Incline Together

Dave Noble Says IVGID Has Waited Long Enough

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Author: Kristie Wells

Meet the Candidates | 2026 IVGID Election

Seeking a second term, Noble defends an ambitious program of capital improvements and deferred maintenance, along with the current facility fees needed to pay for it. His argument is straightforward: after years of postponement, waiting longer will only make the work more expensive.

“I’ve yet to see any construction project in the last 20 years that actually got cheaper the longer you waited.”

The Short Version

  • Noble is asking voters to continue the direction of the current Board, which he says has restored financial stability and moved long-delayed projects forward before they become even more expensive.
  • He puts water, sewer and trash first. Among recreation projects, the Beach House replacement is his leading current priority and Diamond Peak comes next.
  • He stands by the recent facility-fee increases and does not promise lower assessments, though he says future increases should be more measured.
  • He wants trustees to set direction and hold the general manager accountable while giving staff room to operate. Asked what he would change from his first term, Noble did not identify a decision he regrets.

Asking Voters to Continue the Current Course
Dave Noble is asking voters to keep IVGID moving in its current direction. His case is not that every project should be approved or every fee increased. It is that the District cannot address years of deferred maintenance by delaying difficult decisions again. He supports continued reinvestment in core infrastructure and recreation facilities, with future fee increases tied more closely to an appropriate inflationary index.

Noble is blunt about promises to lower fees. He says anyone making them either underestimates the work ahead or plans to “kick the can down the road,” leaving IVGID and future residents with an even larger bill.

Since joining the Board of Trustees in January 2023, Noble has served as part of a Board majority he believes is finally moving long-delayed work forward. He said he had always planned to seek a second term, but the progress of the past 18 months made him more certain. He credits Trustees Mick Homan, Michaela Tonking and Michelle Jezycki with helping create a more functional Board, while General Manager Robert Harrison has brought experience and clearer accountability to the District.

The evidence, as Noble sees it, is increasingly visible. The Incline Beach House is under construction, the remaining six miles of the effluent export pipeline have been replaced and smaller recreation projects have advanced through community partnerships. Even so, he believes IVGID is still catching up after years in which major decisions were delayed. “We need to be investing yesterday,” he said.

That sense of urgency comes with a price. Years of deferred maintenance have left the District with little room to wait, Noble argues, even though catching up will continue to cost residents money. His case for another term rests on that tradeoff: keep making decisions, explain what they cost and accept that not everyone will agree.

His belief in that argument comes in part from a career spent weighing public costs against long-term infrastructure needs. During 25 years at the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada, Noble worked as an attorney, hearing officer and commissioner on matters involving water, sewer, electric, gas and telecommunications services. Because water and sewer are also two of IVGID’s four core responsibilities, along with trash and recreation, he considers that experience directly relevant to the decisions now facing the District.

The same preference for action appears in the smaller projects Noble takes on himself. With help from friends in the community, he rebuilt 11 tee boxes and constructed a picnic table and seasonal sunshade at the District’s disc golf course. The Incline Tahoe Foundation reimbursed the material costs, while Noble and other volunteers supplied the labor. To him, the project shows how IVGID and community partners can complete useful work without allowing every improvement to become a drawn-out process.

Why Noble Says Waiting Costs More
Much of Noble’s argument begins with a basic question: Do residents understand what IVGID’s facilities cost to operate, repair and eventually replace? In his view, the District has not always been candid enough about that expense or about what happens when necessary work is postponed.

For more than a decade, the combined Recreation and Beach Facility Fees remained nearly flat, even as labor, materials and construction became more expensive. Noble believes that kept assessments artificially low and contributed to the backlog of deferred maintenance and capital investments the District is now trying to address. The combined fee for most parcels with beach access is $1,530 for fiscal year 2026-27, a level he considers close to sustainable. From here, he expects smaller adjustments tied more closely to the appropriate inflationary index.

