Beach access sparks outcry among Lake Tahoe locals
Since 2023, Incline Village's beaches have been fully private and reserved for its roughly 7,800 homeowners and their guests. But the five-member board that governs Incline Village ultimately decided access should be expanded to the workers who keep recreation and utility services running.
'To me, it's the right thing to do,' said David Noble, a trustee for the Incline Village General Improvement District (IVGID), who introduced the Employee Pass Program to the board. 'It also serves as both a recruiting and retention tool.' The proposal wasn't without its critics. Several community members and one IVGID trustee spoke out against the plan at a June 11 meeting.
Ray Tulloch (pictured), a trustee who's owned a property in Incline Village for 18 years, said he thought opening up the beach to employees would be unfair to homeowners, who each pay a $655 annual fee to maintain it. 'It puts the whole beach deed at risk,' Tulloch said. 'I'm not sure why owners should be paying that much money for a private facility that is then potentially opened up to the world.'
Another person, who identified himself as Frank Wright (pictured), spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting and raged about Incline Village beaches being opened up to 'people who don't belong here.' 'The exclusive beaches will become public,' Wright said. 'You're going to have a nightmare on your hands. The people in town are going to rebel.'
Wright lives in Crystal Bay, a nearby community that is also governed by IVGID. He has run for a trustee position on the board multiple times and lost his most recent bid in 2024. While he was running last year, he gave a statement to the Tahoe Daily Tribune and argued that allowing employees on Incline Village beaches violated the town's beach deed. Wright explained that while serving on a citizens group appointed to write rules and regulations for IVGID's recreational venues, he 'raised the issue of the irresponsibleness of the employees accessing the beach.' 'Employees who lived outside the district were accessing the beach (and their families), which was a violation of the beach deed,' Wright said.
Incline Village employees had beach access for decades until the trustees revoked it in January 2023. The trustees sided with Wright at the time, pointing out that worker access could open them up to lawsuits or violate the deed authored in 1968, which only allows property owners, their tenants and guests to use the beach. During the June 11 meeting, Noble said that after beach access was revoked from employees, even people who worked on the beach during the day had to leave during their breaks. Noble said that there are about 500 staff members during peak season but added that many of them commute from outside Incline Village, which meant few of them used the beach in their free time anyway.
Employees and their families represented just 1.5 percent of the total beach visits in 2022, when they were last allowed to be there, according to documents shared at the meeting. 'It's still exclusive,' Noble said. 'Nobody will notice whether they're there or not there.' The IVGID board voted to approve employee beach access, with the only dissenting vote coming from Tulloch. Before anything changes, the board will send homeowners letters asking them if they'd be willing to sponsor employees as their guests on the beach.
That appears to be the way the board will comply with the beach deed. Noble said with enough buy-in from residents, employees will soon be allowed back in. That will mean access to sand and swimming areas, as well as an outdoor pool with a waterslide, playgrounds, picnic and grilling areas, paddleboard and kayak rentals, a snack and drink bar and a boat launch. Rob Watson, a property owner in Incline Village, told the board he'd be willing to sponsor employees. 'As any competent executive knows, the employees of a company are their most valuable assets,' he said. 'These are our employees.'
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