Soroptimist International Tahoe Sierra last week gave out thousands of dollars to local organizations which have a mission to help make a difference in the lives of women and youth locally and worldwide.

SITS’ biggest fundraiser is Elegant Evening. Proceeds from the event help fund these scholarships. This year’s event is April 18. For more info, go online.

The winners are:

Between Horses & Humans Horses are intuitive and pass no judgement on the children and adults who come to Gardnerville to find healing. Participants learn to take an assertive yet gentle approach to the care of the horses they befriend.

Bijou K Adventure Program: Bijou kindergarten team will be purchasing a book for each new 2015 kindergarten student along with school supplies that will help the students have a successful school year.

Christina Frohlich and Gallanty Physical Therapy: Helping orthopedic surgeons and multiple registered nurses to help more than 50 people in Guatemala receive the treatment and physical therapy they needed.

Girl Scout Leadership will use the funds received to train older Girl Scouts to mentor and teach younger Girl Scouts.

Girls On The Run: This nonprofit organization is dedicated to creating a world where every girl knows and activates her limitless potential and is free to boldly pursue her dreams.

Kahle Community Center’s Morning Program: The funds received will help the Tuesday Morning program which provides a fun social environment for over 50 families with children ages birth to preschool.

ED Reading Council’s Baby Books Program: This program has been in place for more than 12 years. It promotes the love of reading and provides a book bag, book, and information for new parents of babies born in South Lake Tahoe.

SOS Outreach: This nonprofit organization inspires youth to make positive decisions for healthy successful lives. In Tahoe the organization helps to teach life skills and provides opportunities with various adventure sports.

St. Joseph Land Trust: The mission of this nonprofit organization is to improve the quality of life for individuals and families who cannot otherwise afford housing by acquiring real estate and developing programs to benefit individuals and families. So far they have provided 77 units of affordable housing for families who previously lived in motels.

Tahoe Turning Point: This organization provides a group home for at-risk adolescents. With the received funds the organization will be encouraging physical fitness through gym memberships at Kahle Community Center.

Tahoe Valley Elementary’s Disney Aladdin Musical Performance: There is an emphasis of performing arts at Tahoe Valley. Every year the school puts on a performance. With the funds received, authentic clothing was purchased for the performers’ costumes.

Tahoe Valley’s Science Theater Workshops Science Theater allows every student to actively participate in hands-on dramatizations that connect science learning to their everyday world.

Tahoe Youth & Family Services: This organization’s mission is to promote the healthy development of children, youth, and families in our community by providing counseling, education and support services. Through funds received, Tahoe Youth & Family Services will be continuing to support it’s Girl’s Project.

By Kathryn Reed

El Dorado County does not require a no compete clause for most employees. This proved to be a profitable turn of events for Alliant Insurance Services and York Risk Services.

When Kim Kerr started with El Dorado County as assistant county administrative officer on June 30, 2011, the contract with Alliant was for $375,000.

In November 2012, Kerr became the county’s contract administer. This meant she was in control of the Alliant contract. The compensation was increased to $470,000.

In January 2014, the compensation was increased to $510,000. By the time Kerr left in December the compensation was increased to $610,000.

Kerr now works for Alliant.

“The prior Board of Supervisors had a bad weakness of not doing background checks on high level managers that they hired. It appears that Alliant Insurance Services has the same serious weakness,” Joe Harn, county auditor-controller, told Lake Tahoe News.

For fiscal year ending June 30, 2014, the state controller’s office in its field review report of the county’s cost allocation plan found that employees were overbilled by more than $5.2 million for the health benefit plan.

Kerr was responsible for managing this program.

“A refund must be processed and refund given to all funds or departments, employees and retirees that contributed to the excess in the Health Benefit Program,” the state report says.

That refund has further contributed to the county’s fiscal woes.

The county in November 2011, under Kerr’s watch, signed a two-year contract with York for $21,750 per month. In November 2013, the county signed a three-year contract with York for a slightly higher rate. It increases every month.

On June 30, 2012, Kerr hired Sherri Adams. The two knew each other from working on California State Association Counties Excess Insurance Authority committees.

Adams left El Dorado County on Oct. 24, 2014. Her last title was principal risk management analyst, making $40.73/hour at step three. She now works for York.

By Peter Hecht, Sacrament Bee

The former operator and members of a Diamond Springs marijuana dispensary are suing El Dorado County to recover seized marijuana, medical records and financial documents taken in a Sheriff’s Department raid last year.

The Pure Life Collective has been shuttered since the Nov. 17, 2014, raid, which resulted in the arrest of dispensary operator Kelly Chiusano. No charges have been filed.

The dispensary’s lawsuit, filed by a prominent Bay Area lawyer specializing in medical marijuana, charges that the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Department wrongly raided Pure Life, which had been granted a permit to operate by the county’s Community Development Agency.

