By KRNV-TV
Some church-goers in Incline Village are calling their Easter Sunday experience disturbing after seeing graffiti on their church walls.
Around 11 Sunday night, Bob Harmon with the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office called to confirm that five churches throughout the Incline Village-area were vandalized on Easter Sunday.
Harmon says the churches that were targeted were all on different streets — but that the vandalism happened around the same time.
• Bread & Broth, an all-volunteer program feeding the hungry in the South Lake Tahoe area, is looking for a communications chairperson, treasurer and volunteer coordinator. More info is available online or email a letter of interest, including a brief description of your qualifications and the best way to contact you to Georgette at breadandbroth1@gmail.com.
• The Lake Tahoe Aquatic Invasive Species Coordination Committee is hosting a public forum on aquatic invasive species May 21 from 5:30-7:30pm at Lake Tahoe Golf Course in Meyers.
• Opening Aug. 22 at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno is Tahoe, A Visual History. There will be more 200 works of art, including a painting by Lake Tahoe Community College Professor Phyllis Shafer titled Above Cave Rock.
• Red Hawk Casino has installed free charging stations for electric vehicles.
• Tahoe Sierra Century and ride Miles for Music is Sept. 12. Cyclists may choose a 30-, 60-, or 100-mile route on the North Shore and through Truckee. Register online. All proceeds benefit music education in North Tahoe.
Phoenix
Phoenix is a big fluffy boy who likes his tummy tickled. He is a flame point Himalayan with beautiful long hair that has been clipped because of matting. Phoenix is about 5 years old and he would like an owner who will brush him and give him lots of attention.
Phoenix is neutered, microchipped, tested for FIV, and vaccinated. He is at the El Dorado County Animal Services shelter in Meyers, along with many other dogs and cats who are waiting for their new homes. Go to the Tahoe animal shelter’s Facebook page to see photos and descriptions of all pets at the shelter.
Call 530.573.7925 for directions, hours, and other information on adopting a pet.
For spay-neuter assistance for South Tahoe residents, go online.
— Karen Kuentz
By Kathryn Reed
Look outside – that’s why the U.S. Forest Service doesn’t open all trails in April – especially ones that allow motorized vehicles.
Last week a group of off-highway vehicle enthusiasts gathered at the South Lake Tahoe Forest Service office to talk about how best to maintain the roads, suggest ways for user groups to work together and offer ideas to the Forest Service. Users included four-wheelers, all terrain vehicle riders and dirt bikers.
One thing many advocated for was access when spring arrives even if the calendar says winter. But it was pointed out that the storm that arrived Sunday, which was in the forecast days in advance, was reason alone to limit access.
“Gates are closed for resource reasons,” Jacob Quinn with the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit told Lake Tahoe News. This includes critters nesting, and other fauna and flora considerations that go beyond looking at whether the ground is dry.
Users said if the sand pits and Twin Peaks on the outskirts of South Lake Tahoe were open now, it might curtail the illegal activity that is going in places like Upper Kingsbury Grade. People are going around the gate off Andria Drive.
“They are running it like crazy right now,” Frank Machler, USFS law enforcement officer, said. “They are there illegally. We are trying to get a handle on it.”
One person suggested a few boulders and better signage. Signs may come later in the summer.
Those in the room want to be stewards of the land, including helping with trail maintenance. Much like the mountain bike community in the past few years has partnered with the USFS, the same goes for the motorized recreation community.
The Forest Service has actively been applying for grants from California and Nevada entities with the goal of helping make improvements for off-roaders.
With the Forest Service unable to be on every trail, the feds welcome input from users about what they see so improvements or enforcement can be more immediate.
The users spoke about how they often take apart illegal campfire rings. Fire is a concern for them, whether it’s from illegal fires or their vehicles. Most who belong to organized riding groups have spark arresters on their vehicles and carry fire extinguishers.
Vegetation will be abnormally dry this summer because of the lack of snow. Safety is an issue especially when it comes to those in the backcountry knowing about dangerous conditions – something like last fall’s King Fire. Cell phone service is usually non-existent so the use of ham radios is often used.
Later this year the LTBMU will be revising the motor use map. Public comments will be solicited in the fall.
“That’s our legal document for when we can open and close gates,” Quinn said. “The idea is to improve accuracy. That is the point of the revision.”
Forest Service employees suggested users pay attention this season to what improvements they would like so they can be brought up in the form of a comment down the road, with the goal of its being addressed with the revised document. This would be the time to ask for more regulated fire pits with the goal of fewer illegal ones being built.
By Aaron E. Carroll, New York Times
As my children, and my friends’ children, are getting older, a question that comes up again and again from friends is this: Which would I rather my children use — alcohol or marijuana?
The immediate answer, of course, is “neither.” But no parent accepts that. It’s assumed, and not incorrectly, that the vast majority of adolescents will try one or the other, especially when they go to college. So they press me further.
The easy answer is to demonize marijuana. It’s illegal, after all. Moreover, its potential downsides are well known. Scans show that marijuana use is associated with potential changes in the brain. It’s associated with increases in the risk of psychosis. It may be associated with changes in lung function or long-term cancer risk, even though a growing body of evidence says that seems unlikely. It can harm memory, it’s associated with lower academic achievement, and its use is linked to less success later in life.
