Remarks delivered at the October 15, 2021 Tahoe Donner Budget Workshop
First, speaking for the Trails and Open Space Committee, I want to thank staff and the board for addressing the concerns raised on behalf of that committee at the last workshop.
The full committee was not able to convene to review the final budget proposal. However, along with the TOS’s vice-chairs, Gayle Dana and Peter Sawyer, I met with John Groom and Christina Thayer earlier this week to discuss the final proposal.
The TOS charter suggests that the committee should support consistent and sufficient funding for our land management needs. Consistency can only be measured over years. But for 2022, we are satisfied that the budget is sufficient.
That said, with the trails master plan now finally moving forward, I expect the 2023 budget will require a more in depth discussion about land management planning and budgeting. I look forward to those future discussions.
Second, speaking personally, I want to make a few broader, interrelated points about this budget and this moment in Tahoe Donner.
This budget proposal defied conventional wisdom, which had suggested that we might be looking at an 8 to 10% assessment increase. But, as it turns out, we are talking about a proposal that would increase the assessment by only 4.8%. Over the last 15 years, the average rate of increase for the assessment was 5.27%. The proposed 4.8% increase is a below average increase for the last 15 years.
Much of our management team is relatively new to Tahoe Donner. Perhaps that’s why I keep seeing an eagerness to take a fresh look at how we manage and operate our association. Our management team is not encumbered by our old conventional wisdom. I expect that’s why we are seeing a budget proposal that defies conventional wisdom.
Seeing this new spirit in the staff has made me think more about the way that we — as a community — have become stuck in old conventional wisdom and old conventions.
Before this budget was even developed, I saw the board, committees, staff, and association members bracing themselves for what conventional wisdom expected: A bruising clash full of attacks, invective, and personal demonization. Such malicious impulses have become a conventional part of our public affairs. They don’t make the community better. They only fracture it and damage it.
Before this meeting ends, I expect the board will approve a financial budget for 2022. I support that approval because the proposal appears both efficient and responsible. But I can’t help but wonder about our social budget for the coming year.
If everyone considered the social costs of their behavior and actions as much as they consider the pocketbook costs of our capital projects and operations …
If everyone was as concerned about the health of our social reserves as they are about the health of our capital reserves …
I wonder if some might make different choices about how they conduct themselves, and about how they treat others.
Over the next year, I’d like to see us all pay as much attention to the health of our social budget as we do to the health of our financial budget. Investing in our social budget won’t cost us a dime. Kindness, respect, and civility are free. So too is personal decency.
If we invest in these things, I guarantee that our investment will return a priceless benefit to the well-being of our community.