To the community,

Today is the day you shape our city’s future. With your vote, choosing three members for our City Council, you will speak on issues from economic development and the environment to jobs and the way we care for families and children. You have seven candidates to choose from, each proposing a path to move our city forward.

We thank you for engaging with us through four candidate forums, numerous press interviews, endorsements, coffees, fundraisers, phone calls and door knocks. You’ve seen our signs, watched or read our ads. By now you know that all seven candidates have a passion and love for our community. We share a desire to create jobs and continue to be good stewards to our beloved Lake Tahoe and basin.

As candidates, we focused on our messages, sharing our vision for the future of our city. Unlike many political campaigns, we displayed respect for each other and pledge to continue working for the betterment of South Lake Tahoe no matter the outcome of today’s vote.

We now join together to ask for you to vote today. Choose South Lake Tahoe’s future, be one of the decision-makers. It’s your vote; please use it. Last but not least, for those of you who have already cast your ballot by mail, thank you.

We did our part as candidates and now it is up to you.

Thank you,

Angela Swanson, Wendy David, Tom Davis, Bruce Grego, Austin Sass, Matt Palacio, Brooke Laine

The U.S. Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit will continue prescribed fire operations in the Pioneer Trail and Slaughterhouse Canyon areas on Nov. 4.

Fifty acres of hand piles off Pioneer will be burned and 22 acres of hand piles in the canyon.

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

Before prescribed fire operations are conducted, Forest Service staff post road signs around areas affected by prescribed fire, send email notifications and update the local fire information line at 530.543.2600, ext. 6. To receive prescribed fire notifications, send an email to pa_ltbmu@fs.fed.us.

By Harry Bradford, Huffington Post

Whether it’s newcomers like Seamless and grubHub or veterans like Apple and Starbucks, companies of all sorts are making it easier than ever to order and pay with as little human interaction as possible.

That might be convenient and faster, but it’s not great for our health.

Ordering food online from restaurants causes people to do two unhealthy things: order more food and choose items that are higher in calories. In fact, a 2012 study centered around a North Carolina pizza restaurant found that total calories in online orders were about 6 percent higher than phone orders. That came out to about 100 calories more per order, according to Ryan McDevitt, an assistant professor at Duke University Fuqua School Of Business and the author of the study.

So why do we order with more reckless abandon when we’re using our smartphones and laptops? McDevitt said these barriers to human interaction essentially also act as barriers to shame. If there’s no waiter, there’s no other person to make them feel guilty for making less-sensible choices.

Read the whole story

Barton Hospice’s  Reflections of Life and Loss grief support group meets the first and third Thursday of each month. Time varies so call ahead — 530.543.5581.

Meetings are at 2092 Lake Tahoe Blvd., Suite 600, South Lake Tahoe.

Barton Hospice encourages people who have experienced the loss of a loved one or have endured a significant, life-altering event to attend the ongoing bereavement group. This group helps teach attendees how to cope with certain situations and encourages emotional connections with others.

Support and bereavement groups allow people to release emotions they may otherwise keep to themselves. It can improve a participant’s mood and decrease psychological distress.

Boundary Peak at 13,140 feet is Nevada’s highest point. Photo/Michelle Slaton/U.S. Forest Service

By Henry Brean, Las Vegas Review-Journal

If beauty played a role in deciding Nevada’s highest point, Wheeler Peak, crown jewel of Great Basin National Park at the eastern edge of the state, would be the winner hands down.

Instead, geography and topography have conspired to give us Boundary Peak on the state’s opposite border — a nondescript, scree-covered bump at the end of California that rises, nevertheless, about 77 feet higher than picturesque Wheeler.

By some estimates, 13,140-foot Boundary is barely even a peak. A website for climbers called summitpost.org describes it is as “part of a twin peak with Montgomery Peak,” which is 301 feet higher and just across the border in California. If you keep going south from there, you’ll come to even taller Mount Dubois (13,559) and taller still White Mountain Peak (14,246), also completely in California.

“Boundary Peak is at the Northern end of the White Mountains,” writes summitpost.org, “and would not be climbed much except for the fact it is the highest point in Nevada, although it is not the highest peak in the area.”

Read the whole story

Douglas County commissioners again are going to take up the topic of water rates on Dec. 18 at their 1:30pm meeting in Stateline.

The public hearing will be to discuss changes to the monthly rates for the Skyland Water System and Cave Rock/Uppaway Water System.

The water rates for both Lake Tahoe water agencies were last changed in 2010. New rates are expected to take effect Jan. 1.

