FoOV will continue its engagement in the development process. While the settlement agreement addresses many significant impacts, the Friends continue to advocate for changes that would benefit the local community. These include:

 Performance benchmarks to hold the developer accountable for all “promises”. This demands “guaranteed guardrails” to ensure agreements are kept and mitigations are effective for duration of build out.

 More OV oriented funding and local supervision.

 Front-loading enhancements to the WaSheShu Creek (before 150 units are built).

 Provide safe Wildfire shelter-in-place for community residents.

 Buried propane tanks (bomb site) or eliminate in favor of electric heating/cooling solutions

 Re-allocation of the development funds committed to Placer County back into Olympic Valley

 Public website to transparently monitor the “subsequent approval process”

Additional priorities that the Friends believes are warranted include:

Firewise

FoOV will continue as fiscal sponsor OV Firewise, which provides certification of community compliance, works with PSD to staff green waste collection days, and shares fire resilience information through social media and collaboration with OVPSD and Olympic Valley Property Owners Association (OVPOA). Members of the FoOV were key in having the first Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) financed, written, and approved, which has led to several successful grants for forest thinning. Going forward, FoOV will be advocating for matching grant funds to help residents plan and finance hardening their homes and creating defensible space around their homes(a critical need according to CWPP).

OV Park

The Olympic Valley Park is in need of major rehabilitation, and, to address this need, the FoOV has been advocating for years to have Placer County convene an OV Park Master Plan meeting. While these efforts have been rebuffed, there is now a new Placer County parks administrator whom FoOV will now engage. It is clear some type of funding of park amenities and maintenance is needed. (Replacing the athletic field alone will cost about $1.5 million). This could be a local tax, TOT funding, or some form of a Placer County service area agreement. FoOV supports meaningful discussions to maintain and improve “our” park, sooner rather than later.

Project Olympic

Although conceptual at present, strong support is warranted for Project Olympic development proposal for the 2 large parcels owned by the Poulsen family that now house the Post Office and several retail operations. FoOV believes this concept should be vigorously pursued, not only to prevent overdevelopment of these parcels which is allowed by existing zoning, but to meet community needs and protect our community culture. Public meetings are currently underway in that regard.

Incorporate Eastern Placer

Given the demographics of Placer County supervisor district 5, our current supervisor will likely be the last one from our area. Serious efforts to Incorporate the North Tahoe region (including Olympic Valley, Alpine Meadows, and Northstar) are underway. A preliminary financial analysis has been completed showing the proposed town would be financially viable. Incorporation means that the significant revenue generated by the region would be spent in the region, on the priorities set by the local population. The steering committee for this effort has laid out a series of next steps, and FoOV  strongly supports this work. There are many difficult and expensive challenges to getting this accomplished, but clearly, it is now or never.