The Waiting Game: Delayed Town Report Fuels Contractor Concerns
The delayed release of a much-anticipated Town of Truckee organizational assessment resulted in two major local organizations at odds during the first months of 2025.
The assessment, which spanned most of 2024, was performed by third-party consultant Baker Tilly, and was intended to review the organizational structure, staffing, systems, operations, and service delivery across town departments. Originally expected to be published in its final form in January, only a handful of town staff have viewed a preliminary draft to date. A final report of recommendations has no release date as of the Ink’s press deadline.
For many, and as reported by Moonshine Ink this past December in Town Planning in the Hot Seat, the assessment specifically serves as an opportunity to address pain points across the Truckee planning, building, and engineering divisions.
Town Manager Jen Callaway says staff is following a standard process for releasing such a document: “It is atypical for us to, with a preliminary draft, share that with anybody outside of the town … I know that people are wanting to see the draft. It will be out as soon as we are able to have a draft that is completely accurate and ready.”
The Contractors Association of Truckee Tahoe (CATT) has all but cried foul, asserting a lack of transparency. The organization was one of five community stakeholders involved in selecting Baker Tilly to run the assessment. CATT represents more than 500 members, with a goal of addressing the impacts of local agencies on the building trade; many of its members have worked with and are invested in the town’s development divisions.
“We started this [Baker Tilly process] off as a group of stakeholders that were going to be involved, everyone assumed, all the way through,” CATT Executive Director Edward Vento said. “That was the air; everybody was going to be involved in this. We helped pick Baker Tilly; we did the interviews … [The town] knew we were waiting [for the report], they received it, they didn’t tell us it was in when we were expecting the report in January, then they hire a [new] consultant [to interview community members about the development divisions].
“The trust with the town is so eroded in the community that it’s a problem. This is why they had to do the assessment; this wasn’t voluntary; it was demanded by stakeholders … We wanted to make sure nothing materially changed from the draft to the final, and the only way to know that was to have somebody look at it or have a copy.”
At the end of the day, what I hope people understand is if something is in this report, it doesn’t mean that action is going to be taken within 24 hours of receiving the report. We’re looking at this report like a 10-year roadmap.”
~ David Polivy, Town of Truckee council member
Over the past couple of months, the town and CATT have exchanged numerous emails and phone calls about the report, including CATT jointly submitting a public records request, a town council member vehemently defending staff, and even threat of legal action from CATT, though the association is not actively proceeding with a lawsuit.
“I think it was a miscommunication from the beginning,” said the association’s board president, Heather Schourup. “Yes, [the town] got the report in January, but it’s a draft, it’s not final. Had they just said, ‘We expect our first draft back in January and the final should be available for public review in April,’ nobody would’ve been upset about anything. Which sounds silly because it’s not the biggest miscommunication, but it certainly got some feathers ruffled.”
Callaway shared the town’s views on the behind-the-scenes commotion. “This frustration [with the town’s development services has] been brewing for years and years and years and years and years,” she said. “It’s not really new, per se. And for the first time, we’re really trying to address it. Then this is the narrative that we’re in. We’re not spending time in this narrative. We’re facing forward, we’re focused on hearing what the recommendations are and finding solutions.”
“We are just as eager to have that so we can be preparing for those needs or at least some of those needs in the budget,” she said. “But we also have to honor what the process is, and we want a quality report that comes out of this with quality recommendations.” Photo by Alex Hoeft/Moonshine Ink
Getting the facts straight
Baker Tilly began its $250,000 contract in May 2024, and the outreach portion quickly ballooned.
