North Lake Tahoe and Tahoe Douglas fire protection districts, the Nevada Division of Forestry and the U.S. Forest Service will continue widespread prescribed fire operations around the Lake Tahoe Basin over the next several weeks as conditions allow.

Operations may take place in Ward Canyon near Sunnyside, off Fairway Drive near Tahoe City, Carnelian Woods Avenue in Carnelian Bay, Anaho Road in Crystal Bay, Crosby Court, Jennifer Street and Tyner Way in Incline Village, Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park near Spooner Lake, Edgewood Drive on Kingsbury Grade, near Van Sickle Bi-State Park, Ski Run Boulevard near Pioneer Trail and off South Upper Truckee Road.

Smoke from prescribed fire operations is normal and may continue for several days after an ignition depending on the project size and environmental conditions.

Before prescribed fire operations are conducted, agencies post road signs around areas affected by prescribed fire, send email notifications and update the local fire information line at 530.543.2816.

Free flu shots will be available for children ages 3 to 18 on Nov. 19 from 3-5pm at Barton Pediatrics. No appointment necessary and new patients welcome.

During this time people will have an opportunity to meet and visit with pediatricians Jennifer Ehmann, Kawika Lu, and Tracy Protell.

The office is located at 2201 South Ave., South Lake Tahoe.

By Chris Kirkham, Los Angeles Times

From a quick glance at the headline numbers, California’s economy looks to be in its strongest shape in years.

Over the last four years, California has added jobs at a rate faster than all but six other states, and faster than the U.S. overall.

The state unemployment rate is at 5.9 percent, the lowest since November 2007, and significantly below the 25-year average of 7.5 percent.

California has added jobs at a faster rate than the rest of the country in recent years.

But that swift economic growth hasn’t improved the fortunes of California’s poorest. The state’s official poverty rate (based on a federal threshold of $24,230 for a family of four) is at 16.4 percent, according to the most recent census data from 2014, up from 12.4 percent in 2007.

Read the whole story

The California Highway Patrol is proposing to relocate the existing Truckee office at 10077 Highway 89 to a 5.3-acre site bounded by Pioneer Trail, Donner Pass Road and an on-ramp to Interstate 80.

The existing office is located on approximately 1.7 acres of land. It does not meeting state seismic requirements.

The new and upgraded facilities would provide adequate work space, equipment storage and vehicle parking for an increasing number of employees assigned to this office. There are 38 employees now, but the office is expected to grow to 51.

The site would include construction of structures, auto service bays, a communications tower, secured and visitor parking areas, a citation clearance area, enclosures and storage areas, a fuel island and gas tanks, an emergency generator, utility improvements, and other ancillary improvements.

Comments on the draft environmental impact report are due Nov 16 at 5pm. For more info, go online.

The National Weather Service in Reno has issued a winter weather advisory for the Lake Tahoe Basin from 4am-10pm Sunday.

A cold front is expected to dump 6 to 12 inches of snow above 7,000 feet, with up to 14 inches along the Sierra Crest. Three to 8 inches is expected at lake level.

The temps will continue to be cool, with Sunday’s high forecasted to be 37 degrees and the low 11 degrees.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

·      Snow is unstable in many parts of the Sierra, with a skier getting caught in an avalanche at Elephant’s Back. Check out this from the Sierra Avalanche Center.

·      WinterWondergrass will be at Squaw Valley April 1-3. Details are online.

·      Veterans in California may ask for the word “veteran” to be on a driver’s license or ID card.

·      Here are the El Dorado-Tahoe and Sierra roadwork schedules for next week.

·      Badger Pass Ski Area in Yosemite National Park is offering free skiing to fourth-grade students who complete and present their Every Kid in a Park pass.

Fishing at Lake Tahoe remains popular. Photo/LTN file

By Kathryn Reed

CAMP RICHARDSON – Despite people continually messing with the ecosystem, fishing remains a vibrant part of Lake Tahoe’s allure.

In the 1800s the area was known for the abundance of fish and their size.

Native Americans knew this well before the white man came to the basin. The Indians tended to fish the streams and tributaries more than the main lake.

They used spears and other methods to catch fish. It was common to fish during spawning season. That practice ended when the white man chased them away, saying this was the worst time to fish. It was white fish and Lahontan cutthroat trout that were the main catches. Some of it was dried and traded with other tribes.

David Long, an environmental consultant, discussed the history of fishing at Lake Tahoe on Nov. 10 at the Camp Richardson Lodge as a guest speaker for the Lake Tahoe Historical Society.

There are reports of a trio of brothers catching 165 fish in one day that was then sold to a Truckee hotel. In 1894, 40 tons of trout were caught in the first month of fishing season. During spawning season it was impossible to cross a stream without killing some fish.

William Pomin holds the record for largest cutthroat trout caught at Lake Tahoe – 31½ pounds in 1911. Robert Aronsen on June 21, 1974, caught the record lake trout – 31 pounds, 6 ounces; Kokanee salmon record was set by William Bush on July 20, 2013 – 5 pounds, 2 ounces.

Mining and timber severely impacted the fishing at Lake Tahoe. Streams were degraded as trout nests were disturbed by the lumber practices at the time. Temporary dams changed the flow of water. Fish ladders were not always built. Saw dust was thrown into the Truckee River.

Long said the introduction of most of the nonnative species was to help grow bigger fish, to enhance the food web. For the most part the opposite happened.

The crayfish are one of many creatures in Lake Tahoe that are not native. They were introduced in the 1800s.

“The unintended consequence is the crayfish ate the fish eggs more efficiently than the fish ate the crayfish,” Long said.

