I attended a Funeral for a Friend yesterday. The fate of Olympic Valley, formerly known as Squaw Valley, now known as Palisades Tahoe, was sealed by a unanimous vote of the Placer County Board of Supervisors. In an 11-hour marathon, heavily skewed towards presentations by the Developers, the case for an oversized, insensitive and environmentally destructive 25-year buildout development was crammed down the throats of the public. And now it will also be crammed down the throat of the fragile vale known as Olympic Valley.

It marked the end of a 12-year battle that pitted virtually all the conservation and preservation organizations in the Tahoe area; Mountain Area Preservation, Sierra Watch, the League to Save Lake Tahoe, along with the vast majority of the community members, against a multibillion-dollar Colorado private equity firm with a record of ugly developments left in it’s wake.

There was no denying the vast sea of proud purple t-shirts in the standing-room-only, overflow capacity crowd. The vast majority of the community, who took a full day off work to attend, were not anti-development, but were just pleading for a development that was properly sized and respectful of its surroundings.

---

---

The County has always walked in lockstep with the Developer. Why was the County Council sitting elbow to elbow with the Developer’s lawyers at the same table? Hour after hour County Council and the Developer’s lawyers’s presentations wore on, a steamroller of pro-development agenda. I could not tell the two apart. They were literally sitting side by side at the same table.

The developer’s paid consultants actually stated that the developer was an “Environmental Steward” and that the 3300 additional car trips PER DAY and the resulting construction traffic would not add to the pollution washed down into the Truckee River or into Lake Tahoe, a literal stones throw away. They also said that at full buildout the resort would actually REDUCE the number of car trips on the adjacent, even now hopelessly gridlocked feeder roads. How does this make any sense at all?

---

---

I cannot recall a more egregious example of greenwashing and gaslighting.

When finally the public was finally allowed to speak, the customary 3-minute time limit was reduced to two. We struggled to share our hearts with the Supervisors. Would they listen?

After the public testimony was done, the developer and his accomplices were given hours and hours more, late into the evening, to present their rebuttals. The people who actually live here and actually love this place were given no such consideration.

As the Supervisors gave their final speeches, telling us why they would approve the proposal, I looked closely at their faces. Only one lived near the Lake, the rest lived in the flats, in Roseville, I presume. Their affect was flat, not one of them had a fire in the belly, nor a glint in the eye. None of them had struggled to reach a ridge before sundown, and on top spread their arms with joy in Awe of the Beauty of Nature.
To think that the future of the Greater Lake Tahoe ecosystem rested in the arms of these people was heartbreaking.

Two minutes to save Olympic Valley. Im sorry my old friend, it was not enough. May you rest in peace. Here comes Palisades Tahoe, a permanent defacing, an affront, a monument to the worst of corporate power and greed. Two minutes to save Lake Tahoe. Im sorry, most beautiful “shimmering blue”. Two minutes. It was just not enough.

I am crestfallen, heartbroken. But Sierra Watch, really good people fighting a really good fight, defiantly shouts: “Despair Not!”. Please support them, if you care at all about this place we call “home”.