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126 Bill Morgan stepped into a situation later characterized by analysts evaluating the agency as a “war zone.” The unique government entity was failing because of the battles. At a large trpa public meeting in April 1985, having begun his tenure as executive director only days before, Morgan’s job was to present a draft of a proposed settlement to relieve the Tahoe building injunction . trpa staff lawyers and the California attorney general and the League to Save Lake Tahoe had spent a year negotiating before reaching the tentative agreement. The trpa Board was poised to vote to approve or reject the longawaited settlement. The crowd, which filled an oversized meeting room at Harvey ’s Casino, was largely hostile, wanting an end to the moratorium but against the agreement because of its severe building restrictions. Morgan agreed with California and the league that trpa’s plan from the year before had not met terms of the compact, but he believed the settlement went too far in siding with them. He read the proposed resolution aloud and sat down. A board member pointed out that normally, the director gave his opinion of such a proposal, saying the board would like to hear what Morgan thought. Morgan said, “Frankly, I don’t like it. I would not recommend your approval of it.” When the board went along with Morgan and voted down the proposed settlement, the disputing parties had reached a dead end. The process had completely broken down. The injunction and building moratorium would remain in place. There seemed no way forward.1 At a time when others were calling for disbanding the agency, Morgan proposed an idea. Before officially taking the position of executive director, and during the first month of his tenure, Morgan met with members of the Nevada Legislature, lobbying them to give trpa a last chance. In order to maintain their role in the partnership, he offered them veto power over any eventual agreement. His statement at the Harvey’s meeting seemed to gain him credibility with the Nevadans as an honest broker, and on May 1 sponsors of the bill to pull out of the agency withdrew it. t h i r t e e n n elusive agreements e l u s i v e a g r e e m e n t s 127 Morgan then introduced what, to many, seemed a far-fetched plan. The skeptical trpa Board gave him ninety days to test the proposal. In separate meetings, he spoke to the league board, California attorney general Van de Camp and his assistant Rick Skinner, representatives of the Forest Service, the Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, the Gaming Alliance, the Tahoe Basin Association of Governments, the water-quality agencies, and other interested parties. He was proposing a process of collaboration among all entities, whereby they might reach consensus on an agreement. More than thirty interest groups agreed to meet. trpa Board members were not invited to participate. Morgan chaired the meetings, introducing issues for discussion from the lawsuits or those raised in the settlement talks. Morgan brought in an outsider, Geoff Ball, to facilitate and make sure everyone was allowed an opportunity to be heard. Ball also had to ensure disagreements did not get out of hand, as two hostile and deeply entrenched positions had been clearly delineated throughout the years. Skinner of the California Attorney General’s Office, league president Tom Martens, and its attorney E. Clement Shute, who in the yearlong settlement talks had proved to be a canny negotiator , led the environmental protectionists. Preservation council spokesperson Larry Hoffman led the growth-and-property-rights element. Mike Van Wagenen, previously executive director of the preservation council, represented the casinos.2 At the time of Morgan’s meetings, social scientists had found the conflict over Tahoe’s evolving policy to be a fertile research field. One study used questionnaire data over seventeen years to conclude that whereas stakeholders in favor of environmental protection were more likely to trust the findings of scientists , university researchers, and consultants, those favoring development tended to distrust scientific findings. Years later one of the leaders of the development community commented, “They claimed it was all based in science. To me it always seemed more like political science.”3 In fact, as well as scientists, the intensity of the conflict attracted the attention of political scientists studying policy systems. Paul Sabatier developed one of the three or four major theories of policy making in the world by...

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