Connection fees and private fire service charges are also proposed to increase.

For more info, call 775.782.9989. Comments, objections and protests may be sent to P.O. Box 218, Minden, NV 89423.

By Kathryn Reed

A closed session item has been added to the Nov. 4 El Dorado County Board of Supervisors meeting that says “public employee discipline/dismissal/release”.

Terri Daly, chief administrative officer, cleared out her office last week and was not at work today. Supervisors have a limited number of people whom they may hire and fire – CAO, county counsel and department heads.

Neither County Counsel Robyn Drivon nor board Chairwoman Norma Santiago was available for comment.

The Nov. 4 meeting starts at 9am in Placerville.

Daly has come under scrutiny lately because of her handling of financial matters, creating an environment where morale has plummeted, and having the county be labeled “dysfunctional” in the annual grand jury report.

The county has also set two special meeting dates – Nov. 13 and Nov. 21. While formal agendas have not been released for either meeting, the Thursday meeting in part is expected to deal with the Community Development Agency issues that involve Assistant CAO Kim Kerr.

By Amber Phillips, Las Vegas Sun

WASHINGTON — Standing on the royal blue carpet of the U.S. Senate chamber in cowboy boots, Republican Sen. Dean Heller looks every bit the Washington power broker as he swaps jokes and slaps backs with the most influential people in the city.

Across the chamber, in a scene that plays out daily, Nevada’s senior Sen. Harry Reid hunches over a desk with fellow Democrats. The Senate majority leader, in a plain gray suit, mutters out the side of his mouth about the vote of the day.

Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., wants to be a bigger player on the national stage. Photo/LTN

Heller and Reid never make eye contact on the Senate floor. But they could soon be staring each other dead on. Heller, an ambitious yet relatively anonymous Washington lawmaker, is quietly putting together a campaign to make his own name in this town, dethrone Reid and become the state’s leader on Capitol Hill.

This fall, Heller worked behind the scenes to raise money for key Republicans seeking to win or hold Senate seats. His goal is to cash in on an unpopular Democratic president and, to a lesser extent, an unpopular Reid, to help his party take over the Senate.

Heller will find out Tuesday if he succeeded. “I told my staff there’s a path I want to go down,” said Heller, 54. “One of those steps is being in the majority.”

Heller’s political maneuvering comes after he spent two years on policy work to aid the unemployed, help veterans and reduce federal spending. That work has put Heller on Democrats’ shortlist to co-sponsor bipartisan bills.

The real Nevada battle, though, will be born in 2016.

The Silver State will be a swing state in a wide open presidential election, and Reid, 74, is expected to run for his sixth term. With those races on the horizon, Heller is lobbying now to become Senate Republicans’ top campaign operative. It would be an extraordinary feat for a rookie senator. If he wins the job, his No. 1 target will be none other than Harry Reid.

“He spent $12 million against me in my last campaign,” Heller said in a September interview, referring to Reid’s behind-the-scenes meddling in Heller’s 2012 Senate race. “And I’ll probably return the favor.”

The questions for Heller in the next two years: Can the unknown freshman senator climb the ranks of an increasingly conservative Republican party? And can he do it while maintaining a relationship with the still-influential Reid and with Nevadans who are becoming increasingly centrist?

Read the whole story

Geoff Schladow, director of Tahoe Environmental Research Center, will give two presentations this month about what is going on beneath Tahoe’s surface.

The first is Nov. 5 at the North Tahoe Events Center in Kings Beach; the other is Nov. 6 at the Elks Point Fire Station in Round Hill. Both are from 6-7:30pm.

Schladow will share insights into Tahoe’s circulation pattern research, results of the NDEP-Tahoe Water Suppliers Association 2014 Risk Assessment Report, and water resource management implications.

• Barton Auxiliary is having a blood drive Dec. 1 from noon-6pm at Lake Tahoe Resort Hotel in South Lake Tahoe.

• Jeff Hamilton is Sierra Sotheby’s International Realty’s vice president of North Tahoe operations.

• Here are the El Dorado-Tahoe and Sierra roadwork schedules for the week from Caltrans.

• This year all sixth-grade students in Lake Tahoe Unified School District participated in planting sugar pines in the Angora burn area. They had presentations and activities on water quality and erosion, water conservation, defensible space and wildland fire safety.

• Smokey Bear and the Tallac Hotshots teamed up with South Lake Tahoe Cub Scout Pack 592 to teach them about campfire safety.