Sierra Nevada College’s next Writers in the Woods event features Gailmarie Pahmeier and David Lee.
Pahmeier’s most recent poetry collection, “The Rural Lives of Nice Girls”, was published by Black Rock Press. Other books include “With Respect for Distance”, “Shake It and It Snows”, and “The House on Breakaheart Road”. A Nevadan for nearly 30 years, Pahmeier is a faculty member for SNC Tahoe’s MFA in creative writing; she also teachers at UNR, where she received the distinguished teaching award.
Lee was Utah’s first poet laureate, and is the author of 15 volumes of poetry. A former seminary candidate, boxer, semi-pro baseball player, cotton mill worker, and hog farmer, he has a doctorate in literature with a concentration in John Milton and taught at Southern Utah University for three decades.
Readings are April 17 from 7-9pm and the workshop is April 18 from 9am-noon.
Workshops can be taken for credit and are free to students, $50 for community members. All events, Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences at SNC Tahoe, Room 139, Incline Village.
By Peter Vigneron, Outside
According to a recent, rather cryptic Reuter’s report, the International Olympic Committee is considering introducing mixed-gender competitions at the 2018 and 2020 Olympics. The three relevant sentences from the article:
Mixed-gender cycling events could form part of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics if experiments prove successful, Brian Cookson, president of the sport’s governing body, said on [March 17].
With IOC president Thomas Bach pushing sports federations to improve gender equality, Cookson said trials would begin behind closed doors in Switzerland on Friday.
Men and women could compete against each other in sports such as Alpine skiing and bobsleigh as soon as the Pyeongchang Winter Games in 2018.
Notable, right? Women have been agitating to compete against men in golf, tennis, and skiing for years. One constant has been the resistance to those requests from the sports’ governing bodies: Michelle Wei was allowed to compete in men’s professional golf only after years of lobbying; Lindsey Vonn’s request to ski against men in Lake Louise several years ago was essentially dismissed out of hand. And yet, here the International Olympic Committee seems to be floating the idea of mixed-gender competition without any pressure to speak of at all. What gives?
By Prashant Gopal, Bloomberg
Even before the remnants of eastern Massachusetts’ snowiest winter have melted, second-home buyers flocking to Cape Cod’s beach towns have helped Steve Clay’s team of agents break their sales record.
Clay, an agent with Keller Williams Realty, said he and his four agents have 17 properties under contract, more than at any one time since the team formed in 2009.
“Buyers know they missed the bottom of the market, and now they don’t want to miss the bottom of interest rates,” he said.
Second-home buyers from Cape Cod and New York’s Hamptons to Miami and Lake Tahoe are returning to the housing market as surging stock prices, job growth and low interest rates boost purchasing power and consumer confidence. U.S. vacation-property sales jumped 57 percent last year to an estimated 1.13 million, a record in data going back to 2003, the National Association of Realtors said in a report Wednesday.
As of April 1, many roads and trails are open for the season on the west side of the Tahoe National Forest. Most roads and trails on the east side of the forest will open April 24. Wet and snowy weather necessitates closure of some routes to prevent resource damage.
Most seasonal routes on the west side of the Tahoe National Forest, including the American River and Yuba River ranger districts, are open from April 1 to Dec. 31. Most seasonal routes on the east side of the forest, including the Sierraville and Truckee ranger districts, are open from April 24 to Dec. 31.
A complete list of roads and trails and closure dates or restrictions can be found on the Tahoe National Forest 2013 Motor Vehicle Use Maps. The maps are free and available at any Tahoe National Forest office, as well as online. Digital versions of the maps can also be downloaded to mobile devices through the Avenza PDF Map app.
Sierra House students show off what they are growing in the dome. Photo/Provided
By Rebecca Bryson
April 2 was a special day for some second-graders in Denise Pillsbury’s class at Sierra House Elementary School. The first to plant their arugula seeds way back in the cold month of January, they were the first class to harvest their bounty from the domes.
Arugula is not typically a kid favorite with its slightly spicy flavor, but the kids were all smiles as parent and community volunteers helped them to harvest their greens. Together the students prepared and ate a strawberry and arugula salad made from the baby arugula that they had grown from seed.
Not a single student refused to taste the meal. What a difference growing your own food can make. When asked what they grew the resounding answer was “arugula” and who grew it “me”. A powerful statement indeed.
Over the next few weeks, classes will continue with work in the domes transplanting their little seedlings. Most of the remaining veggies will be harvested in May and June.
Thursday also marked the culmination of the We Can! Program. As part of this program, Sierra House and all LTUSD elementary students had the opportunity to taste fresh sugar snap peas and dried cranberries.
As part of the We Can! Program a different health and fitness challenge is posed to students for four weeks. Last week’s challenge encouraged students to try a new food. Barton Health, UC Cooperative Extension and the Lake Tahoe Sustainability Collaborative teamed up to purchase and hand out nearly 2,000 servings of snap peas and cranberries. Thanks to Raley’s for providing the food at whole sale prices. This was the highlight of many students’ day.
There will be a community open house at the Sierra House domes on April 15 from 5-7pm. All are welcome to come see what’s growing.