A wildfire evacuation drill involving Tahoe Douglas Fire Protection District and Skyland Fire Adapted Community will take place June 8 from 10am-2pm.

The drill will give residents the opportunity to practice evacuating from their homes and getting to the designated safe zone.

The event will begin with an all agency briefing then Douglas County sheriff’s deputies drive each street in Skyland giving evacuation instructions on a bullhorn. Residents will be directed to Zephyr Cove Park where an evacuation center will set up for registration.

The drill will serve to remind all residents that in the event of a wildfire, if the situation permits, they should make certain all windows and doors are tightly closed to keep embers out, turn on all lights so firefighters can see inside your home, close all interior doors, remove lightweight curtains and drapes as they may catch fire from radiated heat, put all flammable furniture inside the home, and open the gates to fences to create a firebreak.

The last evacuation drill was in 2012 with the Zephyr Knolls and Zephyr Heights neighborhoods.

The Douglas County Sheriff’s Department, Douglas County Search and Rescue, Nevada Highway Patrol, Douglas County Community Emergency Response Team, U.S. Forest Service, South Lake Tahoe Fire Department, Lake Valley Fire Protection District, East Fork Fire District, Douglas County Emergency Management, Southwest Gas, NV Energy and the Humane Society will also participate in the drill.

By Jon Ortiz, Sacramento Bee

For the third time in four years, advocates for altering public pensions have a plan they want to put to a statewide vote.

But this time the proposal by pension-change advocates Chuck Reed and Carl DeMaio has a new twist: Pensions and other retirement benefits would automatically become a matter of ballot-box politics by requiring voter approval any time government officials sought to upgrade benefits.

It also would make “defined-contribution” plans the default retirement program for state and local employees hired Jan. 1, 2019, and later. Employers who wanted to add new employees to “defined-benefit” plans now common in government – but rare in the private sector – would have to get voter approval after that date.

Reed said that the measure is necessary to rein soaring retiree benefit costs that are “crowding out funding for important services such as police, fire, schools and road repairs.”

As news about the plan spread Thursday morning, union reaction was swift and predictable.

“Chuck Reed is a hypocrite,” said Bruce Blanning, executive director of the state engineers’ union. “He’s not interested in protecting taxpayers. His real target is working men and women who dedicated themselves to public service and then retire. He wants their money to be controlled by the same Wall Street bankers who gave us the Great Recession.”

Read the whole story

Truckee will host the nation’s top amateur and junior cyclists at the 2015 USA Cycling Amateur Road National Championships, June 24-28.

The race is five consecutive days, consisting of three distinct courses and distances. The 9-14 age category competes on a 5K course that loops around Serene Lakes, while the 15-18 age category race on a 70K course that starts in Loyalton and ends at Northstar. The elite-amateur and U23 category races on a 167K loop that starts at Northstar and runs north on Highway 89.

The time trial course is a variation of an out-and-back style format with 40K, 20K and 10K distances. All ages and categories will race on the same 1K criterium course in downtown Truckee.

Nearly 1,000 athletes are expected to compete.

Many riders are racing to compete for the Team USA in selected European campaigns.

For more information, go online. Expect road closures at times in the Truckee area.

·  There will be a free bike tune up workshop on June 6 from 11am-1pm at Crow’s Auto Care and Bike Repair, 931 3rd St., South Lake Tahoe. All ages are welcome.

·  Wine on the Water, a fundraiser for the Boys & Girls Club of North Lake Tahoe, is June 28 from 1-5pm at the Hyatt in Incline Village. For more info and tickets, to online.

·  Tahoe City Rotary Club’s lobster feed is July 31. The no host bar opens at 5:30pm, dinner is from 6:30-8pm at the North Tahoe Events Center in Kings Beach. Tickets are $65. For more info, go online.

·  Nevada Division of Tourism is running an online Test Your Nevada Clout promotion.

·  People may dump their electronic waste for free on June 6 and June 7 from 9am-3pm at South Tahoe Middle School.

By Brian Fung, Washington Post

Hitting a seven-year low, Internet providers and pay-TV companies were literally just ranked as the least popular industries in America.

Those businesses come tied in last place in the latest update to the American Consumer Satisfaction Index, which ranks 43 industries on a 0-to-100 scale. The country’s most hated industries, each with a score of 63, fall behind the U.S. Postal Service (69), wireless carriers (70) and even airlines (71).

That’s a drop from even two years ago, when subscription television scored a 68 and Internet providers got a 65. (Then, as now, they were still the least popular industries on the index.)

Read the whole story

By Patrick McGreevy and Phil Wilson, Los Angeles Times

The state Senate on Tuesday approved a bill that would raise the minimum legal age for buying cigarettes and other tobacco products from 18 to 21 as part of an effort to reduce smoking by young people.

