·      Douglas County Democrats monthly meeting will be Sept. 28 at 7pm at Democratic Headquarters, 1513 Highway 395 N. in Gardnerville. The business meeting will be preceded by a social at 6:30pm. For more info, call 775.783.1903.

·      A new affordable housing development with up to 80 units is being considered as part of a reimagining of the Placer County government center campus in north Auburn.

·      Diamond Peak Ski Resort has hired Matt Melilli to be slope maintenance manager and Tim Hay as the assistant slope maintenance manager.

·      Hard Rock Lake Tahoe in August installed 14 Tesla superchargers.

·      Scifi-Fantasy Con 2017 comes to Hard Rock Lake Tahoe on Sept. 29-30. Tickets for a day pass are $12.50, weekend tickets are $20 and the Friday night mixer is $50.

By Todd Prince, Las Vegas Review-Journal

If Strip casino operators are interested in attracting esports to their establishments, they didn’t show it at the first Casino Esport Conference.

The conference in Las Vegas last week, aimed to bring people from the casino and esports industry into one room to explore how casinos could integrate and monetize esport tournaments.

The two-day closed event featured eight panels to discussion such key issues as regulation, marketing and tournaments. Panelists included game makers, consultants, academics, gaming control board officials and lawyers. Missing from the panels and audience, which numbered about 175, was a big presence from Strip operators.

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By Art Marroquin, Las Vegas Review-Journal

License plates aren’t an optional decoration. They’re a requirement so that your vehicle legally can hit the road in Nevada and every other state.

Apparently, some motorists don’t realize that as several of you have sent emails or placed a call to the Road Warrior to complain about cars driving around town without their front or rear license plates.

There were even a couple of questions about the legality of plates that are obscured by plastic “protective” coverings.

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By Ray Hagar, Nevada Newsmakers

Tax reform is anticipated to be the next big issue before Congress, and Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., should have a front row seat since he sits on the Senate Finance Committee and Senate Banking Committee.

The cherished mortgage-interest tax deduction will survive but with changes, Heller said on “Nevada Newsmakers” on Thursday.

“I’m hearing rumbling about it, but I don’t think they are talking about the average family’s deduction for mortgage interest,” Heller said. “I think they are talking about, perhaps, they may cap it (mortgage-interest deduction) at $500,000, and they may cap it on second and third homes.”

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By Associated Press
 
The average price of gasoline jumped in the past two weeks after Hurricane Harvey prompted the closure of refineries.

Industry analyst Trilby Lundberg said Sunday that it was the biggest price hike recorded by the Lundberg Survey since 2011.

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Diamond Peak and Olympic champion Sage Kotsenburg will be featured in Snowboarder magazine’s “Pepper” movie.

Last spring, a crew of riders were at the Incline Village ski resort to film shoot for  the soon-to-be-released feature-length movie.

With the sun setting over Lake Tahoe in the background, slopestyle Olympic gold medalist Kotsenburg and friends Chris Grenier, Ozzy Henning, Nils Mindnich and Garrett Warnick sessioned a custom built jump on Crystal Ridge.

Footage from the two-day film shoot can be seen in Kotsenburg’s “Who Is Pepper? Ep. 1” teaser on the Snowboarder magazine website.

“Pepper” is scheduled to be released on iTunes on Oct. 18.

Solomon

Solomon is a 5-month-old pit bull puppy who will probably grow into a large adult. He’s at the perfect age to get started on puppy classes. He’s a happy, bouncy puppy who should go to a home who will have time to give him lots of attention and exercise.

Solomon is neutered, microchipped, tested for heart worm, 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 or call the animal shelter. Vouchers are available there also: bring $25 and a copy of a photo ID and a local utility bill.

— Karen Kuentz

By Kathryn Reed

A jury next year could decide if Placer County violated the state open meeting law and if there was a secret agreement with Squaw Valley Ski Holdings that involved the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.

A Placer County judge last week ruled that there is enough evidence for the case to go forward. The trial is slated to start in March.

Sierra Watch filed the lawsuit earlier this year after the Board of Supervisors in November 2016 approved a large-scale development project that would transform the base area of the ski resort.

The lawsuit alleges county staff gave documents to the Board of Supervisors less than 72 hours before the public meeting that weren’t simultaneously made available to the public. This would be a violation of the Brown Act.

The other allegation is that the county failed to give notice in the agenda for its November hearing that the Board of Supervisors would be considering the deal, detailed in those very same documents, to avoid litigation by the attorney general over impacts to Lake Tahoe as part of the proposed project’s development agreement. This, too, would violate the Brown Act.

If Sierra Watch prevails, Placer County could be required to rescind the November approvals and conduct a new public hearing on the proposed development.

(Squaw’s parent company, Denver-based KSL Capital Partners, plans to spend $1 billion over 25 years to build more than 1,000 residential units, hotels, retail, restaurants and bars, and an indoor adventure center.)

