By Nick Zaccardi, NBC Sports
David Wise of Reno and Maddie Bowman of Meyers are repeating history this season and hoping that continues in PyeongChang.
Wise and Bowman, just like four years ago, won X Games titles after becoming the first halfpipe skiers to qualify for the U.S. Olympic team.
Four years ago, Wise and Bowman went on to win gold medals in the event’s Olympic debut. Can they do it again?
Emergency personnel tend to a pedestrian hit by a car in front of the Americana in South Lake Tahoe on Jan. 25. Photo/SLTFD
A 27-year-old South Lake Tahoe man is recovering from injuries sustained Thursday night when he was hit by a vehicle on Pioneer Trail.
The name of the driver and victim have not been released.
According to South Lake Tahoe police officers, the driver turned onto Pioneer Trail from Highway 50 at about 11pm Jan. 25. The driver told officers he did not see the person in the road. It is not known if the person was crossing the street or along the side.
It is not known if the slick roads contributed to the incident.
The driver is cooperating with officers. The investigation is ongoing.
— Lake Tahoe News staff report
Placer County has put the kibosh on negotiations with Liberty Utilities regarding the Cabin Creek biomass energy facility between Tahoe City and Truckee.
Placer and Liberty have been in negotiations for several years on an agreement for Liberty to buy energy from the facility and possibly agree to buy the facility after its completion.
To remain eligible for a U.S. Department of Energy grant that has helped fund the project, the facility needed to be complete by May 2019, which required a deal to be struck by next month.
Because Placer and Liberty could not reach a deal, the Board of Supervisors this week directed staff to cease negotiations and explore other opportunities.
“I think it’s critically important to recognize that we still have an approved project at Cabin Creek and my full intention is to do everything I can to make sure it gets built, just with a different partner,” Supervisor Jennifer Montgomery said.
In 2008, the Department of Energy awarded Placer County $492,000 to study the feasibility of building a biomass facility. The Board of Supervisors in 2015 approved a grant agreement with DOE that provided $2,919,250 for the project, which would have also helped fund its construction. The estimated cost to build the facility was $7.2 million, with $1.5 million coming from the DOE grant and the remaining $5.7 million to come from the county and possibly Liberty.
The county won’t have to reimburse funds that have already been spent.
The project’s conditional use permit is still valid, allowing the project to proceed as conditions allow. Other partnerships may be explored.
— Lake Tahoe News staff report
Sierra Nevada College’s Writers in the Woods brings well-known poets and writers from all over the country to the campus for intimate readings and workshops, where audience members can meet and exchange ideas with the guest writers.
The next event is Feb. 9 from 7-9pm at the Incline Village campus. It will feature Indigo Moor and Lynne Thompson.
Moor, poet laureate of Sacramento, is also a playwright and author. His second book of poetry “Through the Stonecutter’s Window” won Northwestern University Press’s Cave Canem prize. His first book,”Tap-Root” was published as part of Main Street Rag’s Editor’s Select Poetry Series.
Thompson is the author of “Start with a Small Guitar” (What Books Press, 2013) and “”Beg No Pardon (Perugia Press, 2007).
Matt Sanchez talks about issues at the hotel he manages as Councilmembers Wendy David and Tom Davis, back right, listen. Photo/Kathryn Reed
By Kathryn Reed
While vacation home rentals, marijuana and SnowGlobe were prominent topics at the inaugural “mayor’s conversation,” other issues came to light that aren’t always before the South Lake Tahoe City Council.
Mayor Wendy David launched the monthly get-together on Jan. 24. The purpose is to have an informal discussion with anyone in a relaxed atmosphere. She plans to bring a guest with her each time, with Councilman Tom Davis being her partner on Wednesday.
While people have the opportunity to come before the entire council at the meetings and talk for three minutes on any topic, the state open meeting law prevents the electeds from engaging in a dialogue. These sessions, though, allow for back-and-forth communication without legalities getting in the way.
More than two dozen people wandered in for this first gathering at Peet’s inside Raley’s at the Y.
Matt Sanchez, the new manager of the Elizabeth Lodge on Pioneer Trail, spoke about his frustrations with a seedy element of the community hanging around his property “because of its past reputation.”
“Our place is safe now,” he said. There was a time, he said, when a different class of people paid a nightly fee. That’s not true anymore. But they are still in the neighborhood, loitering and giving off an unsafe vibe, according to Sanchez.
