The Douglas County Public Library will be providing a six-week class on how to use the library’s Heritage Quest database for family and historical research. 

From June 14 to July 26, professional genealogist Yvonne Prettyman will teach the six-week class on Thursdays at the Minden Library from 4-5pm.

Heritage Quest is a free online database with a collection of research materials for tracing family history. The Douglas County Public Library provides access to this database through the library’s digital branch. The database includes Census records, historic city directories, immigration records, and military records among other useful tools.

For more info, call 775.782.9841.

By Keith Riddler, AP

BOISE, Idaho — Public lands managers are losing a battle against a devastating combination of invasive plant species and wildfires in the vast sagebrush habitats in the U.S. West that support cattle ranching and recreation and are home to an imperiled bird, officials said.

The Western Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies in a 58-page report released this month says invasive plants on nearly 160,000 square miles of public and private lands have reached enormous levels and are spreading.

That could mean more giant rangeland wildfires that in recent decades destroyed vast areas of sagebrush country that support some 350 species of wildlife, including imperiled sage grouse.

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Slow Food Lake Tahoe along with former board member and Truckee River Sanctuary owner Polly Triplat will present a Backyard Chicken Raising Skillshare from 10am-noon on June 9 at the Truckee River Sanctuary in Truckee. 

Find out what it takes to start enjoying fresh eggs from your own chickens:  whether you may legally have hens in your town/city; and what it takes to keep them safe from predators. In addition, the workshop will cover basic coop design, feeding, handling and selection of cold hardy breeds. 

The cost of the workshop is $15. Tickets may be purchased online.  

The Douglas County Public Library invites all children and teens to participate in the Summer Reading Program. 

Libraries Rock is this year’s theme, with a children’s program for ages 0 to 11 and a teens’ program for ages 12 to 17.  The program runs from June 11 to Aug, 4 at the Minden and Lake Tahoe branches. 

Participants will earn prizes while they maintain and build their reading skills during summer break.  Visit either branch of the library to register.

The Zephyr Cove branch’s kick-off event will be June 13 at 4pm. All of these events are free and open to children of all ages. 

By Sam Gross, Reno Gazette-Journal

In an approximately 31-minute timef rame, somewhere along the Amtrak route through the Sierra Nevada mountain range between Reno and Truckee, Aaron Salazar mysteriously disappeared from his moving train.

Ten days after the 22-year-old Portland State University student was found critically injured feet from the train tracks on the edge of Truckee, his family remains at odds with Amtrak’s police force, which is handling the investigation.

His family says Salazar, a gay man, was attacked — the victim of a hate crime.

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Richard Solbrig is retiring as general manager of South Tahoe PUD in January 2019. Photo/Kathryn Reed

By Kathryn Reed

Stability. It’s one of the reasons South Tahoe Public Utility District is as successful as it is.

Richard Solbrig is only the third general manager the district has had since 1977. The district has started looking for its fourth, as the 68-year-old plans to retire in January.

It is the culture he has helped build that he is proudest of. It’s a team; where when an emergency happens people don’t hesitate to come in to work no matter the hour or if it’s a weekend. Collectively there is a commitment to their jobs, which is really a commitment to the area of the South Shore the district serves.

“When you are delivering services that are required for life, you don’t want them compromised,” Solbrig told Lake Tahoe News.

The board this month began discussing the general manager recruitment schedule.

Solbrig said the fact that there has been such little turnover at the top is a “testament to the boards that have been here. They haven’t suffered drama, micromanaged or surprised staff.”

Solbrig came to the district in 1990 as assistant general manager, becoming the top guy in 1993.

He grew up in New York, went to MIT to study civil engineering, then earned a master’s in sanitary engineering at Cal. While working for a Bay Area firm he was the construction manager for a $30 million project at Lake Tahoe. That three-year stint in the late 1980s gave his wife and two kids a taste of the mountains. They wanted to stay. That led him to commute before the STPUD job opened.

Solbrig has much to be proud of when it comes to accomplishments during his tenure. The last time the district exceeded the wastewater requirement was in 1995.

“We’ve always regarded ourselves as environmentalists. I’m proud of our record,” Solbrig said.

The district is regularly replacing infrastructure. While much more needs to be done, he said STPUD is ahead of the curve compared to other agencies.

The district is still working on having the proper capacity to fight fires. In many ways it was lucky in 2007 that the Angora Fire erupted where it did because those lines had been upgraded and there was better storage capacity compared to what exists even today in some locations of the city.

