Ike and Martin will be the featured duo at a fundraiser June 26 for METAvivor, a nonprofit that raises money for research into stage 4 metastatic breast cancer.

METAvivor is unique in that 100 percent of donations go to research. Since its founding in 2009, METAvivor has funded $2.4 million in grants and in 2017 will fund $1 million, and $2 million in 2018.

Local retired obgyn Kelly Shanahan is a reviewer for the grants. The review panel includes scientists and breast oncologists as well as metastatic advocates like Shanahan.

The concert will be at Lake Village in Stateline from 5:30-8:30pm. BYOB and chair; finger food provided. Minimum donation for admission is $20 and tickets can be purchased online, as well as at the door.

There is also a raffle for three nights at a Deer Valley ski condo; valued at $5,000. Fifty tickets at $100 a piece will be sold.

By Kathryn Reed

Four people on El Dorado County’s payroll in 2016 made more than $300,000 in wages and benefits. Two work for mental health and two for the sheriff’s department.

Another 43 workers have packages valued at more than $200,000. The 100 highest compensated employees in 2016 accounted for $20,202,036 of the budget.

This is in a county that has about 183,000 residents.

Auditor-Controller Joe Harn released the figures on June 12. Information for the past two years is available online.

The mental health director’s total compensation was $364,850, while in 2015 it was $412,523.

According to Harn, it is not unusual for mental health workers, psychiatrists in particular, to be the highest paid county employee. This is because throughout the United States there is a shortage of this specialty and they can command a higher wage. Doctors at county-run hospitals often have the highest salaries.

El Dorado is getting ready to adopt its next fiscal budget. The 2017-18 budget released by CAO Don Ashton is $536 million, with the General Fund being $284 million.

This is his first budget on his own; he came in last year having to pick up the pieces from the previous county leader.

While he boasts of eliminating 40 full-time positions, what wasn’t disclosed in a press release from his office is that the bulk of those are through attrition – either no one has been in the position for a while or those leaving are not being replaced.

The main real loss in terms of staffing in the next budget cycle is to senior legal. This disclosure came just weeks after Ashton was in South Lake Tahoe at a joint meeting with the city at the local senior center. At that time, he professed there would be no cuts affecting seniors.

Ashton in his June 6 column on Lake Tahoe News said residents – aka taxpayers – can expect services to be cut or taxes to increase: “If the residents of El Dorado County want increased discretionary services, e.g., libraries, veterans, better roads than what the state is willing to provide, and the high quality of service to our seniors, while maintaining the high quality of public safety provided in El Dorado County, we need to offer additional shopping venues – which typically requires larger populations obtained through residential development – or increase the tax rates. If we aren’t willing to do either, we must accept that the current level of services to our discretionary but essential services will be reduced.”

He has not offered to make a true reduction in county staff.

In looking at the stats Harn released, the top 100 highest paying positions in the county based on salary and benefits made at least $142,000 in 2016. Of those, the lowest salary alone was $108,508/year for the deputy director of information technologies.

The undersheriff’s package was $515 more than his boss’ at $306,542. However, in 2015 the sheriff has the No. 2 spot on the list at $314,738 and the undersheriff was No. 3 at $298,279.

The chief investigator for the District Attorney’s Office compensation was $267,016, while the district attorney’s was $256,868.

“Posting the list to the county’s website is part of the ongoing effort to increase transparency in our county government,” Harn said. “The best government transparency involves placing all financial information online in a readily understandable manner. Government transparency allows taxpayers to see how our county is spending tax money, and gives El Dorado County citizens the ability to hold us accountable. The internet is a great place to enhance transparency.”

By Kiera Butler, Mother Jones

People love to complain about the wastefulness of meal-kit delivery companies like Blue Apron and Hello Fresh. The baggies that hold a single scallion. The thousands of miles of shipping. The endless cardboard boxes. Those problems are annoying, but ultimately they’re not environmental catastrophes: The baggies don’t take up all that much landfill space, the cardboard boxes are recyclable, and it’s not clear whether shipping meal kits is less efficient than transporting food to grocery stores and then to homes.

