By Bryce Sanders, San Francisco Business Times

Successful people often enlist the services of a financial advisor. Some seek minimal advice, others collaborate, and some outsource the process.

If an investor makes his or her own decisions and desires minimal advice, paying a financial planner by the hour and walking away with a roadmap is an attractive option.

If you are busy and want both a plan and its recommendations implemented by the advisor, you might ask: “Who does my advisor work for?”

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Inmate crews were used on the Washington Fire near Markleeville this summer. Photo Copyright 2015 Carolyn E. Wright

By Julia Lurie, Mother Jones

Here’s a kind of crazy stat: Between thirty and forty percent of California’s forest firefighters are state prison inmates. The state has become a tinder box of sorts from a four-year drought, and roughly 4,000 low-level felons are on the front lines of the state’s active fires. Here’s what’s going on:

Why are prisoners fighting fires?

For years, California’s prison system has operated a number of “conservation camps,” in which low-level felons in the state prison system volunteer to do manual labor outside, like clearing brush to prevent forest fires or fighting the fires themselves. A handful of other states have similar programs, but, with roughly 4,000 participants, California’s program is by far the largest. At its best, the program is a win-win situation: Inmates learn useful skills and spend time outside of the normal confines of prison, and the collaboration with Cal Fire saves the state roughly $80 million a year.

For each day they work in the program, the inmates receive a two-day reduction from their sentences.
Participants make $2 per day in the program and $2 an hour when they’re on a fire line. That may sound paltry, though it’s not bad by prison standards: Many prison jobs bring in less than $1 per hour. In addition, for each day they work in the program, the inmates receive a two-day reduction from their sentences.

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A Kings Beach man was arrested Aug. 13 on felony car theft charges.

Washoe County sheriff’s deputies said they saw Matthew Leaton Foster, 45, spray painting a vehicle in the Damonte Ranch Walmart parking lot in Reno about 6am Thursday.

The vehicle had been stolen earlier that morning from Incline Village.

Foster faces felony charges of possession of a stolen motor vehicle, tampering with a motor vehicle, grand larceny of a motor vehicle, and misdemeanor driving under the influence.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Rong-Gong Lin II, Los Angeles Times

The strengthening El Niño in the Pacific Ocean has the potential to become one of the most powerful on record, as warming ocean waters surge toward the Americas, setting up a pattern that could bring once-in-a-generation storms this winter to drought-parched California.

The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center said Thursday that all computer models are predicting a strong El Niño to peak in the late fall or early winter. A host of observations have led scientists to conclude that “collectively, these atmospheric and oceanic features reflect a significant and strengthening El Niño.”

“This definitely has the potential of being the Godzilla El Niño,” said Bill Patzert, a climatologist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge.

In California, officials have cautioned the public against imagining that El Niño will suddenly end the state’s chronic water challenges.

In fact, it would take an astonishing 2.5 to three times the average annual precipitation to make up for the rain and snow lost in the central Sierra mountain range over the last four years of drought, said Kevin Werner, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s expert on climate in the western United States.

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An Alpine County creek is going to be chemically treated later this month to help establish the native Paiute cutthroat trout.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S Forest Service, and California Department of Fish and Wildlife plan to use rotenone, a fish toxicant, in 11 miles of Silver King Creek and its tributaries from Llewellyn Falls downstream to Silver King Canyon. The lower reaches of Tamarack Creek, Tamarack Lake Creek and Coyote Valley Creek will also be treated.

Later the agencies will restock Silver King Creek with native Paiute cutthroat trout. This is the only place in the world where this fish lives.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife website, the Paiute was listed as endangered on March 11, 1967, and reclassified as threatened on July 16, 1975.

The problem is the state stocked the remote wilderness area creek with nonnative fish for nearly 90 years starting in the early 1900s. Those fish are the same ones the DFWS now seeks to kill.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Associated Press

A man living in Nevada but wanted for several months in Utah on charges of fraud has been arrested.

Sgt. Pat Brooks of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said Mark Neuhaus was arrested last weekend and remained in custody in Nevada. The 60-year-old called police to report suspicious people at his home near Lake Tahoe.

That’s when Brooks says officers discovered his arrest warrant stemming from charges in Salt Lake City.

Court records show Neuhaus faces eight second-degree felony charges filed in February for theft, money laundering and communications fraud.

The Deseret News reports Neuhaus is accused of defrauding Utah Crossing out of tens of thousands of dollars by promising financing for the company that wanted to build a bridge across Utah Lake.

By Kate Siber, High Country News

All morning, I’d heard the roar of sloughs rocketing down cliffs as I skied up a mountain in Prince William Sound, Alaska. Now, standing at the summit with my six friends and our two guides, I gazed over treeless sheets of white plunging to the inky ocean. A virgin slope beckoned to us. I felt uneasy — the snow was clearly unstable — but said nothing.

I was there as a travel writer and photographer, so the group agreed that I would go first to set up my camera, accompanied by Dan, the lead guide. I shook off my nervousness and skied off, arcing turns down a mellow powder field and stopping before a knoll. Dan whizzed past me and disappeared over the bump, flanked by steeper slopes. Suddenly, a line tore across the snow, releasing a massive avalanche that crashed 700 feet down the slope, engulfing Dan in car-sized panes of broken snow that settled, slowly, into a terrifying stillness.

With the help of his inflatable airbags, Dan kept afloat and survived, unhurt. He took a few moments to collect himself, and then put his skins back on. I stood there in awe and terror, my heart racing, glad to be alive.

I don’t know whether some misjudgment or breach of professional protocol contributed to this accident. It’s exceedingly rare for a slope shy of 30 degrees to slide so dramatically. But for years, I have relived the incident, questioning my own assumptions about safety in avalanche terrain. Was it a wild fluke, a simple miscalculation, or a serious mistake made possible by complicated psychological factors? In other words, how dumb were we?

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By Reno Gazette-Journal

A Carson City Sheriff’s deputy was killed during a confrontation with a suspect early Saturday morning, the Carson City Sheriff’s Department announced in a news release.

At 2:18am, deputies responded to a report of a domestic battery involving physical injury at the 4100 block of Montez Drive. A woman was found at the scene with injuries, the release said.

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Washoe Lake State Park is partnering with the Nevada Department of Wildlife to host a kids’ carp fishing derby.

Prizes will be awarded for the largest carp caught in different age categories.

The event is Aug. 22 from 8am-noon. Participants are requested to bring their own tackle. A limited number of rods are available for kids who do not have their own fishing equipment. A fishing license is required for those 12 years of age or older.

Reservations are required by contacting Kim Zuch at 775.687.4319 or washoelake@hdiss.net.

This event is free after the park’s entrance fee of $7/vehicle. Nevada residents receive a $2 discount.

The Jerusalem Fire is burning in Lake and Napa counties. Photo/Provided

·      Lake Valley fire’s Brush 7 crew, above, being filmed by the media at the Jerusalem Fire. They are part of the El Dorado County Strike Team.

·      Tahoe Area Sierra Club’s annual garden party and fundraiser at Aspen Hollow Nursery in South Lake Tahoe is Sept. 20 from 4-7pm.

·     North Lake Tahoe Bridal Faire at Squaw Valley’s Olympic Village Lodge is Aug. 23 from 11am-3pm.

·       Kathy Long has been appointed as interim park and facilities manager for North Tahoe Public Utility District.

·       The Edible Pedal bike ride at Bowers Mansion in Washoe Valley is Sept. 20. For more info, go online.