By Yvonne Gonzalez, Las Vegas Sun

Women in Nevada earn an average of 81 cents for every dollar made by men, according to an analysis published Monday by the American Association of University Women.

The data was released to coincide with Equal Pay Day on April 10, which marks how far into the new year women have to keep working on average to match what men earned in 2017. Nevada ranks 22nd in the country, with Utah taking last place at 70 cents on the dollar.

“It’s only decreased a nickel in the past 20 years,” association CEO Kim Churches said of the pay gap. “That type of bottleneck and lack of progress means that we’re on the current trajectory for more than 100 years.”

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The California Department of Fish and Wildlife will be soliciting public comment and ideas on the statewide management of trout at a series of public meetings.

The three key areas for which CDFW are seeking input are:

• The revision of CDFW’s Strategic Plan for Trout Management, last published in 2003
• The creation of a new Strategic Plan for Trout Hatcheries
• Simplification of inland trout angling regulations

Each meeting will include a brief presentation covering each area. CDFW personnel will be available at information stations to answer questions and listen to stakeholder interests, needs and ideas.

All stakeholder input will be taken into consideration as draft plans and a regulation simplification package are developed for formal public review.

The closest meeting to the Tahoe basin is April 18 at the Truckee-Tahoe Airport Community Room from 6-7:30pm.

·      Douglas County Senior Services will be hosting its 18th annual Big Mama’s Show & Shine Classic Car Show on May 12 from 10am-3pm at the Lampe Park Pavilion in Gardnerville. This event serves as a fundraiser for the Meals on Wheels program.

·      There will be a quarterly report on vacation home rentals at the April 17 South Lake Tahoe City Council meeting.

·      Douglas County Sheriff’s Office will display blue ribbons on patrol car antennas for the month of April to increase autism awareness in the community. 

·      Truckee planning commissioners have scheduled a special meeting for April 26 at 6pm at council chambers to review draft land use regulations for commercial cannabis delivery services.

·      Hyatt Regency in Incline Village is introducing Wind Down Wednesday, a free community yoga event hosted by the resort, on April 18 at 6:30pm. It includes a one-hour all levels Vinyasa class.

There will be an Earth Day community clean up event on April 18.

Meet in front of Basecamp Pizza in Heavenly Village in South Lake Tahoe at 9am.

During the snow melt, trash can become exposed. Cleanup materials will be supplied. Bring a reusable water bottle, gloves and friends.

Lunch, raffle and a prize will be provided to all volunteers starting at noon. Complimentary valet parking will be provided at the Marriott Grand Residence Club for volunteers during the event.

For questions or more information, email events@keeptahoeblue.org or call 530.541.5388.

Participants younger than 18 must bring a Keep Tahoe Blue waiver, signed by a parent or guardian.

By Kathryn Reed

It may be impossible to ever completely satisfy those who are against SnowGlobe.

Even though the promoter of the three-day music festival has agreed to shorten the hours, eliminate a day of sound checks, cover the entire ball field with a protective material, use an independent sound engineer and other concessions, opponents want more.

“Most of our issues are not with SnowGlobe; they are with policy and planning,” Scott Ramirez told the South Lake Tahoe City Council.

The 2018 SnowGlobe contract includes:
• Vendors/sponsors will agree to preapproved tent/structure specifications. Non-compliance will result in a fine of $1,000 per violation.
• Seven (instead of six) California Highway Patrol officers will be used to patrol Al Tahoe Boulevard.
• A site plan for Bijou Community Park must be submitted, including citing activities for that site; as well as listing location for off-site box office.
• Putting in writing the fire department can cancel the fireworks.
• The field, pending weather, will be ready for use by June 1.
• Music will end at 10pm on Dec. 29 and Dec. 30, and at 12:45am Jan. 1.
• Speakers and subwoofers will be placed according to a sound engineer so as to create the least disturbance for residential areas.
• Sound checks will start after 11am on festival days, and will be from 11am-8pm on Dec. 28.
• South Lake Tahoe Drug Coalition will receive a free booth.
• Removing snow before the entire field is covered with a product that is the same material the San Francisco Giants and 49ers use.
• Per the existing contract the city is paying up to $35,000 for promotional materials, and $15,000 for transportation and garbage. Another $75,000 is provided in kind services/labor. SnowGlobe will put up at $250,000 bond in case the field needs replacing/repairs.