Blue Apron has a take-back program, but the company won’t say whether it’s actually reusing any of the freezer packs it’s taking back—or simply storing them in a warehouse.

But there is a much better reason to criticize meal-kit companies—and as far as I can tell, few people are talking much about it. That’s surprising, because it’s actually the biggest (or heaviest, at least) thing in every meal-kit box: the freezer packs that keep the perishables fresh while they’re being shipped. Blue Apron now sends out 8 million meals a month. If you figure that each box contains about three meals and two 6-pound ice packs, that’s a staggering 192,000 tons of freezer-pack waste every year from Blue Apron alone.

To put that in perspective, that’s the weight of nearly 100,000 cars or 2 million adult men. When I shared those numbers with Jack Macy, a senior coordinator for the San Francisco Department of the Environment’s Commercial Zero Waste program, he could scarcely believe it. “That is an incredible waste,” he said. The only reason he suspects he hasn’t heard about it yet from the city’s trash haulers is that the freezer packs end up hidden in garbage bags.

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The woman who was pulled from the Upper Truckee River on June 7 in a paddleboarding accident has died.

Stephanie Waggoner, 49, of Minden died at Renown Medical Center in Reno on June 9.

She was with friends going down the rapid, frigid cold river when she hit a downed tree just before 1:30pm last Wednesday. Although she was wearing a life jacket, it was not enough because she was tethered to the board.

A passer-by and South Lake Tahoe police officer brought her to shore near the bridge where the river flows under Highway 50.

The exact cause of death has not been released.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Matt Hansen, Powder

When news surfaced recently that K2 and several of skiing’s most popular brands would be sold from a publicly traded corporation to a private equity firm this month, it ended months of speculation and uncertainty about the future of some of the sports’ most storied companies.

But it also created a shift in the wintersports market. According to fresh numbers from Snowsport Industries America (SIA), 10 percent of all wintersports sales now go to private equity firms, versus 60 percent held by private companies and 30 percent by publicly traded corporations.

At the end of May, Kohlberg and Company, a private equity firm specializing in “middle market investing,” entered an agreement to pay Newell Brands $240 million for K2, Volkl, Marker, Dalbello, Madshus, Line, Ride, Full Tilt, BCA, Atlas, and Tubbs. As such, it becomes the largest private equity holder in the snowsports market, according to SIA. Not part of the deal was Marmot, which earned $100 million in retail last season and continues to be part of Newell Brands.

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By Camalot Todd, Las Vegas Sun

In terms of harmful disruptions during the average childhood, the United States ranks 36th out of 172 countries, falling between Bosnia and Russia and lagging well behind France, Norway, the United Kingdom, Lithuania and Greece — some of which have experienced far more economic instability and a slower recovery from the recession than the U.S.

Domestically, Nevada is among the bottom 10 states (No. 42) where childhood is most threatened, according to Save the Children’s 2017 End of Childhood Report.

The report compares states across five societal problems — infant mortality, child suicide/homicide, child food insecurity, adolescent motherhood and failure to graduate from high school. Nevada ranks in the bottom half for four of these indicators.

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A substantive pothole on Texas Avenue in May is indicative of the condition of South Lake Tahoe’s roads. Photo/Kathryn Reed

By Kathryn Reed

South Lake Tahoe voters in November will be asked whether they want to raise the sales tax by one-half percent for the sole purpose of having the funds raised go to fixing city streets.

The City Council this month agreed to place the question on the ballot, create a roads management authority and put in place a community oversight committee.

It’s expected about $2.5 million will be raised annually through this tax.

South Lake Tahoe roads on average have a score of 49 on a 0-100 scale, with 65 percent below 35. In other words, they are failing. A score of 60 to 65 is considered a good, drivable road.

The state sales tax rate today is 7.25 percent. It is 7.75 percent in South Lake Tahoe. Measure Q passed with 58 percent of the vote in November 2004 to increase the sales tax by one-half cent. Those dollars go to the General Fund. It would amount to 50 cents on every $100 worth of goods purchased.