“Our scope envisioned up to 31 confidential interviews, small group meetings, and focus groups with town council members and staff, and up to 10 community and regional stakeholder input sessions,” shared Project Manager Pete Gonda in an email. In reality, the following occurred:
- 20 one-on-one discussions with council and staff members following project kickoff
- Two internal stakeholder focus group meetings with 11 attendees total
- Four focus group meetings with external stakeholders (30 attendees in total)
- Three interviews with former town officials and a nonprofit group representative
- Several discussions with department staff members during summer site visits (30 staff members engaged)
- Additional external stakeholder meetings with six participants
- Follow-up discussions with staff members (five participants)
“In total, we engaged with at least 105 individuals inside and outside of the organization,” Gonda wrote. “We continue to be contacted by community stakeholders … Following [the week of Feb. 24’s] meeting, we will not engage in additional discussions, given that we are in the final stages of the project.”
The scope of work also identified how the report would proceed in its end stages: Consultants would prepare a draft report and submit it for town review. “Then with feedback in hand, we will finalize the report(s) to include recommendations supported by analysis and clearly defensible justification, as well as a cost/benefit analysis for any funding required for implementing a particular recommendation,” per the Baker Tilly application. “This task will conclude with a virtual presentation to the Town Council summarizing our observations and recommendations for improvement.”
Had [the town] just said, ‘We expect our first draft back in January and the final should be available for public review in April,’ nobody would’ve been upset about anything. Which sounds silly because it’s not the biggest miscommunication, but it certainly got some feathers ruffled.”
~ Heather Schourup, CATT board president
Baker Tilly sent its draft report to the town on Dec. 23, 2024. Callaway replied with preliminary comments the week of Jan. 6, 2025, with the town’s core project team sending full comments on Feb. 5. Thirteen town staffers have seen the draft report — generally the head and an additional representative from each department.
As of Feb. 24, Gonda said his staff is updating the report to ensure factual accuracy. “We are behind schedule and had hoped to complete the project by now,” he added. “That said, we anticipate finishing the project on budget, if not on schedule per our initial timeline. We do hope to wrap up by our contract end date of April 30.”
Of what she’s reviewed so far, Callaway said she’s satisfied with Baker Tilly’s work. “It’s an interesting structure here in Truckee and I know that they’ve spent some time grasping all the different special districts and the jurisdictions and how we all work together.”
To CATT’s assumption that it would be included in reviewing the draft report, Callaway said, “I don’t know why they assumed that. And if they did assume that they didn’t ask us that question for clarity.”
Schourup spoke with Baker Tilly in late February to understand where things were with the report. Gonda shared a summary: “What we communicated to CATT is that we see land development processes as the town’s biggest consensus challenge based on our observations and the internal/external stakeholder feedback received.”
Quelling some of CATT’s anxieties, Schourup said of the call, “[Baker Tilly] said there’s nothing that’s happening right now outside of their standard policy that happens on all of their reviews,” she recalled. “A draft is sent back for factual corrections, whether it’s as simple as someone’s name being incorrect or anything that’s factually incorrect … The Baker Tilly guys, they said, ‘This is what we do. We’re not in the business of just taking our findings out because somebody doesn’t like it, or it makes them look bad. That’s not what we do. And if we did that, we wouldn’t be in business.’”
How it went down
CATT’s rub with the town’s decisions over the Baker Tilly report, Vento says, is an ongoing lack of communication and transparency. These two points are not news; they were also brought up during Baker Tilly’s community engagement sessions last summer, according to attendees and town staff.
“The timing, how everything happened [with the report] was ‘suspect’ [to CATT’s Local Government Affairs Committee],” Vento said. “All of a sudden, [the town goes] from being very transparent to not. That creates a tension. Why do we think we deserve to see it? Why don’t we? We were initially invited to participate … We’re the largest contractors association in Nevada County [and] the only one in the area. You’d think they would at least let us take a peek; hey, here’s the findings. They said no, but don’t worry, it’s not going to get scrubbed.”
Beyond not making CATT aware of the preliminary draft, some CATT members took issue with the town’s hiring of local resident and airport board member David Diamond as a consultant to improve the town’s building, engineering, and planning processes.
At the time, the move appeared to be a tool for softening the Baker Tilly report’s release, with buzz around town debating whether or not it will make the town look good. “Why would they hire David Diamond … if there’s nothing [concerning] in the report?” Vento and others wondered.
