I'm a third-generation South Lake Tahoe kid running for City Council because I want the people who actually live and work here to have a real say in what happens to this town. That means housing we can actually afford, an economy that works for locals year-round, a council that shows up prepared and treats people with respect, and real transparency in how decisions get made.
About Erika
When I came back to Tahoe back in 2019, I thought hard about why I wanted to stay. My family’s roots here run three generations deep. My grandparents on both sides came to Tahoe with extended family to work in hospitality. I’m a Tahoe kid through and through, and I was lucky enough to leave for my education and come back by choice, but so many people with backgrounds like mine—families who came here to work, immigrant families—have voices that still aren’t represented in our local government.
That’s not for lack of care. The city has made real efforts to be inclusive. But local government is bureaucratic by nature, often conducted in a language and style that can leave people feeling that the process isn’t built for them, even when they’re the ones who built this community.
I was born and raised here, and even I struggled at times to find my place. I think it matters to have someone at the table who represents the people who founded these roots, not because they were drawn here by the scenery, but because they needed a job and built a life here anyway. And I think it matters for the kids growing up here now to see that this community wants their involvement, and that opportunity to lead and belong here is real.
Where I come from
I graduated from South Tahoe High School in 2003. My family has lived here the whole time, and I stayed closely connected through college and law school, including coming back for a legal internship here. I moved back full time in 2019 and I’ve been here ever since.
I earned my Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from UC Berkeley, then went on to University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law, where I received my JD.
Showing up for this community
Since coming back to South Lake Tahoe, I’ve wanted to engage with this community as much as possible, especially in local government. I got involved early with the Policy Advisory Commission, back when it was first established. Around that same time, I also joined the TRPA Tahoe Living Working Group, and it was seeing how regulations actually get formed through that process that made me want to serve on the Planning Commission when the opportunity came up, including attending the Cal Cities planning commissioner conference to keep building that knowledge.
My commitment to local government has also extended into other community work, including Friends of the Library, ADVANCE (a collaborative network of education and government agencies, local organizations, and employers supporting adult education and civic opportunities across the Lake Tahoe Basin and Alpine County), and co-chairing the curriculum development for the Chamber’s Leadership Tahoe program, which built out a full curriculum on how the Lake Tahoe Basin functions.
My work
My career as a public interest attorney has given me the skills to dig into complex legal and policy questions, communicate clearly, and advocate effectively, skills that translate directly to the work of a councilmember. I work as a managing attorney at CAST, the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, where I run a training and technical assistance program under federal grants. I’ve spent over eleven years training attorneys and social workers across dozens of states on supporting survivors of trafficking.
That work has added another layer to how I approach problems, teaching me to work through a trauma-informed, client-centered lens. That means centering the wants and needs of the people I serve, rather than my own individual goals, and it’s an approach I bring to every table I sit at, including council chambers.
Relevant Experience
Civic Service
- Planning Commissioner, City of South Lake Tahoe
- Chair, Policy Advisory Commission
- Participant, TRPA Tahoe Living Working Group
Career
- Managing Attorney, CAST (Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking), 11+ years
- Trains attorneys and social workers nationwide on supporting trafficking survivors under federal grants
Education
- B.A., Political Science, UC Berkeley
- J.D., University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law
Community
- Friends of the Library volunteer
- ADVANCE board member
- Co-chair, curriculum development, Chamber's Leadership Tahoe program
Life outside city hall
A perfect Tahoe day for me is an easy beach day with a good book. I volunteer at the library shelving in the fiction section, which means I get first peek at all the new arrivals, and I love doing little coffee tours around town, trying out the seasonal drinks at all our local coffee shops, and you’ll usually find me somewhere in the middle of a book club or a knitting circle. When I can find the time, I’m catching a Kpop concert or making it out to a Cal football game, still repping my days in the Cal Band. My dog brothers, Leonardo and Donatello, technically belong to my parents, but since I live with them, they come everywhere with me too, including helping plant the first yard sign of this campaign.
Why I’m asking for your vote
South Lake Tahoe raised me, and I’ve spent my career learning how to listen, how to advocate, and how to bring people together on hard issues. I want to bring that same work to our council, so we can build housing residents can actually afford, an economy that works for locals, decorum and trust in our government, and real civic participation from every corner of this community.
Our Tahoe, Our Voice.
Platform Priorities
🏡 Housing Residents Can Actually Afford
Rooted in: Watching my own community, including myself, get priced out of the neighborhoods we built.