Upon the consultant’s recommendation the council agreed to have the tax sunset after 15 years. The thinking is in that time the public will be able to see improvement – or not – and then be able to decide if the tax should be extended.

The roads authority is really just the council acting in a different capacity much like when the Redevelopment Agency existed.

The oversight committee is like what Lake Tahoe Unified School District and Lake Tahoe Community College have in place to monitor the spending of their multi-million dollar voter-approved bond initiatives. It will be comprised of seven to 11 community members.

The money collected will be a dedicated source for roads, something the city has not previously had. Still, the city manages to come up with money each year for limited road work. That General Fund money would essentially go toward other things and not be added to this pot of cash for roads.

Jackson and Robbie

Jackson and Robbie are shy male kittens who need a home together because they didn’t get much attention when they were younger. They are about 3 months old and will do best in a household that will be patient with them.

Jackson and Robbie are neutered, microchipped, tested for FIV, and vaccinated. They are 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. Vouchers can be obtained at the animal shelter also, check the website for application procedures.

— Karen Kuentz

Tahoe Fund was awarded a $130,000 Recreation Trails Program grant to restore the Incline Flume Trail, also known as the “other flume trail.”

The restoration work will be led by the Friends of Incline Trails in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, Tahoe Rim Trail Association and Tahoe Area Mountain Biking Association. Trail days are scheduled for June 15-17, July 21-23, Aug. 12, and Sept. 26, 28 and 30.

They will be build a retaining wall in a particularly erosive area, and install interpretive and way-finding signage. It will also help fund the transfer of the historic bull wheel (located nearby the trail) from the Nevada Land Trust to the Forest Service.

Tahoe Fund partnered with Friends of Incline Trails to provide funding for the environmental permitting to have the trail adopted by the U.S. Forest Service. The new designation as an official Forest Service trail was received in May.

The Incline Flume Trail, known for its flat terrain and lake views, runs for seven miles from Mt. Rose Highway across Diamond Peak Ski Resort to Tunnel Creek Road. It is the site of a former flume system that operated in the Comstock Era.

In December 2015, David and Cheryl Duffield donated 18.6 acres of land along the trail, including the historic bull wheel, to Nevada Land Trust, a nationally-accredited nonprofit conservation land trust based in Reno whose work includes a portion of the Tahoe basin. Volunteers from TAMBA, Tahoe Rim Trail Association, and Friends of Incline Trails built the missing link of the trail through that section of property last fall, opening the trail from Mt. Rose Highway all the way to the Tunnel Creek Trail. The land will be transferred from the Nevada Land Trust to the Forest Service later this year, putting the entire trail in public hands for the first time in decades.

By Meghan Herbst, Moonshine Ink Staff

On Feb. 4, constituents of California’s 4th congressional district spilled into the streets of Roseville to attend a much-anticipated town hall with Rep. Tom McClintock. Growing discontent over the Republican’s ultra-conservative policy positions surged after he began vocalizing his support of the Trump administration.

McClintock drew ire from town hall attendees for fielding only 12 questions and then receiving a police escort out of the building instead of engaging with attendees, who he later called “anarchists” to regional news sources.

The next congressional election for District 4 is in November 2018, but the turbulent political atmosphere is inspiring local Democrats to mobilize earlier than ever, and prospective candidates are already building momentum.

District 4 encompasses 10 counties from the Sierra to Fresno, all of El Dorado County, and portions of Placer and Nevada counties and the town of Truckee. Historically in this region of eastern California, Republican representatives have enjoyed a solid hold over the constituency — 44 percent of the district’s voters are registered as Republican. In contrast, the town of Truckee has the largest percentage of Democratic voters in the district: 43 percent of voters are registered as Democrats, while 22 percent are registered Republican. Area Democrats are looking to wield a greater influence on the 4th District.

Six potential Democratic candidates are campaigning across the district: Regina Bateson, Roza Calderon, Rochelle Wilcox, Jessica Morse, Chris Drew, and Charles Brown, who mounted a campaign against McClintock in 2008 in an uncommonly close race.

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