He is part of the No Globe Alliance. This is a group of South Lake Tahoe residents who are fed up with the bass that has rocked their homes since the festival started in 2011. While they contend they don’t want to shut down the festival, they want more. They want enforcement. They want fines. They want their concerns to be heard as loudly as the noise they complain about.

The problem is there are no guarantees that what will be implemented for this December’s event will do enough to satisfy those who are upset.

Nonetheless, the three-day festival that features electronic dance music will be back this year.

Chad Donnelly, the promoter of SnowGlobe, has a lot riding on his plans to mitigate the sound disturbance. He wants a long-term contract with the city and this is the last year of the existing deal. The number of complaints and what the field looks like will be key factors the council will consider in the future.

While noise has been an issue since the first year, every year seems to have come with some other negative component – a death, remnants of the festival left for months because of snow, and a field needing to be replaced. The latter is being taken care of now so it will be ready to be used in the summer.

And while the naysayers are a vocal ensemble each time SnowGlobe is on a council agenda, as was the case last week, there is an equally passionate group that supports the festival. Those people see it from the economic point-of-view.

It’s no longer a given that South Shore hotels will be full on New Year’s Eve. The lack of snow is a constant worry. Plus, SnowGlobe brings guests who usually stay a minimum of three nights because most of the nearly 20,000 attendees attend each night.

At last week’s meeting the council, with member Brooke Laine absent, agreed to tighten a few rules that staff recommended. Also incorporated into the amended agreement were aspects of the deal worked out between the promoter and “no globers.”

By Scott Valentine

I was accosted in front of the grocery store the other day and I was asked to sign a petition that would allow for a public vote to contain vacation home rentals to the commercial core.

Interesting. I am all for the democratic process, but majority rule does have its issues. For example, if the majority voted for a set of laws that encouraged gender discrimination and devaluation of women in the workforce, it would still be morally and ethically wrong, even if the majority of people voted for it. A vote like that would never happen, but we still need to be very careful about how we go about voting for new rules.

Scott Valentine

Moving VHRs into the commercial center of town might help solve a problem in my neighborhood, but it also concentrates the issue in someone else’s neighborhood. Our commercial core happens to be where many of our underrepresented minority populations reside. It seems unjust for a white majority to simply vote away their problems, and place that burden on those that cannot defend themselves due to their population size. The VHR issue is not really being solved, just relocated.

There is however, another important issue here. We voted for Measure P. The recreation complex was supposed to be demolished this summer and the facility we voted for was designed to meet the changing demands of our local and visitor populations. Unfortunately, this VHR ballot initiative has derailed those plans, along with many other recreation initiatives. The city cannot go to the bond market to fund the construction of this facility since VHRs and the TOT tax they generate contribute significantly to the recreation budget. Put simply, no one will give us a loan if there is no mechanism to pay those loans back. We tout ourselves as having a recreation-based tourist economy. Yet here we are voting to reduce visitor lodging, and limit the primary funding source for our recreation budget.

As citizens, we need to recognize that improvements come at a cost. We also need to recognize that if we shoot ourselves in the foot on this November ballot, there is a very real possibility that we will not get a new recreation center, or we might have to settle for a less attractive version that does not meet everyone’s expectations. It is rare to have an opportunity to rebuild a rec center. We might only have one shot at this and we need to think about how to do it right.

It sounds to me like our citizens and our city leaders need to rethink how best to move forward and resolve some of these issues. I use VHRs when I go on vacation, and I would be a hypocrite if I voted to ban them in my neighborhood. I would also be a horrible human if I voted to relocate my problems into someone else’s backyard without first resolving the issue, or at least giving those residents a fair say. It is also important to recognize the interconnectivity of this issue.

A vote that impacts VHRs could effectively undermine our ability to radically improve recreation in our town. Placing something on the ballot without thought to the many unanticipated consequences of that action could set us up for a future that no one really wants.