The lawsuit, filed last week by Sausalito lawyer Zenia Gilg and law partner Heather Burke, charges that the Sheriff’s Department “wasted public resources” by having undercover officers with physicians’ recommendations purchase medical marijuana at the dispensary and through its delivery service.

Read the whole story

There are more than 1,900 edible insect species on Earth. More than 2 billion people already include insects in their diets. So why don’t Americans?

Entomophagy – the practice of eating insects – will be the subject of a talk April 25 from 4-6pm at the Wilbur D. May Museum in Reno. Michelle Roberts, a cultural anthropologist from the UNR, will discuss insects and diet in Southeast Asia.

This will be followed by a bug tasting. The menu includes: crickets, bamboo worm pupae, black ant eggs, silkworm and grasshopper kebabs, chocolate-covered superworms, white chocolate ant wafers, and grain moth larvae poop tea to wash it all down.

The cost is $25. Space is limited and advanced registration required — 775.785.5961.

University of Nevada Cooperative Extension will host best management practices workshops for contractors and landscape designers April 24 and April 29.

The full-day basic workshop will be from 8am-4:50pm April 24 at Sierra Nevada College, 999 Tahoe Blvd. in Incline Village, and the half-day refresher course will be 8am-noon April 29 at the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 128 Market St. in Stateline.

BMPs are land-management and landscaping practices that control erosion and encourage runoff from rooftops and pavement to infiltrate into the ground.

TRPA, Nevada Tahoe Conservation District, Resource Concepts Incorporated and North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District personnel will explain the basics of proper installation of the practices around homes and small businesses.

Topics include:

• How to use TRPA’s online resources
• TRPA’s electronic approval process for Small BMP Retrofit Design
• Commercial and multi-family residential BMP permits and maintenance.

Attendance by at least one supervisor per business is required to get on the Service Providers List.

Early registration fees for the workshops are $25 for the basic workshop and $18 for the refresher course. These rates go up after April 8 and again at the door. Registration includes refreshments, workshop materials, Cooperative Extension’s Home Landscaping Guide for Lake Tahoe and Vicinity and the 2012 Natural Resources Conservation Service’s booklet of Standard Drawings of Residential Scale BMPs.

Register online. For more information, call 775.336.0244.

By Emily Badger, Washington Post

The Google map on your smart phone is a map made for human consumption. It resembles, in simplistic strokes, the world right before your eyes: road straight ahead, side streets to the left and right, intersection approaching. It talks to you in terms you can appreciate: “turn right in 200 feet.” It flags your destination with a big red dot, so even the most directionally challenged can’t miss it.

“That information is really intended for you,” says Ogi Redzic, senior vice president of “connected driving” for the Nokia-owned mapping company HERE. “The computer processes it, but it then passes you the information, and you actually do something with it. You turn the steering wheel, you go left, you go right.”

This isn’t a terribly novel observation — navigation maps are meant for people — until you consider what will happen when people don’t do the navigating any more. In a future when driving becomes more automated, maps will be read by cars.

Read the whole story

By Carol Hymowitz, BloombergBusiness

Cathy Egan has been supporting herself since she was 18, when she worked as a waitress in Minneapolis. Her 23-year-old son lives at home and relies on his single mother for transportation, food, and other expenses. Egan, now 50, only began putting money aside for retirement five years ago, after she started working as a licensed practical nurse for the Veterans Health Administration — her first job with benefits.

Although she also has a son in high school, the single mother can’t bring herself to cut off her eldest, who earns $8.50 an hour plus tips delivering takeout orders part time for a restaurant in St. Paul. “Right now, I’m still the supporter,” she says.

Baby boomers are putting their retirements at risk by spending too much on their adult children. With real wages stagnant and unemployment among those age 16 to 24 running above 12 percent, large numbers of households continue to dole out cash to children no longer in school, covering rent, cell phones, cars, and vacations.

A July 2014 survey by American Consumer Credit Counseling, a Boston nonprofit, found that a higher proportion of U.S. households (1 in 3) provide financial assistance to adult children than support for elderly parents (1 in 5).

Read the whole story

Caltrans is putting on an open house April 1 from 6-8pm at South Tahoe High School in the Student Union Conference Rooms to educate people about the road improvement work on Highway 89 from the Y in South Lake Tahoe to Cascade Road north of Camp Richardson.

Caltrans staff will be on hand to answer questions about the project.

For additional information about the project, contact Steve Nelson at 530.241.4566 or steve.nelson@dot.ca.gov.

By Blair Anthony Robertson, Sacramento Bee

Sacramento is set to host a new beer convention in September that is expected to attract thousands of people, bring millions of dollars to the city and continue the momentum of its “America’s Farm-to-Fork Capital” marketing campaign.

The California Craft Beer Summit will include seminars, demonstrations, hands-on learning opportunities and a beer industry jobs fair, along with scores of tasting events, culminating in the California Craft Brewers Showcase that is expected to feature beers from as many as 200 breweries from throughout the state.

