How well are investments in the environment performing? Monitoring is conducted in the effort to answer this question. In this interview, Claire Fortier, Mayor of the City of South Lake Tahoe, argues that monitoring is useful when deployed in a targeted context, where the objectives are defined. In this conversation Fortier shares a little bit about the hefty price tag of monitoring and the drive for continual improvement based upon the monitoring results.

Claire Fortier is the Mayor of the City of South Lake Tahoe. In this interview she talks about monitoring. Monitoring—conducted in an effort to determine how effective projects have been in achieving the environmental goals of the Basin—has been a key topic of discussion at the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Governing Board meetings in this month before the vote on the Regional Plan Update. Here Mayor Fortier gives us some context on the topic of monitoring from the local government perspective.

The Tahoe Region is updating its vision of its communities and the way they will work in the twenty-first century. Discussions are now underway in the local communities around the Tahoe Basin about what they will look like and what their interface with the environment will be. Residents, part-time homeowners and visitors to the Tahoe area are invited to participate in these future-planning opportunities, says Joanne Marchetta in this fourth-in-the-series interview with the Executive of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.

“Let the system focus on the places where you get the biggest environmental bang for the buck,” this is the advice that the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency took from the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL). "The flexibility that we have built into the system is based on this new paradigm that says: focus on the locations where you can get the greatest pollutant load reduction," says Joanne Marchetta, TRPA Executive. The pollutants at issue are ultra-fine sediment, nitrogen and phosphorus. Creating the regulatory flexibility to enable jurisdictions to go after these pollutants is a high-priority undertaking in the Tahoe planning process.

In this interview segment Joanne Marchetta, TRPA Executive Director, responds to the question, "What is the role of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) in relation to incentive and means in the private sector?" In response Marchetta highlights how the TRPA is shifting into a more-regional role than it previously played. She says, “…[local government] knows that the way to protect themselves is to protect the environment here.” She underscores how the new regional plan envisions place-making happening in the hands of local citizens and local government, where TRPA plays a role in approving the plans and ensuring their consistency with the environmental sideboards set by TRPA while leaving local character to be determined by citizens.

Joanne Marchetta is the Executive Director of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. The agency is bringing forward the Tahoe Regional Plan Update to its Board of Governors in December 2012. This Plan update has been the focus of much debate for nearly a decade. Will the Board vote its approval? Will it proceed without litigation as the governors of Nevada and California have sought? In this interview Marchetta shares her perspective on what is at stake.

The Meyers Community at Lake Tahoe is updating the Community Plan document which describes the desired future of the area. Toward this end a community workshop, open to the public, is being hosted at 5:30 PM on Wednesday, November 7th at 2211 Keetak Street, behind the Lake Valley Fire Station. An update to the general plan for Tahoe Paradise Park will be an important aspect of discussion.

Norma Santiago is the District 5 El Dorado County Supervisor, representing South Lake Tahoe and Pollock Pines in El Dorado County. In this interview Santiago talks about the Tahoe Regional Plan Update and the constituency she represents, highlighting the need and opportunity to build trust and solutions.

Allen Biaggi is a member of the board of the Tahoe Fund. In this interview Biaggi talks about the Fund whose goal is to build broad support and funding for public projects.

In this second segment of the 2012 interview with Allen Biaggi he talks about water quality, the advances made in Nevada with regard to water quality and about the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) which he calls, "a huge step forward because previously we had more of a shotgun approach … we now know through a rigorous scientific process, where the problems are, and can focus our scant resources toward that end. We can now spend our money wisely toward those reductions in fine sediments."