Callaway said the intention behind the hiring was more proactive in nature.
Though the Baker Tilly preliminary report was still at least a month out and staff had no preview of the findings, Callaway said she assumed there would be recommendations for “technology solutions and enterprise software systems to help with efficiency.” With the town’s budget planning happening in January, she wanted “to be able to incorporate capital projects for budget if we’re going to get new software,” she explained.
Diamond, who has experience in technological management systems, sent in a proposal on Dec. 15, 8 days before the Baker Tilly preliminary report came in, and signed a contract Dec. 31. He began his scope of work, which in part is to draft high-level recommendations to the town for improving development services, on Jan. 2, 2025, and will work through June to the tune of $8,200 per month (and no more than $49,200 in total).
Diamond’s role, Callaway said, is “much more detail oriented” than Baker Tilly’s. “We’ve done this high-level one and now we’re narrowing in. At the end of the day, we’re really trying to respond to what we think we’ve heard from CATT as an organization is wanting to see improvements. There’s nothing that’s not transparent.”
Callaway and Diamond confirmed he has not reviewed the Baker Tilly draft report.
Town staff and CATT never communicated directly about the Diamond contract, and when Vento invited him to a Local Government Affairs Committee meeting, it was to make connections with key people in the building sphere.
“I knew he was working on something … [but] nobody ever told me, ‘Okay, the deal’s been closed, this is the scope of it, this is what’s going on,’” Vento said. “[The committee] knew he was coming, he was on the agenda, but I didn’t do a good job of explaining why he was there because I didn’t really understand his role … They were confused: ‘Wait a minute, we just paid Baker Tilly all this money, and now David shows up [setting up more interviews]. What’s going on?’”
Between the Diamond contract, being denied a chance to see the preliminary report after asking, and an air of skepticism over the Baker Tilly report, LGAC elevated the stakes.
On Jan. 29, CATT and the Tahoe Sierra Board of Realtors submitted a public records request to the town by way of Craig Weaver of MOBO Law. Specifically, they asked for (1) a copy of the preliminary report, and (2) “All interdepartmental communications, including, but not limited to, emails, faxes, text messages, and phone call records, including, but not limited to, Town of Truckee and Baker Tilly communications regarding the assessment, for a time frame beginning sixty (60) days before the engagement of Baker Tilly and continuing through the date of production.” This request was one of five the town received regarding access to the draft report.
Schourup said CATT’s board didn’t have to give approval for the records request, and that’s something she wants to rectify. “It would be nice because it’s got the CATT name on it, and what if someone wants to call and talk to me about it?” she said. “I, as the president, whoever it is at the time, just needs to know what’s going on.”
As Callaway put it, the second part “was a very extensive request.” Others, upon learning about the request, echoed the sentiment.
On Feb. 3, Truckee Councilmember David Polivy messaged members of CATT from his town email sharing his disappointment in their records request. He wrote in part:
So you are aware, the town council hasn’t even seen the Baker Tilly report yet so the fact that you think CATT is special and should have access to something commissioned by council to improve the work of the town but is not yet public is bizarre. How about giving us a chance to see, digest, and then work on the recommendations of the report?
If you are unhappy with council’s actions after the report gets published, then let’s talk and see what else can be done.
… Are you aware how many hours of staff time go into fulfilling a public records request? Do you think there are magic fairies that are going to pull everything you requested together? Nope, there aren’t! There are hardworking town staff people who will now spend countless hours fulfilling your request instead of doing the very work they are hired to do …
… Is CATT just a conspiracy-theory-based organization living in fear that something is going to harm them so they need to file a public records request?
… In my opinion, you are choosing to waste time, chase whatever delusional story you have told yourselves and pushed back the release of the report even further. If you want change or perhaps want something else, why aren’t you even giving us the chance to make those changes?
