Dan Thrift/Nevada Appeal News Service Pathway 2007 members are shown at Tuesday's meeting at the Valhalla Boathouse Theater from left: David Ceppos, program manager for Collaborative Policy; Mary Beth Gustafson, U.S. Forest Service; Harold Singer, executive director of Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board; John Singlaub, Tahoe Regional Planning Agency director; and Tom Porta, bureau chief of water-quality planning Nevada division of the Environmental Protection Agency.
The Pathway 2007 Web site - www.pathway2007.org - is up, a toll-free phone line to record comments is on the way and focus groups already have met in Sacramento and Las Vegas.
The effort to involve the public in creating 20-year growth and forest management plans for the Lake Tahoe Basin is multi-layered. It is also expensive. Work to create collaborative relationship between the public, agencies and private groups and organizations is expected to cost up to $1.8 million over three years.
"We're not just talking about a couple of public hearings," said Julie Regan, communications director for the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. "It's far deeper than that, and on a greater scale."
• Pathway 2007 Forum: Nominations to be a member will begin this month. The forum will represent interests inside and outside of the Lake Tahoe Basin. Its members will be selected by executives of public agencies in the basin. The forum will provide "consensus recommendations" to agency decision makers.
• Collaborative process workshops: Informational meetings to begin in October to introduce Pathway 2007 to the public.
• Visionary workshops: Focused workshops in October and November to allow the community to come up with a vision for Tahoe's future. That vision will be relayed to technical committees and the forum.
• Roundtables: Focused groups will address specific concerns of community members. The groups will share information with forum members.