Noble recognizes that explanation offers little comfort to residents living on fixed or limited incomes. He describes the Board as a caretaker of the community’s money and says every dollar must be spent reasonably and prudently, but he is not promising lower assessments. Reducing the fees now, he argues, would postpone known work and leave a larger bill for future residents.

Because most residents will never read the full District budget, Noble believes IVGID must do more to show where the money goes. Community open houses, budget displays and clearer project information can help, he said, but trustees still have to understand the details well enough to explain them plainly.

To illustrate the cost of waiting, Noble points to the replacement of the effluent export pipeline under Highway 28. After IVGID completed the first six miles in 2013, staff identified the need to replace the remaining six. Leaks were becoming more frequent, costing the District nearly $100,000 per incident, while the risk of a catastrophic rupture continued to grow. Early projections placed the remaining work between $15 million and $23 million. By 2020, the estimate had risen to $38 million. By the time the Board approved the contract in 2023, the cost exceeded $60 million and the project had effectively become an emergency response.

For Noble, the lesson is simple: postponement did not avoid the cost. It magnified it.

That experience also informs how he separates IVGID’s responsibilities. Water, sewer and trash come first because residents cannot live without them. Recreation facilities may be able to close temporarily for repairs, but Noble does not consider them expendable. Once IVGID chooses to operate a venue, he believes the District has also accepted the responsibility to maintain it properly through timely maintenance and reinvestment.

How He Believes the Board Should Govern
Just as Noble wants projects to move forward, he wants District employees to have enough room to do their jobs. His preferred division of responsibility is clear: trustees set the direction, the general manager leads the organization and staff determines how to achieve the objective.

Liaison assignments sometimes bring trustees closer to the details. As the Board liaison to Diamond Peak, Noble said he offers observations and asks questions, but day-to-day decisions should remain with the general manager and staff. They understand the operation in greater depth and are better positioned to optimize it in ways that improve the District’s bottom line.

Noble points to Trustee Mick Homan’s liaison work with IVGID’s Finance Department as another example. Homan offered guidance based on his decades of accounting experience, but staff and the general manager were responsible for implementing the changes. Noble credits that arrangement with helping produce the District’s dramatic financial turnaround in less than two years.

Giving staff that latitude is important to Noble because he believes the current Board inherited a culture in which employees were reluctant to take initiative. The possibility of being publicly criticized or second-guessed, he said, made people hesitant to work outside narrowly defined roles. As evidence that the culture is changing, he pointed to an employee-led review of the point-of-sale system that he said will save the District roughly half a million dollars. 

With greater freedom comes an expectation of strong performance. Noble expects the general manager to correct problems and address poor work so it is not repeated, but he strongly opposes using public Board meetings to target individual employees. Trustees can identify problems they observe, but managing the people involved belongs with the general manager.

His approach to residents follows a similar line. Noble said he will listen, explain his reasoning and reconsider a decision when new information warrants it, but listening will not always lead to agreement. “I can’t make 100 percent of the population happy,” he said. “If I am, I’m lying to people.”
That is also why he does not believe every large spending decision should be delegated to a community survey or vote. Residents naturally place greater value on the venues they use most, while trustees must weigh those preferences against IVGID’s long-term obligations and financial health. In Noble’s view, Board members are elected to spend the time required to understand complex issues and make informed decisions for the District as a whole. He is skeptical of surveys that can be shaped to produce a preferred result. For him, the community’s vote occurs when residents elect trustees and entrust them to make those decisions.

Noble sees that responsibility as part of the job. Saying no or doing nothing is easy; making difficult decisions and standing behind them takes more work.

What Comes Next
Nothing illustrates Noble’s view of progress more clearly than the replacement of the Incline Beach House. When I asked which Board decision made him proudest, he pointed to a project that previous Boards had debated for years. Using the analysis and work already completed over the previous six years, he said, the current Board awarded a contract and moved the building into construction within roughly 12 months.