Scheduled for Sept. 11-12 at the Sacramento Convention Center, the summit is still in the planning stages. Pricing, a detailed list of events and attendees, and timing for ticket sales have yet to be finalized. The event will coincide with the third annual Farm-to-Fork Festival, running Sept. 10-27.

Read the whole story

Kirkwood real estate officials are confident the market has turned and are beginning to build. Photo/Jessie Marchesseau

By Jessie Marchesseau

KIRKWOOD – By the time Kirkwood closes its lifts for the season, the new townhome building under construction near the Timber Creek Village should be completed. This building, the first in the development, houses two townhomes in what is slated to become a 21-unit complex.

Situated right at the base of Timber Creek, the Timber Creek Townhomes will be eight buildings of ski-in, ski-out residences. The development will eventually take over what is currently the Timber Creek parking lot, with parking spaces being relocated to across the street.

The Timber Creek Townhomes are the first multi-family residential development at Kirkwood in more than five years and the first one by Kirkwood Resort Development in more than 15. Sentinels West, directly across the street from the TC Townhomes, was built by a private developer between 2006 and 2009. Though Kirkwood Resort Development did a series of single-family projects in the early 2000s, the group hasn’t taken on a large multi-family project since the Mountain Club in 1999.

So why did KRD decide now was the time to get back into the residential real estate game? According to Peter Forsch, chief executive officer of Kirkwood Resort Development, now is the ideal part of the market cycle for them to step in. Real estate prices have been climbing in the Bay Area for the last few years. Historically, Kirkwood and Lake Tahoe real estate lags behind the Bay Area market by a couple years. So Kirkwood is experiencing what Forsch predicts is just the beginning of a market upswing.

Though relatively new to Kirkwood, having joined KRD in January 2014, Forsch has been in resort development for decades working in areas such as Aspen, Jackson Hole and Big Sky. In his experience, the developments that position themselves at the beginning of the market cycle have more successful outcomes than those that wait until the market peaks. With this in mind, KRD started this project last summer in anticipation of market improvements.

Real estate at Kirkwood has been holding steady for the last year or so, but Kathy Walters who has been selling real estate at Kirkwood Mountain Realty for 18 years said she expected to see the rebound a little sooner. The majority of Kirkwood homebuyers come from the Bay Area, and as the economy there improved, she expected to see that affect Kirkwood as well. But this year’s drought and below average snowfall kept a lot of skiers and would-be buyers away. The real estate market at a winter resort like Kirkwood is directly related to the amount of snowfall. Walters told Lake Tahoe News she believes the market is stronger overall than it has been in past years, but could be a lot better if there were more snow.

This is what the townhouse will look like when completed. Rendering/Provided

However, market conditions were not the only aspect driving KRD’s decision to break ground on the TC Townhomes. Nate Whaley, chief financial officer for KRD, explained they believed this particular project was perfect for what consumers want right now. The townhomes are moderately sized with three and four bedrooms between 2,000- and 2,400-square-feet. This represents a downsizing from the huge houses of the boom and is more manageable for families.

“People are still willing to pay for what they want,” Whaley told Lake Tahoe News, “just not willing to pay for more than what they want.”

KRD is also taking cues about what consumers want from other nearby resort developments such as Northstar and Martis Camp, and considering where the majority of buyers are coming from right now, specifically the South Bay and Silicon Valley, and what is important to residents of those locales. The result is a residential project which boasts energy efficiency, sustainability, advanced technology, low maintenance materials, ski-in ski-out amenities and an overall mountain contemporary design. And they’re doing it for a fraction of the price their contemporaries on the North Shore are.

But Forsch acknowledges that the people buying at Kirkwood are not necessarily the same ones wanting to buy at Northstar or Lake Tahoe. Kirkwood does not offer world-class shopping or five-star dining. There is little night life and no bright city lights to speak of. People who buy here are looking for a more authentic, outdoor, away-from-it-all experience.

Until recently Kirkwood was not even connected to the electrical grid, but generated power for the entire community with diesel generators. It may seem that being connected to a reliable and consistent power supply might be a big deal to potential buyers, but Walters said she has not seen that to be the case. In her experience, Kirkwood buyers never seemed to be concerned about electricity issues in the past, and that hasn’t changed.

Vail Resorts moving in and taking over ski area operations has not had much of an affect on Kirkwood’s real estate sales either. Walters said she believes knowing Vail’s positive track record gives people added confidence in the resort on the long-term and has brought in new potential buyers who were passholders at Heavenly or Northstar, but has by no means caused a buying frenzy. The Kirkwood buyer is still someone who is in it for what the mountain itself has to offer, which is some of the most challenging terrain and deepest snow in the Sierra.

“The Kirkwood buyer is a really special person,” Walters told Lake Tahoe News. “They know a good thing when they see it.”

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Notes:

• The Timber Creek Townhomes will be open for viewing on April 4 and April 11 from noon to 5pm.
• Contact Kirkwood Realty at 888.593.7767 or info@kirkwoodrealestate.com for more information.