… P.S. Of course you are free to file whatever requests you want. This email is my opinion and mine alone and I don’t directly govern any work that town staff does in any way shape or form other than from a high-level policy perspective. If you would like to ever have a conversation, just ask!
The full email is available here.
Polivy said he continues to stand by the point of that email, and that he never received a reply (Vento confirmed CATT chose not to respond), nor did any CATT member reach out to him to ask questions about the draft report’s status. “The past method for coming to consensus, for understanding concerns, and for making change was very different,” he furthered, “and seems to have really shifted under CATT’s new leadership to a much more confrontational style.”
It was the Polivy email that prompted Schourup to begin taking a closer look at the situation.
On Feb. 10, the town replied to the public records request declining to provide the draft report under legal exemptions that protect an agency’s decision-making process but approving the sharing of communications between the town and Baker Tilly.
In mid-February, CATT’s LGAC voted to take legal action against the town to be able to access the report. That’s when Schourup officially stepped in.
“I felt things [were] moving a little fast and getting a little out of hand,” she said. “With CATT’s name on it, I wanted to make sure that I spoke with everybody involved so that I had a firm understanding of what was going on before CATT continued to push.
This frustration [with the town’s development services has] been brewing for years and years and years and years and years. It’s not really new, per se. And for the first time, we’re really trying to address it. Then this is the narrative that we’re in. We’re not spending time in this narrative. We’re facing forward.”
~ Jen Callaway, Town of Truckee town manager
“CATT and the town should have a cooperative relationship with each other, and that’s why I stepped in,” she continued. “I felt it was crossing over to combative. And I don’t think that being at odds with each other benefits any of the members of CATT.”
Schourup and Callaway met Feb. 21 to discuss both sides’ perspectives, and between that meeting and Schourup’s conversation with Baker Tilly, there was a lot more clarity to the situation. Schourup did request to review the draft report in Callaway’s office — “no notes, no pictures taken of it, not taking a copy with me, but just so that I can see it now, and then when the final comes out, I can attest that it hasn’t been scrubbed.” Callaway checked with Baker Tilly, who shared the aforementioned summary, not the report.
After those conversations, litigation was no longer on the table.
“We think that if we did take it to court, like our [LGAC] wants, the judge would side with us,” Vento said. “And that’s what Craig [Weaver] thinks as well. However, this is the part where it becomes really important: We’re doing this not to punish the town, not to punish anybody, not to appear like somebody’s heroes … We’re doing it because we’re forced to force transparency because nobody communicated. I don’t even think town council knew when David was hired.”
Polivy told Moonshine he learned about the Diamond contract within the past month to 2 to 3 months. As town manager, Callaway is allowed to sign agreements up to $50,000 without direct approval from town council.
Vento added that it would likely take a year to a year and a half for any judge to make a ruling, and CATT doesn’t want to impede the town making improvements because of that timeline.
The week of March 3, CATT officially pulled back its request of the draft report, though is still receiving communications between Baker Tilly and the town, as per the records request.
“I’m in a wait-and-see pattern with it,” Schourup said. “At face value, what the two Baker Tilly principals told me versus what [Callaway] told me versus common sense and looking at things, I think it all lines up. If the report comes out and there are things not in there that we really think should be in there, then we revisit the issue of the draft document to be able to do a comparison.”
As for the relationship between CATT and the Town of Truckee, Vento said things are otherwise business as usual. “We want to keep working and we want to work on the process and the mechanics, and we feel that if the process and the mechanics are solid, the personalities won’t matter,” he said.
Polivy asked for patience from community members regarding the report: “Let us get this report, let us digest the report, and let’s make sure in this next budget cycle and work plan cycle, we start to implement some of the recommendations from the report. That’s the process that we operate under … Hold us accountable as your elected officials through that process. At the minimum, give us the opportunity to even get to that process.
“At the end of the day, what I hope people understand is if something is in this report, it doesn’t mean that action is going to be taken within 24 hours of receiving the report,” he added. “We’re looking at this report like a 10-year roadmap.”