Rather than claim the project as his own, Noble describes it as a shared accomplishment. He believes the trustees who approved the current design were acting in the community’s long-term interest. The old kitchen and bathrooms, he noted, had long surpassed the end of their useful lives. He also rejected the idea that a food truck could replace the planned commercial kitchen. In his view, a food truck is a temporary measure that cannot provide the same capacity or long-term utility as a permanent kitchen over the Beach House’s anticipated service life of more than 50 years.

With the Beach House underway, Noble sees Diamond Peak as IVGID’s next major investment priority. He calls the ski area the District’s “golden goose” because it is the only recreation venue that consistently produces millions in profit and helps support other venues. Yet in his view, the ski area has gone too long without meaningful investment in the skier experience.

Snowflake Lodge, lift and snowmaking upgrades are all under discussion. Noble says reinvestment will help Diamond Peak remain competitive in its niche market and protect the revenue it contributes to IVGID. He was less specific about which improvements should come first or how much debt and additional fee revenue he would support while the research and analysis continue.

Even as he presses for faster action, Noble acknowledges that IVGID cannot move every project forward at once. He does not want to saddle the community with exorbitant fees or overwhelm staff. The challenge, as he describes it, is to approve a capital investment plan that matches what the community and staff can reasonably absorb without returning to the seemingly endless delays caused by analysis paralysis.

The ice rink offers the clearest example of how he responds when those considerations collide. Noble supports the project and worked with the Incline Ice Foundation to transfer the rink to IVGID. Once staff estimates for the supporting infrastructure came in much higher than expected, however, a Board majority decided other priorities should come first. Noble accepted the outcome and explained it to supporters, even as he continues to advocate for bringing the project back for future Board consideration.

Partnerships can also help move stalled projects forward. Phase II of the bike park improvements had been on hold for nearly 10 years. Last spring, the Board approved an equal cost-sharing agreement between IVGID and donors organized by the Incline Tahoe Foundation, allowing the project to be completed in late August.

Noble’s desire to move projects forward does not mean he supports every proposal. The playground replacements offer an example of when he believes waiting is prudent. Staff proposed replacing equipment over the next several years at Incline Beach, Burnt Cedar and Preston Field at a cost exceeding $1 million. After touring the facilities and discussing them with staff, Noble said he did not see a safety or performance problem that justified immediate replacement. The proposal was deferred for future Board discussion. Before approving a project, he wants to understand the need and what happens if IVGID does nothing. Age or inconvenience may not be enough. The risk of failure, a safety problem or a much larger future cost is more likely to prompt him to act.

The Record He Stands By
Unlike the challengers in this race, Noble is asking voters to judge decisions he has already made. When I asked which of those decisions he would handle differently today, he could not name one.

Noble stands by the current pace of capital investment, the replacement of the Beach House and effluent export pipeline, and the facility fee increases that helped pay for the work. He acknowledged that new information could eventually change how he views a past vote, but he is not distancing himself from the choices of his first term. He is asking for four more years to continue the work the Board has set in motion.

When he leaves the Board, whether in December or in four years, Noble believes IVGID will be on solid financial ground, with dependable utility service and recreation facilities that remain worth using. He would prefer the results to matter more than whether residents remember his name. “I’m not in this for any glory,” he said. “There is none.”

His first term gives voters a record to consider, one that includes visible progress, higher fees, the District’s return to fiscal health and a list of projects still to fund.

Noble’s case is not that IVGID should build everything. It is that trustees should separate urgent needs from projects that can wait, make the difficult decisions and accept responsibility for them. He believes that discipline is less costly than allowing known needs to sit until failure turns them into emergencies.

His request for another term comes down to a question of trust: whether residents believe the progress he describes has been worth the cost and whether they want him to keep pushing the District from delay toward completion.

About This Interview
This profile is based on an interview conducted September 3, 2026. The conversation has been organized by topic, and quotations have been lightly edited for length and clarity. Incline Together’s candidate coverage is intended to help residents understand how each person would govern.

All three candidate interviews are now available. Read them before deciding who should fill IVGID’s two open seats.

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