Mojo is a slang word for an object with magical power to ward off evil spirits. General Motors has lost its mojo. So has Hollywood-including the new multi-million dollar King Kong movie that is currently languishing at the box-office. Most of the major airlines are mojoless today, and Governor Schwarzenegger seems to have misplaced his of late.

Three Legs on the Stool
This Tahoe-Truckee Region has long had mojo, but it requires constant care and feeding, especially amidst the extra challenges of a weak-weather year. There are three legs on the stool that represents our mojo: The major resort leg, the Truckee leg, and the North & West Shore leg. All three need to be sturdy and the same length if the stool is to remain standing and productive for the economic benefit of the community at large.

Major Resorts
The major resorts in Palisades Tahoe, Alpine Meadows, and at Northstar are doing their share-and then some, many would say. The Resort at Squaw Creek, the Village at Palisades Tahoe, Ski Corp., and East-West Partners have all made huge capital and marketing investments in recent years to expand and upgrade their facilities and image. And in general, they have done so at a respectable level of cooperation with the other economic players around the area. The major resort leg on our mojo is strong.

Truckee
Truckee is struggling fiercely with the competing forces of land development and character preservation as the twelve-year-old town absorbs a 50% increase in population nearby. (See chart.) The citizens of Truckee pulled themselves together to incorporate in 1993. It was their way of wresting some control over Truckee's destiny from the county seats located down the hill in Nevada City and Auburn. Setting up a local government was not easy, but the alternative for the people who cared about Truckee was to remain divided and be conquered by inertia ("we can't afford incorporation") and outside forces. Today the Truckee leg on our mojo is holding up its side nicely.

North & West Shore
The North & West Shore leg is another story. This writer, a former resident, returned to the area two years ago and was amazed to see the same organizational fragmentation and leadership vacuum that existed in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Of course there have been noble efforts here and there.

Kings Beach has made successful trips to the Placer County coffers for redevelopment funds and has completed some beautiful work on the waterfront. But Kings Beach now finds it can't fill its conference center "due to lack of sufficient transportation between the Reno airport and the North Shore."

The Tahoe City Downtown Association ran a good first lap in 2005 in terms of stirring interest in downtown businesses and the need for a collective effort, but the Association seems to be fading in visibility and influence as the second lap (2006) starts.

The West Shore Association was reborn at of a big fundraiser in November, but its agenda (groomed XC trails at Sugar Pine) is small, and probably, rightly so.

The key point, however, is that it is a sure bet that the people driving these three quasi-governmental operations (in Kings Beach, Tahoe City, West Shore) don't really speak to one another. Each sub-group takes on the world on its own, that is to say, with very limited resources and a parochial outlook.

An example is the endless struggle to develop a comprehensive visitors' map. Each zone of the continuous shoreline wants its own smaller map to distribute rather than a larger, regional map covering all legs on the stool. Few board members are willing to consider the visitors' need for integrated, useable information. This is the kind of provincial thinking that ruins a mojo.

NLTRA
What about the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association (NLTRA)? This question is frequently asked. NLTRA is as close to a coherent, unified voice as the North & West Shore has ever had, which is not saying a lot. NLTRA was established in 1955 primarily to give North & West Shore citizens some voice in the use of the transient guest ("TOT") tax money collected here and sent down to Auburn in many millions. The NLTRA budget is about $4 million a year that is "given" to it by the County Supervisors. The budget is based on an evolving, annual contract, so the portion of the TOT money returned to us is never certain. The contract requires that the money be spent on "infrastructure development" and "marketing" the Eastern part of Placer County, including North Shore, West Shore, Squaw, and Alpine.

The NLTRA Board of Directors (the positions are payless and thankless) is made up of a cross-section of casually-selected people representing resorts, restaurants, property owners, retailers, etc. Overall, NLTRA is a shadow of a North & West Shore town council, but it is what it is. This shadowy state of affairs is not indicative of a lack of interest or integrity on the part of the directors or staff, or even of a lack of talent. But mojo enhancement requires a regional point of view, cooperation, cultivation, transparency, leadership, and accountability. How does NLTRA score?

What's the alternative? North & West Shore citizens have toyed with incorporation at least three times in the last eighty years. They have always ended up where they started: divided. In part this result reflects the existence, then as now, of so many special taxing districts and nonprofit boards--PUDs, fire departments, chambers of commerce, etc.--which were threatened by the thought of "getting organized" on a North & West Shore scale. In part it probably reflects the limited outlooks of the voters who lived here at the time.

Joined at the Hip and Shoulder
The North & West Shore, Truckee, and the major local resorts are all joined at the hip and the shoulder. As they share one lake and one river, they share one mojo...and the responsibility for nourishing it. As Ben Franklin pointed out upon signing the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776: "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall hang separately."