Big Bear Lake LogoThe City of Big Bear Lake tapped Tripepi Smith to assist in reviewing its existing short-term rental ordinances, beginning with stakeholder engagement. Over a span of two months, Tripepi Smith concentrated on informing stakeholders and establishing a foundation of facts to facilitate constructive discussions within the community. The goal was to ensure a wide range of voices within the community were involved in the annual review of the Vacation Rental Ordinance.

The City invested in an extensive outreach campaign via social media, boosted advertising and emails, providing opportunities for engagement to the Big Bear Lake community. Throughout the process, stakeholders were actively encouraged to share their ideas, collaborate with others and share viewpoints and feedback through the designated email and webpage. The engagement included in-person workshops where community members and stakeholders were given an opportunity to talk with neighbors and share ideas. Finally, the engagement wrapped up with Tripepi Smith providing an extensive report summarizing community feedback as well as all the original information shared by interested parties.

“Big Bear Lake has a long history of short-term rental management and oversight, and short-term rentals play a vital role in our local economy. The City Council had previously requested an annual revisit of our ordinance to ensure we modernize it as needed. The City Council placed a high priority on hearing from as many stakeholders as possible,” said Big Bear Lake City Manager Erik Sund. “Tripepi Smith has deep experience with high-profile public engagement matters, and they were a critical partner in gathering extensive community feedback and helped highlight important policy viewpoints that better informed the ordinance review process. They also structured effective community workshops and moderated them in a way that maximized the civic engagement process for all parties.”

During this engagement, Tripepi Smith organized three community workshops – one virtual question and answer session and two in-person meetings – to ensure that community members and stakeholders had the chance to participate and had extensive policy history and information. Each workshops was recorded to maintain transparency and subsequently uploaded to the designated webpage. 

“The City Staff were clearly dedicated to public engagement throughout the process and showed a desire to invest heavily to hear from a range of voices. I also appreciate their support with background and resident engagement through our various workshops. Big Bear Lake has been a pioneer in short term rental policy, and their process of revisiting the ordinance consistently is a key indicator of that fact,” said Junior Business Analyst Devin Antonio. “The workshops were my favorite part of the engagement where we helped stakeholders engage in civil discourse and share divergent viewpoints in lively forums.”

Ultimately, Tripepi Smith successfully reached more than 22,000 people in the city through social media and attracted over 200 participants to the three workshops. These efforts enabled a robust dialogue among the stakeholders in Big Bear Lake, allowing them to provide feedback directly to the City Council for their review of the current Vacation Rental Ordinance.

About City of Big Bear Lake

Incorporated November 1980, the City of Big Bear Lake is a Charter-City, which operates on a Council-City Manager form of government. The City Council consists of five (5) representatives, including a Mayor, that are all elected by-district. Elections are held every two years for two council member seats and then two years later for the other two council member seats plus the mayor.

About Tripepi Smith

Tripepi Smith is a California-based marketing, technology and public affairs firm that serves for-profit, nonprofit and public agencies. Its unique mix of marketing and technology prowess provides a competitive advantage to agencies seeking to leverage the internet to achieve their communication goals. The firm provides full content creation services, including: ghost writing, collateral development, photography, video production, aerial imagery, search engine optimization, email marketing campaigns and website design and execution. Tripepi Smith clients include: City of American Canyon, City of Culver City, City of Cupertino, City of Daly City, City of Duarte, City of Grover Beach, City of Santa Paula, City of Indian Wells, City of La Cañada Flintridge, City of Lake Forest, City of Livermore, City of Napa, City of Paramount, City of Tracy, CalChoice Energy Authority, California Joint Powers Insurance Authority, Santa Clara County Fire Department, Costa Mesa Sanitary District, Rowland Water District, California City Management Foundation, Renne Public Law Group, West Coast Arborists, Scripps College, Blind Children’s Learning Center and Climatec.