In 2002, when I was a cub reporter at the Tahoe World, I wrote a story about incorporation for the North Shore. The impetus for the article was the Tonopolo development — 19 luxury condos that were approved for construction on the site of several large sand dunes unique to Tahoe Vista, destroying them forever. The question I asked at the beginning of the piece was: would this situation be any different if North Tahoe could make its own decisions?
Eight years later, I find myself asking the same question again. This time my inquiry is not spurred by a development project but by a policy issue: the Placer County Board of Supervisor’s decision last month to ban medical marijuana dispensaries in unincorporated areas. The 4–1 vote was in stark contrast to the decision of the two North Shore municipal advisory councils, the North Tahoe Regional Advisory Council (of which I am a member) and the Squaw Valley MAC. There appears to be a clear divide between how Eastern and Western parts of the county feel on this issue — none of the five MACs in District 5 (which account for 46 percent of the county’s unincorporated areas) supported the zoning amendment outlawing pot dispensaries, while western councils such as Rural Lincoln and Newcastle did. District 5 Supervisor Jennifer Montgomery cast the only dissenting vote on the issue.
I find it ironic that the areas of Placer County that will be most affected by the law — unincorporated communities like Tahoe — were the ones that did not support the ban, yet they were overruled by other parts of the county.
So is it time to revisit the idea of incorporation for the North Shore?
Before 2002, I had never even heard of the term ‘incorporation.’ I had always thought that a town, by definition, was one that governed itself and decided its own fate. But, as I came to learn, that was not the case. In the U.S., a town must form a municipal corporation in order to have the power of taxation and create its own government. An unincorporated community, by contrast, has neither the ability to tax nor self-govern, and is thus ruled from afar by the larger governmental entity under which it falls. In the North Shore’s case, this is Placer County, with a county seat more than 60 miles away.
To be sure, the North Shore would have some challenges to incorporating. Unlike Truckee, which incorporated in 1993, North Tahoe does not have a single commercial core. Rather, it has several communities spread out over 30 miles, along with five different public utility districts. All this serves to disrupt a sense of cohesiveness, creating instead separate community identities and, at times, fostering feelings of mistrust and suspicion.
Another major issue, and the one that has derailed incorporation attempts in the past, is fiscal concerns. Would the Town of North Tahoe be able to generate enough tax dollars to fund a government and public services? A 1992 study found that the answer was no. However, that study did not include the high revenue ski areas such as Squaw Valley, Alpine Meadows, and Northstar. If those communities agreed to be part of the new town it could prove to be financially viable, especially in light of the fact that 90 percent of Placer County’s transit occupancy tax (TOT) revenue is generated in the Tahoe area. At $8.2 million for fiscal year 2008–09, that’s no chump change. A Town of North Tahoe would keep all of that money and decide how it should be used, whether it be for road work or snow plowing. (Currently, Placer County keeps 40 percent of Tahoe TOT dollars and sends 60 percent to the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association.)
I am by no means an incorporation expert, and don’t pretend to know all the financial complexities of what it would take to form a town. But I do know one thing: The March NTRAC meeting was one of the most well attended meetings I have seen in my year on the council, and not one person in the audience spoke out in favor of the zoning amendment prohibiting medical marijuana collectives.
Overall, I believe that most people feel that Placer County does a good job governing North Tahoe — that is why there hasn’t been a constant demand to form a town. But as long as Tahoe remains unincorporated, our fate will be determined by people who do not live here and do not necessarily share our values or our vision for our community.
Only North Shore residents can decide if incorporation is right for us. Ask yourself the same question posed at the beginning of this piece: Would Tahoe be better off if we could make our own decisions? Or, like the medical marijuana issue, is it just a pipe dream?
