TAHOE BASIN “-The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Governing Board selected a committee of seven Wednesday to think through the process to replace Executive Director John Singlaub.

While the informal committee cannot make any official decisions about how to handle replacing Singlaub, who resigned Jan. 23, it discuss how to move the process along.

“It’s important that we keep the process moving as quickly as possible,” said committee member Mara Bresnick, the California Assembly Speaker appointee to the TRPA Governing Board. “At the next (governing board) meeting the group should recommend a process that the board takes action on.”

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Singlaub’s resignation last week happened too quickly before Wednesday’s Governing Board meeting to allow the board to take any formal action.

The informal committee consists of seven members ” four who are already members of the executive review committee. Those four are Allen Biaggi, TRPA Governing Board chair and director of Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources; Norma Santiago, board vice chair and El Dorado County Supervisor; Shelly Aldean, Carson City Board of Supervisors member and Bresnick.

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Additional members appointed are Steven Merrill, governor of California appointee; Nancy McDermid, Douglas County commissioner and Stuart Yount, presidential appointee.

The schedule of the committee’s meetings is still undecided.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Biaggi said the agency was entering challenging times.

“Obviously we are at a crossroads with this agency,” he said. “We have set some lofty goals for ourselves, to make the forests in the basin more fire safe, to achieve positive movement on the environmental thresholds we have established (especially water quality), to keep invasive aquatic species in check in Tahoe and deny the introduction of new ones, to move forward with environmentally sensitive development and redevelopment within the basin and to pass a long overdue regional plan.”

Biaggi said a list of qualifications for the new director might be one of the first topics the committee discusses and recommends to the board.

For her part, Bresnick said she personally would be looking for someone who could build consensus and had some knowledge about the basin.

“I’m looking for someone with an even temperament, honesty and integrity,” she said. “Someone who is open-minded and someone who is flexible.”

Biaggi said he anticipates the board discussing more about Singlaub’s replacement at its Feb. 25 meeting.