In 1916 Lahontan cutthroat trout were still the predominant fish. But the nonnatives eventually won out and the cutthroat was eliminated by the late 1930s. There are multiple agencies working to reintroduce the cutthroat to Lake Tahoe and its tributaries, which has not been welcome by all.

California introduced rainbow trout in 1877, with Nevada doing so in 1893.

Brook trout came in 1877 or 1878.

Lake trout, or mackinaw, were introduced by Nevada in 1888. California planted them at Fallen Leaf Lake in 1894.

“It was a controversial planting,” Long explained. “California didn’t want fish eating fish. Nevada said so what.”

In 1896 Brown trout were introduced.

It was in 1917 that commercial fishing was banned at Lake Tahoe. That order was lifted a couple years ago to allow crayfish to be harvested. Sport fishing is still allowed, but the size and quantity of what’s caught has been declining.

By Larry Weitzman

As El Dorado County salaries and benefits continue growing at an alarming rate, our Board of Supervisors just continues to go along for the EDC ride to ruination.

Salaries and benefits last fiscal year ending on June 30 even exceeded my estimates by $3 million at $145 million, when just two years’ prior salaries were at about $118 million, a level that was maintained for four prior years. Saleries and benefits for this fiscal year ending June 30, 2016, will exceed $150 million (due to a hiring binge especially in the CAO’s office where more than a dozen new analysts occupy space and eat up about $2 million annually and a 15 percent raise), an increase of more than 25 percent in just three years and with no end to the increases as a new contract will have to be negotiated as the current employment/union contract ends in June.

Larry Weitzman

Even more alarming new hiring continues. On the BOS agenda for Nov. 10 was an item to hire another building inspector. With only about 400 new building permits issued last year, why does the county need another building inspector? Revenue growth is not even close to keeping pace. Something has got to give.

In case you didn’t notice, it already has. In a budget letter dated Sept. 9 to the BOS for the final budget hearing before the adoption of the EDC budget CAO Larry Combs wrote, “I would like the board to consider a policy for the FY 2016-2017 budget and moving forward, whereas all road related projects are funded out of the Road Fund without any additional General Fund support.”

The three things that over 95 percent of county residents want from EDC in this order of priority are public safety, roads and road maintenance, and good land use planning. That was validated in 2000 as 60.8 percent of EDC voters passed Proposition H, a measure “requiring the expenditure of at least half of the ‘vehicle in-lieu tax’ revenues received by the county of El Dorado annually on roads, ways, highways…” The voters mandated this expenditure of General Fund money on roads, an amount of approximately $2 million annually.

Those expenditures continued for about six years until the state took back those fees in an effort to balance the state budget. Even when that money was usurped by the state the BOS continued to follow the voters’ obvious wants and continued funding road maintenance at an average of more than $1 million a year with the last reported year of FY 2014 spending over $2.1 million from the General Fund on road maintenance.

But now at the recommendation Combs and the agreement of the feckless BOS our roads are going to crumble. I am sure you have already figured out why? We can’t spend General Fund money when salaries and jobs have ballooned to unsustainable amounts. If you love potholes, you gotta love Larry Combs.

But Combs isn’t hurting for money. He has a pension from Sutter County for life of over $185,000 annually and one from Merced County of about $14,000 a year. On top of that we (EDC) pay him over $92,000 a year for half time work, i.e., 20 hours a week with about half of that time being spent in weekly BOS meetings (his income totals nearly $300,000/year plus health care). So Combs has a solution for spending time in BOS meetings as well, have fewer BOS meetings.

If you haven’t noticed, there was no BOS meeting the first week of November. It was announced in last week’s meeting there would be no meeting Nov. 24. In the future you will see more of the same.  We certainly don’t want to overwork the interim CAO who’s now in his fifth month without a search and recruitment for a real CAO even being started. And now with fewer BOS meetings expect even more delays.

Perhaps the worst part of having fewer BOS meetings is less time facing the public answering questions as to why are we spending more money than ever on salaries and less on maintaining the county, and it’s just not the roads. County buildings are falling apart. Last year about $6 million was scheduled to be spent on county buildings. It didn’t happen. Maybe it would have caused a budget deficit. But salaries and benefit rose by over $14 million for last year, about an 11 percent increase.

While our CAO may be detrimental to EDC, the buck stops with the feckless BOS who voted 5-0 to stop General Fund road maintenance and continues to accept the excuses of high ranking staff as to why important issues are not getting solved or corrected without consequence as in the salary and benefit resolution not being corrected going on five months, a job that could be finished in less than two hours. Maybe the EDC’s $200,000 plus HR director and former interim CAO Pam Knorr who was assigned that job in June isn’t spending enough time at the office? Then again, the buck stops with the BOS.

Larry Weitzman is a resident of Rescue.

By Roberto A. Ferdman, Washington Post

All around the world, child obesity rates are rising. In the Americas, 31 percent of children are now overweight or obese. In Europe, that number is closer to 40 percent. Even in regions where obesity is less of an epidemic, it’s becoming increasingly problematic.

And the trend, no doubt, has a lot to do with whatever it is that overweight kids and teenagers are eating.

Researchers at Duke National University of Singapore took a closer look at the types of food that are associated with overweight and obese children. Using the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, which recorded the diets and body mass index (BMI) of nearly 4,500 children in England in the 1990s, they tracked what the kids ate and what happened to their bodies over the course of three years. What they found is convincing evidence that certain foods might be causing disproportionate harm.

Specifically, the kids who regularly ate potato chips tended to gain the most weight.

Read the whole story

El Dorado County board of education is having a special meeting Nov. 16 at 9am.

The closed session item is anticipated litigation.

The open session agenda item, which will follow, is county superintendent status. Superintendent Jeremy Meyers has been arrested twice on driving under the influence charges in a five-month period.

The board meets at 6767 Green Valley Road in Placerville.