John Singlaub: Astride Lake Tahoe

Interview by Leo Popoff

For the past year, John Singlaub has headed up the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency as its Executive Director, inheriting an agency that, as the principal power in the Tahoe Basin, has both fervid detractors and committed supporters. Singlaub came to Tahoe after a 28- year career with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) where he put together complex multi-use plans.

What did you know about TRPA prior to coming to the job?

I've been watching TRPA for a long time. When I was in graduate school in the late '70s, we studied TRPA as a unique model due to the regulatory authority they had. I moved to Carson City in 1994 so that was the first time I had the opportunity to get to know the agency firsthand. I saw the constant stream of negative publicity that TRPA manages to attract.

What have you discovered about TRPA during your first year?

On the top of my list would be the quality of employees. We have some really talented, knowledgeable, dedicated people. The structure and dynamic of the governing board also works remarkably well.

On the downside, the amount and variety of workload, I had no idea about. We've got more workload than we have staff to do it and the result is stressed-out employees and a lot of time taken to process permits. There are solutions to this beyond just more staffing. But my ability to make changes is like changing a flat tire on a moving car.

What have you accomplished during your first year?

We underwent a reorganization that is going to help us more effectively focus on our three main functions: processing permits, proactive environmental improvement at The Lake, and planning and evaluation. Those are now three divisions that we shrank down from six divisions. I've also been working on funding an automated project review system so that people can apply for permits, check on their permit status and go through the approval process electronically. We are in the process of doing a contractor certification of professionals in and outside the Basin to do work here. Because they're certified we know that they know the rules and can speed up the process. My short-term goal is also to provide an increase in the fee structure so the processing of applications for private development will pay for itself, and will therefore speed up the process by having additional resources available.

As for the negative perception of the agency, all that I ask is that people give us a chance to prove we can make changes. Change is a difficult thing. But I was brought into this job as an agent of change by the governing board. They made that very clear when they hired me. I want to be able to keep good-quality employees and get them to shift direction and help set priorities to get on with the public's business here.

People have called TRPA "the rich people's agency"—how do you dispel that perception?

You know, wealthy people who have big projects think that we pick on them more than anyone else, and people who don't have so much money think we pick on them. My observation in the first year is that we treat everyone the same. There's a perception that the fines that we levy for not following the rules are minor compared to the budgets of some developments, so that wealthier people can just build those costs into the project. The board is wrestling right now with the idea of having deterrents for a millionaire that differ from deterrents for a schoolteacher. I don't want people saying, "Geez that's only a $20,000 fine, I'll take the risk." That's not the point. We're trying to get people to play by the rules because ultimately that's what affects the clarity of The Lake.

What do you see coming out of Pathway 2007 (a colloborative effort to produce a 20-year plan for Tahoe)?

We need to focus on alternative transportation... and get a vision of a modern transit system that works for travelers and residents. Rail is a key component. We've been working with Capital Corridor Project to make a connection to Truckee. I'd love to reinstitute the rail from Truckee to Tahoe City, connect water-borne transit on The Lake, maybe a larger craft going north and south and another going around to various urbanized centers. This in itself would become a tourist attraction. People talk about trying to attract the Olympics to Lake Tahoe—for goodness sake, we can't even handle Presidents' Weekend traffic!

Some of the research that's coming out of Pathway 2007 is going to be helpful in determining where we put our energy and our time in the effort to save Lake Tahoe's clarity. But there are challenges. A lot of nature's ability to filter sediments and nutrients going into The Lake has been disrupted by development. The Tahoe Keys is an example of where we drained the Truckee River Marsh—we need to engineer an alternative to that. Given the amount of pollutants that come from the upper Truckee River and Trout Creek on the south end of The Lake, one of the things I see coming is an increased incentive system to get development out of those stream zones so that rivers can get out of their channels and dump their sediments upstream. We're doing a good job of new development but some old development is creating long-term problems. That's the next step. Do we have the will? Do we have the resources? Those are good questions.