Just one day after the Mayor of South Lake Tahoe admitted to embezzling money from a church, we learn that the city’s second highest-ranking elected official was arrested for assaulting an employee at a bar he had been 86’d from.

There was nothing funny about the news that broke Monday that the Mayor of South Lake Tahoe had admitted to embezzling money from Lake Tahoe Community Presbyterian Church, as Mayor Tamara Wallace also revealed that she had attempted suicide last month. But not even 24 hours after that revelation, we are now learning of another scandal among the highest-ranking South Lake Tahoe elected officials, and everything about this one is pretty funny.

The Chronicle reports that South Lake Tahoe Mayor Pro Tem Cody Bass was arrested for assault, trespassing, and harassment at a local bar from which he had previously been 86’ed. The incident apparently happened at 1 am back on September 25, though we are just learning of it now, as the Douglas County Sheriff and District Attorney offices just released a joint statement acknowledging the arrest.

And we should note that the DA dropped the assault charge, though Bass still faces the misdemeanor trespassing and harassment charges. His court date for these charges is December 22.  

If you’re wondering, a “mayor pro tem” is an elected city councilmember who is generally the second-in-command for the mayor, and fills in when the mayor is unavailable. (So he may have been acting Mayor during the time that current Mayor Wallace said she “spent 18 days in a mental health facility” after her attempt on her own life.) Parenthetically, Bass also owns a Tahoe cannabis dispensary.

The local publication South Tahoe Now has more details of the September arrest. Bass had reportedly been banned from the bar Lake Tahoe AleWorx in Stateline, Nevada (South Lake Tahoe is geographically in California, though it's right at the border, and Stateline is the connected city on the Nevada side.) He approached an employee outside the bar, which escalated into an argument, with Bass allegedly telling the employee “he was going to have people kill him.”

Bass reportedly walked away, but returned 20 minutes later. Bass then allegedly cocked his arm at the employee as if he were about to throw a punch, and the employee kicked him to get away. Bass called the sheriff’s office, who arrived at the scene and reviewed security video, and they decided that Bass was the one who deserved to be arrested.

He made his $1,978 bail and was released from custody after about three hours in jail.

Just this afternoon, Bass took to Facebook to give his side of the story.

“On the evening in question, I was assaulted for the second time by the doorman at Aleworx on the sidewalk in front of AleWorx while I was walking to Lucky Beaver to get some food,” Bass wrote. “I reported the assault to the Douglas County Sheriff's Office. Despite my testimony, the deputy chose to place me under a citizen's arrest, accepting the doorman's account over mine.”

He adds, “I have not entered AleWorx in a considerable amount of time and was never asked to not return.”

And defiantly, Bass said, “I will absolutely not be stepping down from my position on the City Council, as I have done nothing wrong. I am committed to going through the due process to prove my innocence."

For the second day in a row, City of South Lake Tahoe public information officer Sheree Juarez was forced to make a very awkward statement about an embarrassing scandal involving top City Hall officials.

“The City is aware of the arrest of Mayor Pro Tem Bass,” Juarez said in a statement picked up by the Chronicle. “This matter is being handled by [the] Douglas County Sheriff’s Office. It is our understanding that Mayor Pro Tem is being charged with a misdemeanor in Douglas County. We have no further comment at this time.”

Sacramento's KOVR reports that Bass was arrested on DUI charges in 2021, with officers saying they saw a “white powder resembling cocaine” and a “crystalline substance resembling methamphetamine.” He ended up getting just misdemeanor charges, and voters still saw fit to re-elect him to City Council the following year.

And the charges in this case are all misdemeanors, so Bass is not required to step down from office. Whereas in Mayor Wallace’s embezzlement case, she has not yet been charged, though that feels pretty likely if the story is as she described.

So the end result of these dual scandals may be that Cody Bass gets installed as South Lake Mayor after his trespassing and harassment charges, because of the embezzlement charges against Mayor Wallace.

Related: South Lake Tahoe Mayor Admits to Embezzling Money From Church, Recent Suicide Attempt [SFist]

Image: City of South Lake Tahoe