, ’You know what, this doesn’t happen to me when I go to Park City. This didn’t happen to me when I went to Aspen. Why in the hell am I going to beat my head against the wall when these guys don’t seem to want my business?’’
Liz Dugan, sales and events manager of PlumpJack Inn and president of the Squaw Valley Business Association, agreed, describing the County’s plow service as ‘inconsistent at best.’
‘Business is always affected by poor plowing because guests have a negative impression of how we receive them,’ Dugan said.
According to Grehm, Placer County works hard to ensure all of its roads receive equal snow removal. To maintain that parity of service, the County has divided up the snowiest portion of its territory – basically all of the county east of Donner Summit – into ten zones. Each zone contains roughly 13 miles of roads. One piece of snow removal equipment is generally assigned to each zone and when a storm arrives the operator of the plow or grader clears the roads in the zone in a continuous loop so that each one receives an equal number of passes. The only preference in the system comes into play under a loose rule referred to as, ‘skis and schools.’
‘There isn’t a set ‘thou shalt start here and go over here,’’ Grehm said. ‘We do try to hit the schools in the morning if possible, but depending on where the plow’s at we don’t go drive across a zone to get to the school at the right time because that would be a lot less time plowing snow.’
Currently, Squaw Valley, Alpine Meadows and Cabin Creek Road share one zone. The plow operator assigned to that area starts work in one valley, clears every road within it, and then moves on to the other. As Grehm explained it, there is no rule that determines which valley the operator starts with, and once the operator enters a valley snow conditions dictate whether or not a main road will be cleared first.
But if Poulsen, Dugan, Squaw Ski Corp. and other concerned parties have their way, the County’s operating procedures will be modified, and transient occupancy taxes will pay for the changes.
‘The county taxes with the TOT for this specific purpose; to deal with additional services for transients,’ Poulsen said. ‘They’ve got the source of revenue, they just need to apply it.’
Thomas Murphy, Vice President of Squaw Valley Ski Corp., elaborated, explaining that with the relatively recent addition of Intrawest’s village the TOT revenue generated in Squaw has only grown.
‘The tax base has increased but the service has not,’ Murphy said.
However, putting those funds to the benefit of Squaw Valley will be difficult. Currently, 60 percent of the county’s TOT funds go to the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association, but according to President and CEO Steve Teshara, the NLTRA doesn’t provide plow service. He explained that although the association devotes a portion of its budget to ‘transportation and infrastructure,’ that money does not typically cover maintenance expenses.
The remaining 40 percent of TOT revenue flows into the county coffers, and as a result Squaw stakeholders have turned their gaze toward Auburn; but according to Supervisor Kranz, those purse strings have been tied tightly as well.
As Kranz explains it, the county does not try to send TOT dollars directly back to the places they originate. The funds enter the county’s general fund and aren’t necessarily used to mitigate the effects of tourism. Although 80 percent of Placer’s TOT funds are gathered east of Donner Summit and, as Teshara put it, a ‘significant amount’ of that money comes from Squaw, it will be a struggle to gather the roughly $50,000 per year required to run an additional plow in Squaw Valley.
‘The issue is pertinent to one supervisor out of five,’ Kranz said.
In the event that the county does send additional funds, Squaw’s concerned parties have suggested several ways Placer might improve its service. They’ve proposed Placer establish relationships with local snow removal contractors who could be hired to lend a hand during severe storms, and have suggested the county put another piece of equipment in the zone shared by Squaw and Alpine. But perhaps the most popular solution involves redrawing the zone lines. A new zoning arrangement might separate Squaw and Alpine into two separate plow routes or add a zone that would consist only of the two valleys’ main roads.
Sancho Panza: Squaw Valley’s Sidekick?
In arguing for better snow removal, Russell Poulsen stated that only a few commercial areas in Placer’s snow zones actually rely on the county to keep their main roads clear. For example, Tahoe City and Kings Beach border State Route 28, and Homewood sits on Highway 89. As Poulsen sees it, CalTrans provides the adequate level of service that Placer County does not.
But what of the two other commercial centers that do depend on county roads? For years, Northstar and Alpine Meadows have been taking care of matters themselves. Compared with their pragmatism, one might be tempted to ask, ‘Is that a windmill in Squaw Valley meadow?’
In 1998, fed up with the county’s plowing and with its road maintenance as well, Northstar Community Service District began levying a parcel tax with the vote of the community.
‘(The tax was proposed) because of the issues that you’re seeing at Squaw Valley,’ said General Manager Mike Staudenmayer.
Since the tax passed, the CSD has used its own staff and equipment to plow, blow, de-ice, and repair Northstar’s roads. To pay for it all, each resident coughs up about $300 each year. The ski resort pays a large annual contribution as well, and every season the district receives roughly $60,000 from Placer – the money the county would otherwise have spent plowing that zone.
According to Staudenmayer the system works well.
‘You can pull off of (Highway) 267 during a storm and it’s like night and day,’ he said. ‘We get a lot of compliments for (our plowing) and we try hard.’
Meanwhile, over the hill and across the river, employees of Alpine Meadows Ski Area have figured out another way to keep their main road clear – they do whatever needs to be done.
‘It’s an expense but it’s not a real source of frustration,’ said Jim Kercher, the resort’s general manager. ‘We have a great working relationship with the county.’
According to Kercher, the ski resort has chipped in on snow removal and de-icing since opening day back in 1961. The arrangement is an informal one in which ski staff generally do what the county doesn’t. For example, if Placer has plowed the road but hasn’t yet put a blower on it, ski staff might fire up one of theirs. The ski area also puts in time because its patrollers control for avalanches on the ridge above the roadway.
‘We know that it’s a difficult business and we try to work with the county as much as possible,’ Kercher said.
Though any changes to Squaw’s plow service would probably affect Alpine Meadows as well, there has been no discussion between the movers and shakers of the two areas. But as well as Alpine’s snow removal works, if the folks from Squaw do manage to wrest better service from Placer County, Alpine Meadows would appreciate more help.
‘If anyone wanted to dedicate more resources to plowing the roads we’d be all over it,’ Kercher said.
And Northstar will hold out its hand as well.
‘If (someone) were to open the box to fund snow removal options I’d be standing in line too,’ Staudenmayer said.
On March 5, the NLTRA board voted to write a letter in support of additional plow service on Squaw Valley Road. Squaw stakeholders intend to take the letter to the County’s preliminary budget discussions in Auburn in mid-March. From there they hope to go before the Placer Board of Supervisors.
