Letters to the Editor: VHRs and Kudos
Kudos
Many thanks to the following El Dorado County programs which are made up of the staff, administrators and the ED County Board of Supervisors.
The “Clean Tahoe” program has never let me down. I’ve had the need to call them several times.The dispatch office has been polite and usually there is someone to speak to, though sometimes a message must suffice and provides timely action. I live in an area where irresponsible owners, renters, tourists and wildlife provide messes frequently.
The cleanup is mostly in wooded areas and sufficiently large enough to necessitate help or otherwise I take it on myself. Thank you for helping to keep us looking clean.
By the way, a special thanks also goes out to the “Adopt a Highway” program and those entities who volunteer for this program! Ballys, I believe, adopted a stretch of Highway 50 near my neighborhood. I believe they are doing an admirable job! Thanks to you also!
Secondly, our “Vector Control” department is very responsive and capable. I am hereby referring to the yellow jacket control program, especially since those of us with an allergy to bees and wasps in general, have needed their services. At my home, which seems to attract yellow jackets is where I currently need them, but in a previous location of more than a hundred acres, where I used them, they were needed numerous times each summer. Always there for us!
We are lucky to have such services, though they are line items on our property tax bills. Not all counties including some neighboring counties have such programs! These are examples of local government succeeding at what it can do to make our community better.
Thank you!
John Stanowski
South Lake Tahoe
Betrayed
I have never felt more betrayed… I had faith that at least three of the members of the City Council would do that which is right and just by restoring the right for ALL of the former VHR permit holders and those on the waiting list to their rightful former positions prior to the passage of the unconstitutional Measure T.
If the City Council wants to reduce the number of permits by attrition after all of the above were allowed the opportunity to pick up the pieces from where they were at the time Measure T was unlawfully enacted, I would be OK with that.
However, this proposal is abominable. There is no provision in the proposed ordinance for selecting which of the former permit holders will be afforded the limited opportunity to renew their permits and what the status of the remaining ones would be.
Those on the waiting list are also being shafted by this proposal. Some of them have been on that list for as long as eight years and will suffer an even greater loss than the actual permit holders. The waiting list also has a significantly different legal position than the permit holders, it was legally only suspended ostensibly until Measure T was adjudicated.
While I do agree that the QVHR permits should also be restored, they were not included on the agenda. Actions speak louder than words, these actions disgust me. There is still the opportunity to correct this hastily passed, poorly conceived measure, I urge the Council Members to reconsider what they are doing.
John Messina