I've spent the last year in the room where this actually gets decided. As a member of the Planning Commission and the TRPA Living Working Group, I've watched our short-term rental regulations get rewritten in real time, and I've seen where the city has room to work within those parameters and where it doesn't.
I don't think the answer is eliminating the vacation rental market. I think it's understanding it. That market is also how a lot of people in this town make their living, including the housekeepers and small operators who depend on it to run their own businesses. If we get rid of it wholesale, we don't just lose rental units; we lose income for the people we're supposedly trying to protect.
What I would like to do is keep looking at the short-term rental market using the tools we already have and identifying where those tools fall short. I want us to look honestly at whether local ordinances need to change, including staying engaged with TRPA to keep updating regulations to match where we are as a society. I want the city to continue actively pursuing grant funding and other revenue streams to pay for deed-restricted workforce housing, not just talking about wanting it. And I want us to actually look at what makes South Lake Tahoe different, not just import solutions from the rest of California, because our environmental constraints and TRPA regulations shape what's even possible here in ways most housing policy debates don't account for.
💼 An Economy That Works For Locals
Rooted in: Being one of the people South Lake Tahoe raised and then couldn't stay.
I left South Lake Tahoe for school and a career, the same way a lot of people I grew up with did. Not because I wanted to. Because there wasn't a job here that matched what I'd trained for. When that happens enough times, a community doesn't just lose people; it loses the workforce it grew, and ends up needing to import the one it needs instead.
My family has worked in South Lake Tahoe hospitality for generations; it's why they came here in the first place, and I don't think that's something to run away from. This will always be a tourist economy. The lake and the mountains aren't going anywhere, and neither is the industry built around them. But being a tourist town doesn't mean being dependent on tourism's every season. Right now we are, and it shows. Storefronts sit empty, not because nobody's trying, but because a business built to survive on summer and winter alone can't make it through October or April when the visitors thin out.
That's not a sign the city isn't doing anything. South Lake Tahoe has a strategic plan aimed at growing and diversifying the economy, and staff has already started reaching out directly to local business owners to understand what they're up against. What we need is a council that actually carries that work forward instead of letting it stall as a line item on a plan nobody revisits.
Carrying that work forward means getting specific about what year-round survival actually looks like. Supporting businesses that don't depend entirely on summer and winter crowds. Making South Lake Tahoe a place where a business can open in a shoulder month and still make it to the next season. That's how you stop losing the people this town raised.
📋 Decorum & Trust
Rooted in: Watching our council meetings lose sight of their purpose, and hearing from residents how much trust in this council has eroded because of it.
We are living in a moment defined by opposition for its own sake and grandstanding for talking points. That's true nationally, and it's true here, at the local level, where it matters most because this is the government closest to your daily life. When council members are more interested in the soapbox than the solution, when meetings run past midnight because everyone needs to make their point on the record, the people actually doing the work—staff, residents, the person who came to give two minutes of public comment—all pay the price.
Respect and decorum show the community two things: that we know what we're doing, and that we know how to work in partnership. A ten-hour meeting isn't rigor; it's often the opposite. Respect and decorum mean coming prepared, knowing the staff report, asking real questions instead of performing outrage, and treating the people who work for this city and the people who show up to critique it with basic dignity and respect. That includes how we talk to each other on the dais, how we talk to staff, and how we talk to the community members who disagree with us.
What I hope this campaign shows is how I show up for this community, with a principled stand and a clear perspective, even when it's not the easy one, so that my approach becomes something residents can point to and recognize as what leadership here should look like.
🗣️ Civic Participation: Our Tahoe, Our Voice
Rooted in: Believing people can only make real choices when they actually understand what's happening.
In my work, the foundation of everything is informed consent: making sure someone understands their options, in plain language, before they're asked to decide anything. I think local government owes residents the same thing.
People care about what happens in this city. What's hard is finding out what's actually happening, figuring out when a decision is still open versus already made, and understanding where and how to actually weigh in. That takes real transparency and a government that's genuinely accessible in the everyday experience of trying to navigate it.
I want city projects to keep doing what's worked before: keeping clear, plain-language information available throughout a project, not just at the start, so residents can ask real questions as things develop instead of finding out after a decision is final. And I want that same standard applied to how meetings themselves work: timed well, explained clearly, and structured so people don't have to already be an expert in city process to participate.
Upcoming Events
- Housing Policy Townhall Oct 12
- Hospitality Workers Meet & Greet Oct 18