Police Chief Brian Uhler, who stopped by briefly, vowed to increase patrols in the area. But he said hanging out isn’t a crime, pointing to how the U.S. Supreme Court has stuck down most loitering laws.
Another person asked about what is going to happen with roads since the ballot measure failed last fall.
David said obviously the need to fix the roads has not gone away, but there is no timeline to put it on the agenda for the council to have a discussion about it.
Davis said pot holes will continue to be filled, touched on Sierra Boulevard being revamped, and revealed Third Street leading to Barton Memorial Hospital will be seeing improvements this year.
A former El Dorado County snowplow driver voiced his frustration with snow removal in the city limits.
Dan Browne, a frequent critic of the City Council, was at the meeting with an opinion on just about every topic. He asked why the city spent $100,000 on the fireplace at the airport when “80 percent of the population won’t see it.”
Instead of listening to the mayor’s response, he got up and went to talk to someone else. David, though, explained to the others who chose listen that the money came from a land deal with Barton Health which per FAA rules mandated the proceeds be spent at the airport. In addition, the heating and air conditioning systems had outlived their usefulness, so much of what was done was efficiency oriented, not cosmetic. Even so, what the airport lobby – aka City Hall – looked like prior the renovation was sketchy at best.
As for the VHRs, pot and SnowGlobe, it was like a rehash of any council meeting when those subjects are on the agenda.
—–
Note:
· The mayor conversations will be the Wednesday after the second City Council meeting starting at 9am. Locations will vary.
By Victor Joecks, Las Vegas Review-Journal
Nevada’s public records law has a big bark, but little bite. It’s time to change that.
The law states that public access to government records “foster(s) democratic principles.” The records act “must be construed liberally to carry out this important purpose.”
That’s strong rhetoric, and rightly so. Government officials work for the public. That makes members of the public the boss. One of your rights as a supervisor is to know what your employees are doing.
Imagine if your employer came to your office to find out what you’re working on, and you told him it was none of his business. Think you’d have a job for very long? Yet that’s what government employees often do.
By Jacopo Prisco, CNN
Every day, Americans throw away 500 million plastic straws, enough to circle the Earth twice, or fill 125 school buses.
That means the average American uses over 35,000 of them in a lifetime. But that could even be a low estimate, according to Adrian Grenier, who leads a campaign called Strawless Ocean.
Worldwide, plastic straws are the sixth most common type of litter, according to Litterati, an app that identifies and maps trash, and among the top 10 marine debris items according to environmental advocacy group Ocean Conservancy.
By Liam Dillon, Los Angeles Times
Dozens of Californians lost their lives in wildfires and other natural disasters in recent months.
In response to the widespread emergencies, Gov. Jerry Brown and legislators want to change insurance rules, emergency alert systems and debris removal policies and spend more money on fire protection. If passed, these new laws would add to the many protections already enshrined in state law for those who have experienced natural disasters, including substantial relief from property taxes.
State officials are warning residents should expect more natural disasters due to the effects of climate change.
By Mick Akers, Las Vegas Sun
The American Lung Association’s 2018 State of Tobacco Control report, which grades states on policies to prevent and reduce tobacco use, shows that Nevada lags in anti-tobacco measures.
The 16th annual report graded states in five categories, with Nevada receiving four F’s and a C. It received an F in tobacco prevention and control program funding, tobacco taxes, access to cessation services and minimum age. The state got a C in the Smoke Free Air category.
Nevada’s leading cause of preventable death is tied to tobacco use, with 4,050 deaths attributed to smoking between 2005-2009, the study showed. The state sees $1.08 billion in health care costs due to smoking each year.
By Tony Bizjak, Sacramento Bee
A Bay Area entrepreneur is launching a luxury weekend bus service to Tahoe for people who hate driving in Tahoe’s often congested winter traffic.
Greg Riessen, a transportation planner and avid skier, will launch Tahoe Convoy in two weeks, running Friday night buses to Truckee, Squaw Valley and Tahoe City, with a return bus Sunday evening.
Riessen said his company is starting carefully, with service every other weekend and only a handful of Bay Area and North Lake Tahoe stops. He said the company will add a South Lake Tahoe bus and run every weekend if ridership is good.