Scott Robbins for South Lake Tahoe City Council

I promise I didn’t break my neck! I haven’t been as active as I’ve wanted lately as the in-person part of LTCC’s EMT training has picked up, inconveniently, right at the end of the campaign. I’ve already broken both legs in the last two years, so I’m all set for breaking things.

When you’re both a nerd *and* a kid at heart? I give you: The full-size candybar Halloween slide!

At the intersection of my being a giant nerd, and truly dull campaign issues, is municipal IT security. Hang in there with me, I know it's seems boring (because it is), but it's important. IT security is a topic that no politician ever wants to take up. And I get it. It's boring, it's technical, and it's infrastructure with no ribbon cutting. But it's essential for modern government functioning. Business records, tax records, police records, the day-to-day work of city staff... - we store pretty much everything electronically. Unfortunately, the reality of our world is that hackers can, do, and will target local governments with ransomware attacks. Ransomware is malware, that, typically, locks and encrypts computers preventing their use until a ransom is paid to the attackers. Small cities are actually a favorite target, because they're small enough to not have a strong IT organization, but just big enough to pay real money. This is South Lake Tahoe on the nose. In the years I've been following local government, I don't think I've seen a single council agenda item on the topic of IT security. It's worth giving this issue some attention, and having a working plan for how to recover from a ransomware attack. But as important as this is for our city, and the reason I'm writing about this now, is that ransomware against on the city is not the biggest IT threat to our locals. That would be a ransomware attack on our hospital. Hospitals are the latest target for ransomware attacks. Disrupting hospital operations isn't just a matter of inconvenience or money, it's a threat to patient safety, and in turn, the safety of everyone here. As a council member, I'd like very much to invite Barton executives to discuss their current cyber security posture with the community. I'd like to hear from their CEO, Clint Purvance, and more relevantly, their CTO, though, for the life of me, it doesn't look like they have one, which raises an eyebrow in and of itself. If you've made it this far in my post, well, I'm pleasantly surprised! I get that this is boring. When it works properly, government in general, and local government especially, should be kinda boring. Sometimes very boring. A ransomware attack on our city or hospital won't be. I'm a nerd. And I'm running for city council to make government work properly for the locals. www.scottforslt.com https://apnews.com//fbi-warns-ransomware-healthcare-system https://www.nytimes.com//us/ransomware-attacks-hacking.html

I had a blast doing this interview on Howie's Morning Rush. I know the audio quality isn't great, but in our 20 minutes, we really covered *all* the topics, my personal history, over tourism, our environment, affordable housing, the loop road, VHRs, the Measure S sales tax, fire department funding, economic diversification, and more. No notes, no prepared statements. We covered way more ground than the Chamber of Commerce debate. Maybe next time Howie should run the candidate forums!

Our city is outright lying to us about the Measure S sales tax hike. Their ballot description says it's a "1 transaction" tax. This is intentionally misleading. It's 1% tax, an increase from 7.75 to 8.75%. This is not a trivial difference. It's hundreds of dollars taken from the hands of our locals. ... I prefer a city government that doesn't knowingly deceive its own citizens. This November, vote for change. www.scottforslt.com And YES, I’m enough of a nerd that I went and read the actual legislative text. Here's the link, the rate is buried on Page 6, Section 7: https://www.csltbusiness.com/WebLink/DocView.aspx?id=46096