The one big issue that won’t be resolved before he leaves that frustrates him is the PCE contamination at the Y. Tetrachloroethylene was used by dry cleaners and automotive shops. Officials have known since 1989 that a plume is in the local groundwater.

The water districts affected by the contamination are at the mercy of Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board to determine who is liable and to come up with a remedy.

“Lahontan’s focus is on the process and not on the end product,” Solbrig said. “Their action has been creating process. The process is laborious and slow.”

Since the last meeting in February about the PCE issue the district received a $504,295 grant from the State Water Resources Control Board to conduct a feasibility study of remedial alternatives to mitigate PCE contamination. The objective is to collect information on the aquifer characteristics and water quality to design strategies to control and/or remove PCE from groundwater. The field work should be completed by late June.

Dealing with contamination issues is not new to Solbrig. He was here during the MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether) debacle. In 1997 the gasoline additive was found to have contaminated wells. Shell Oil ended up paying the district millions of dollars to settle the case.

Solbrig has no plans to slow down between now and January. His desk is full of papers. It shows a man who still has much more to accomplish.

Still, he also has a clock on the desk counting down to the second how much time he has left.

Once retired he hopes he’ll be able to enjoy the area a bit more. Relaxing and traveling are what he looks forward to. He’s quite the dancer and hopes to be spending more time doing that as well. Solbrig also has a whole list of things to do inside and outside the house that need tackling — things that have been neglected while he’s been tending to the sewer and water needs of much of the South Shore.

By Morten T. Hansen, San Francisco Chronicle
 
“Find a way to say YES to things” was the title of the commencement address that Eric Schmidt gave in 2012 at UC Berkeley. The former executive chairman of Google encouraged the graduates to say “yes” to trying new things. Then he told them: “‘Yes’ lets you stand out in a crowd. … Be the one everyone comes to for help, for advice, or just for fun.”

While you may say graduates have such a choice of employers in this job market, of course they can say no — but they still will approach their new job with a “yes” attitude. Conventional thinking promotes saying “yes” as the way to impress your boss and peers: Say “yes” to all of the assignments that will come your way, to meetings and customer visits as well as all the mundane tasks that fall under your job description. Your goal is to become that go-to person, the “good soldier” who is always ready to jump in. While it sounds like a logical path to success, it’s actually the opposite.

My research found that top performers say “no” — including to their bosses.

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By David Crary and Wayne Parry AP

For sports leagues and gambling industries, the imminent expansion of legalized sports betting promises a bonanza. For the experts and organizations already concerned about pervasive problem gambling, it promises a whole new roster of worries.

Much of the apprehension relates to the prospect of myriad forms of online sports betting — accessible to gamblers at any time and location via their mobile phones. There’s particular alarm over the anticipated explosion of so-called “in-game wagering” in which gamblers bet, often at a rapid pace, on play-by-play developments — for example, will the next football play be a run or a pass.

Prior to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling this week, only four states were allowed to offer sports betting and only Nevada offered betting on single games. Now that the court has lifted those bans, there are expectations that most states will offer sports betting within a few years in a play to raise tax revenue.

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A cyclist was hurt in a hit-and-run accident on Wednesday in Crystal Bay.

The cyclist was going north on Highway 28 at 4pm May 24 when he was struck by a vehicle going south. The vehicle, according to the Nevada Highway Patrol, turned left at Stateline line Road right into the cyclist.

The bicyclist struck the right front of the vehicle and was ejected, landing on the asphalt. The vehicle fled the scene.

The cyclist and witnesses described the vehicle as a blue/tan Subaru Outback (or similar type vehicle) with Nevada license plates. The driver of the vehicle is described as a white male adult, approximately 65 years of age with a white “bushy” mustache.

Anyone with information is asked to call 775.687.9600.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

Unity at the Lake is hosting an African healer/drummer/storyteller this Sunday.

Masankho uses a combination of interplay, storytelling, dance and African ritual. This will be a time to share songs, stories, dances and instrumental music. If you play an acoustic instrument and can improvise, plan to play.

Masankho has been a certified interplay leader since 1999.

Cost of the ritual is a sliding scale of $19-$39, though no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Unity is located at 870 Emerald Bay Road, Suites 204-207, South Lake Tahoe.

To register, call 385.282.8433. Or register at the door at 1:30pm. Event is from 2-5pm.