Sen. Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina, said he introduced the bill, SB151, out of concern that an estimated 90% of tobacco users start before age 21. Raising the minimum age will mean that fewer teenagers pick up the habit, said Hernandez, an optometrist.

He cited a study done by the Institute of Medicine for the federal Food and Drug Administration that concluded that raising the smoking age to 21 would cut smoking by 12 percent more than existing control policies.

Read the whole story

Discover Nevada State Parks day is June 13.

Park visitors will receive free day use admission and free fishing (no license required) at all of Nevada’s 23 State Parks. The free day is open to non-Nevada residents as well.

For more information or to find a list of state parks, go online.

The UCCE Master Gardeners of Lake Tahoe’s June Day Jamboree and Plant Sale is June 13 from 9am-2pm at the Lake Tahoe Community College Demonstration Garden.

Master Gardeners will be on hand to answer questions about gardening at Tahoe. Whether it be growing vegetables, learning which plants attracts butterflies and bees, finding out how to keep a garden growing with less water, or how to manage pests without using harmful chemicals, answers can be found at this event.

This is also a fundraiser for the local Master Gardener program. The funds raised through the plant sale will help offset program costs such as printing materials, seeds, soil and other materials used in teaching demonstrations.

And with Master Gardeners every day is Earth Day, so people are encouraged to bring their used plant containers that are in good condition to the sale, as they can be reused for demonstrations and future plant sales.

Tickets ($20) for the Tahoe in Bloom Garden Tour, set for July 25, will be available for sale at the June Day Jamboree.

“Pippin” is coming to Lake Tahoe Community College’s theater starting June 12.

With music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, the composer of the hit Broadway musicals “Wicked” and “Godspell”, and book by Roger O. Hirson, the Tony Award-winning show will be in South Lake Tahoe from June 12-20.

This high-energy musical follows the story of Pippin, a young prince who longs to find passion and adventure in his quest to live an extraordinary life. Pippin is encouraged by the seductive, yet sinister Leading Player and a mysterious troupe of performers who lure the naïve prince along a death-defying journey to the final “One Perfect Act.”

Choreography and aerial work is by Angela Smith, music direction by Mark Williams and stage direction by Susan Boulanger.

Performances are June 12-13 and June 18-20 at 8pm, and 2pm shows on June 14 and June 20.

Tickets for “Pippin” are $15 general admission, and $12 for seniors, groups of eight or more, students with a valid school ID, and children under 13. Tickets may be purchased in advance at LTCC’s bookstore Monday through Thursday, 10am-7:30pm and Fridays 9am-2:30pm. The Duke Theatre Box Office will be open for ticket sales one hour prior to all performances. Seating for this show is limited, so please arrive early for best seating availability.

For more information, call 530.541.4660, ext. 207.

By Kathryn Reed

INCLINE VILLAGE – Without the work of Charles Goldman, the scientific debate about issues concerning Lake Tahoe might be much different.

The limnologist started studying this area in 1958 when he began teaching at UC Davis. His research is the basis for much of the work that is being done today to improve the clarity of the lake. While the methods to achieve various goals will continue to be debated, the decades’ worth of data are indisputable and provide a basis from which to keep going forward.

In a career spanning more than 50 years, Goldman could point to multiple achievements to hang his hat. Sewage, though, is what he is most proud of. Specifically, keeping treated sewage from Lake Tahoe.

Charles Goldman talks about the changes at Lake Tahoe on June 4 in Incline Village. Photo/LTN

Years ago he took local wastewater and mixed it with samples from the lake. Tahoe’s clear water turned green in three days. It was all the nitrogen that remained in the treated water that was the problem.

“Now we are seeing attacks on science. We are almost back to where the Earth is flat,” Goldman told the more than 80 people attending the June 4 talk at the Tahoe Environmental Research Center on the campus of Sierra Nevada College. He alluded to those who have recently broached the subject of reworking the federal law that mandates wastewater be hauled out of the basin.

The 4-year-old drought has people contemplating ways to deal with water.

Goldman called climate change “the greatest threat to humanity since the development of the atomic bomb.”

He remembers fighting against uncontrolled growth in the basin because of the negative environmental impacts it would have. Threatening phone calls from those wanting to develop the basin were routine. A California Highway Patrol car would follow him from Tahoe to Davis; he never knew if was for protection or some sinister reason.

While he is no longer teaching, Goldman refuses to completely retire. He is advocating the U.S. Forest Service prevent cattle grazing above 5,000 feet. Goldman will present a paper this summer from a 10-year study about the bacteriology of lakes and streams in the High Sierra because of the grazing.

“It’s bad for water quality,” he said.

And on top of that, Goldman added, the program costs more to run than the feds are generating in income.