“Sierra Watch continues to mislead the courts, the public and spread untruths about the Village at Squaw Valley redevelopment project and the public process that led to its approval,” Whit Manley, environmental attorney at Remy Moose Manley who is representing Squaw Valley Ski Holdings, said in a statement. “When this case goes to trial, Sierra Watch will be required to produce facts that would prove there was some sort of ‘secret agreement’ Placer County was a party to when it publicly noticed the Board of Supervisors’ hearing agenda. To that we say: ‘bring it on.’ We’re confident Sierra Watch’s deliberate and calculated misstatement of facts will ultimately be exposed through the trial process.”

Squaw Valley’s contention is that the $440,000 it gave to the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency was to protect Lake Tahoe’s water quality; and that it did so voluntarily.

“It’s sad to see a self-described environmental group use legal maneuvers to delay and ultimately try to take away close to $500,000 of voluntary funding that would be used to protect Lake Tahoe’s pristine, clear waters,” Manley said.

To that statement, Tom Mooers with Sierra Watch said if Squaw’s intentions were so altruistic, write another check today.

“The issue of Tahoe’s clarity deserves more than a backroom deal,” Mooers said in a statement. “It deserves a fair hearing. Placer County’s approvals threaten everything we love about Tahoe. And they were in clear violation of state law.”

Sierra Watch had filed a separate lawsuit seeking to overturn Placer County’s approvals based on violations of the California Environmental Quality Act.

To the community,

Main stream media and the former Obama administration have done a good job of misleading people by not telling the whole story, because division, deceit and disruption is the game of choice for liberals and progressives, regardless of the costs or risks to Americans and our republic form of government.

DACA, the illegal Dreamer’s Act,  is a perfect example: From Day 1, Obama’s DACA program was unconstitutional and even acknowledged as such by Obama on a number of occasions, warning that DACA could not guarantee that the Dreamers were not still at risk of being deported. But remember, 2012 was an election year and it was worth giving a certain segment of the population false hopes.

Trump though, gets all the heat, because he is living up to his campaign promises. First to uphold the Constitution; second for immigration reform and next to strengthen the borders, with more border patrols and a wall. Since 2012, it is both a majority held Democrat and Republican Congress who have failed to do something about immigration. Congress makes the laws and Trump is calling on both sides of the aisle to start doing their jobs and do so quickly.

His action is similar to that of the effort to repeal and replace Obamacare. Both Democrats and Republicans have had years to fix the problems. Again, another program that from the beginning, was destined to fail, even according to its own architect.

Again, DACA is unconstitutional, but yet, Janet Napolitano, who as President Obama’s Homeland Security secretary created the DACA program and now as the president of the University of California, is leading the school systems lawsuit demanding the program be reinstated. So, California taxpayers are paying for a legal action against a program that has already been deemed unconstitutional.

Remember also,  it was just last April, when an audit revealed that the University of California hid a “stash of $175 million in secret funds while its leaders requested more taxpayer money from the state.” Napolitano’s office claimed the true amount was $38 million. Reportedly Napolitano said the money “was held for unexpected expenses such as emerging issues like increased support for undocumented students.”

In 2014, at a town hall, Hillary Clinton was asked about illegal immigration, she told the audience member; “just because your child gets across the border, that does not mean the child gets to stay.” She continued, “so, you don’t want to send a message that is contrary to our laws or would encourage more children to ,make that dangerous journey.”

It was in 2006, when Obama, Biden, Clinton and Schumer, were among 26 Senate Democrats who voted in favor of 700 miles of fencing along a stretch of lands on the border of Mexico. Obama said, “It would help better fences and border security along our border and help stem some of the tide of illegal immigration to this country.”

It is time for Americans to decide if we are going to remain a nation of laws. Open your minds. The internet is a powerful resource to search out the truth and find out the whole story. Lastly, tell your representatives in Congress to stop kicking the can down the road and do the job you elected them to do.

Terry Gherardi, Cameron Park

By Tom Gorman, Las Vegas Sun

The recreational vehicle industry is flourishing, thanks to folks like Tom Adams, a retired Air Force pilot flying for Southwest Airlines out of Las Vegas, and Elizabeth Fuentes, a construction project coordinator for the city of Henderson. Their contrasting styles are emblematic of the evolving world of RVing.

Adams and his wife, Yong, are in their 50s and cherish their 45-foot-long motor home. It has slide-out walls to accommodate a king-size bed, two bathrooms, leather couches, big-screen TVs, a ducted air-conditioning system, a well-equipped kitchen, washer and dryer, temperature-controlled storage bays and a windshield that’s more like a 4-foot-by-8-foot picture window.

Fuentes, 40 and single, shuns such extravagance. She wants to take advantage of her four-day workweek by traveling around the Southwest in an RV the size of a van that can take her deeper into forests on narrow dirt roads. But she still wants some niceties to provide a glamping (that’s glamour camping, for the uninitiated) experience “with everything I need, including a TV and a clean bathroom.”

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