Scott Valentine is a former South Lake Tahoe Parks and Recreation commissioner.

By Michael R. Blood, AP

Weedmaps is a go-to website for people looking to find a marijuana shop. With a few clicks on a cellphone, customers can find virtually any type of cannabis product, along with the fastest route to the place selling it and ratings from other consumers to help them decide what to buy.

But legal and illegal operators advertise next to each other, and licensed operators in California say that’s put them at a disadvantage in a cutthroat marketplace.

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By Michelle Robertson, San Francisco Chronicle
 
“Every day I wake up here is a vacation,” says 46-year-old Ricardo Garcia. He and his wife moved to Truckee in 2005, after years of hopping around San Francisco’s neighborhoods in an effort to make the city feel like “home.” The endeavor was complicated by an expensive real estate market.

Unable to find the house they wanted in the Bay Area, they looked east, to Tahoe.

“Everything we enjoyed doing was here,” he said – hiking, boating, skiing, climbing and other -ings.

Garcia is one of an unquantifiable number of Bay Area ex-pats who’ve turned the vacation destination of Lake Tahoe into a permanent home. The place can suck you in quick.

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To the community,

Over the last nine months, the Tahoe-Douglas Rotary Club has sponsored five Adopt A Day of Nourishments. Bread & Broth has been thrilled to have this service oriented organization partner with us to help ease hunger in the Lake Tahoe South Shore community. With their generously donated funds and over 70 hours of volunteering, the Rotarians served over 450 nutritious, filling meals to grateful diners who come to Grace Hall for a free dinner and a chance to spent time with friends and acquaintances.

“Tahoe-Douglas loves supporting Bread & Broth and its wonderful volunteers,” said Ashley Colvin, Tahoe-Douglas Rotary Club’s president at B&B’s Monday meal on April 2. 

Joining Colvin on the Rotary’s sponsor crew were fellow Rotarians Linda Bellotti, Matt Grime, Bob Senna and Brian Williams. These volunteers worked side by side with B&B volunteers and made the experience of helping others a fun and fulfilling event.

Service to others is a core value of the Rotary organization and their support of Bread & Broth’s goal to ease hunger is just an example of their commitment to serving those in need and improving the quality of life for others. B&B would like to thank the Tahoe-Douglas Rotary Club members and acknowledge their incredible service in support of B&B’s Monday meal dinner program.

Carol Gerard, Bread & Broth

The U.S. Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit  will soon begin the process of opening recreational facilities in the Lake Tahoe Basin.

Weather and snow conditions permitting, Inspiration Point will be the first site to open on  April 14. Baldwin and Nevada beaches open April 28. The Taylor Creek Visitor Center opens May 25. The Tallac Historic Site parking area opens May 15, and will be staffed beginning May 26.  
 
The following is a list of opening/service dates, weather and snow conditions permitting:

Campgrounds

·         Round Hill Pines Resort – May 10

·         Meeks Bay Resort, William Kent, Kaspian, Meeks Bay, Bayview, Fallen Leaf, and Nevada Beach campgrounds – May 11

·         Camp Richardson RV Park, Luther Pass Campground and Angora Resort – May 25

·         Blackwood Canyon and Watson Lake campgrounds – June 1

·         Camp Richardson’s Eagles Nest and Badgers Den campgrounds – June 11 

Day-use areas

·         Baldwin and Nevada beaches – April 28

·         Chimney Beach and Secret Harbor – May 1

·         Sandpit Off-Highway Vehicle (OHV) Area – May 10

·         Eagle Falls restrooms, Kiva Picnic Area, McKinney Rubicon Trailhead restrooms, Sawmill Pond and Tallac Point – May 15

·         Big Meadow Trailhead – May 25

·         Pope Beach – May 26.

Keep in mind, recreation area grounds are open year-round, but until sites officially open, there is no parking, trash removal or restroom facilities available. Be sure to pack out all trash and where pets are allowed, always clean up after your animal. Until parking lots open, park your vehicle off the roadway, avoid parking on vegetation, and do not block access gates.