The California Department of Fish and Wildlife on Tuesday released a conservation plan for gray wolves in the state.

The plan was created over the last two years with input form a varied group of stakeholders.

“Wolves returning to the state was inevitable, we always knew that,” CDFW Director Charlton Bonham said in a statement. “Over the past few years we have seen wolves re-establish themselves. It’s an exciting ecological story, and this plan represents the path forward to manage wolves in a state with nearly 40 million people.”

This plan addresses conflicts with livestock and the maintenance of adequate prey sources for wolves, other predators, and public use. 

The U.S. Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit is seeking volunteers to assist with the 2017 Winter Trek Conservation Education Program that begins in January.

Shifts will be a minimum of four hours per day, one day per week from Jan. 10-March 30. Winter Trek takes place on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at Heavenly Mountain Resort. Volunteers should be able to snowshoe for at least 90 minutes at an elevation of 9,100 feet without difficulty. Snowshoes are provided. 

Experience working with kids is recommended and volunteers should be comfortable speaking to large groups.  Knowledge of Sierra Nevada natural history is a plus. Volunteers must attend the mandatory training session in early January. 

For more information about this volunteer opportunity, contact Jean Norman at jdnorman@fs.fed.us.

By Kathryn Reed

KINGS BEACH – Tahoe City is one step closer to getting its first new lodging for tourists in decades.

The Placer County Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 on Dec. 6 to approve the Tahoe Basin Area Plan and the Tahoe City Lodge.

Most of the discussion Tuesday centered on Tahoe City and the lodge in particular. This rankled some people because the area plan affects all areas of Placer County in the basin. About one-third of the lake is in the basin.

When the process started a couple years ago people voiced their concern about having the lodge project being studied under the auspices of the creation of an environment impact report for the area plan. Based on Tuesday’s testimony from staff, the electeds and public, it was obvious the lodge was driving the document’s approval.

Some wonder if the document would have been analyzed to a deeper level if the project that the powers that be wanted had not been part of the equation.

The vote Tuesday was consistent with what the North Tahoe Regional Advisory Council and Placer County Planning Commission said. Both of those bodies approved the area plan and lodge project in November. The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Governing Board will take up the area plan and lodge on Jan. 25, which will be the last vote.

Much of the public agreed with the policymakers. About 50 people were at Tuesday’s meeting at the North Tahoe Event Center, with 23 of them testifying.  

An artist’s rendering of the proposed Tahoe City Lodge.

Crystal Jacobsen, principal planner with the county, went over highlights of the plan and project, as well as changes since the draft and final environmental documents came out.

She acknowledged that traffic, whether its vehicle miles traveled or level of service, is dismal now. The lodge project impacts are deemed “significant and unavoidable.”

“When are we going to deal with these issues?” Jennifer Quashnick with Friends of the West Shore asked.

That’s a question that no governing body has been willing to answer no matter what project comes before them. Various entities keep approving development without an answer to deal with congestion affecting the immediate project on the table, let alone the bigger cumulative effect of growth in the basin and Truckee.

This in turn impacts greenhouse gas emissions.

Samir Tuma, the lodge developer, said one way he will be helping to reduce VMT is by giving bus passes to employees and providing a shower to those who bike to work. Plus, he mentioned how there is a bus stop right out front.

The lodge will include 78 condos and 40 traditional hotel rooms. The four-story structure that will front Highway 28 will have a rooftop restaurant.

Tuma said there will be an infusion of $43.4 million into the community during construction, with $8.6 million annually coming in via taxes, jobs and other revenue. It will be built at a LEED level, with green business practices implemented.

A representative from the League to Save Lake Tahoe said this is first time in 10 years the conservation group has backed a redevelopment project. The Tahoe City Downtown Association said this is the first project this group has supported.

A bonus to the community is that the Tahoe City Golf Course clubhouse will be rebuilt by Tuma to include a conference center on the second floor.

Supervisor Kirk Uhler was most interested in how the area plan will allow second units to help address the housing crunch in the area. He believes what is proposed is too restrictive and might not be economically feasible with the deed restriction. He said people can pay market rate, it’s just that the housing stock is limited.

The Placer County plan calls for these second units to only be used for residents and not as tourist units. They would be deed restricted for affordability for 55 years. Obstacles, though, include needing to have a development right and residential allocation to build one. Combined those can cost about $20,000.

The Placer plan would require the TRPA to make an exemption to current policy.

Two California laws take effect Jan. 1 to make it easier to convert illegal granny units into legal ones.

Several people who spoke applauded the efforts to make any inroads in creating affordable housing or at least implementing policy to make that a possibility.

Supervisor Jennifer Montgomery in large part agreed with Uhler.

She acknowledged not everyone got what they wanted. But she said the plan and lodge will be better for the environment, the economy and the social fabric.

Publisher’s note: This editorial is from the Dec. 2, 2016, Chicago Tribune.

Leroy Barber grew up in rural New London, Wis., hunting and fishing with two of his brothers. He enlisted in the Navy, trained at the Great Lakes facility north of Chicago and was assigned to a battleship. Barber enjoyed being a sailor, missed his brothers and advised them to join up. The Navy made an exception to its rule against putting family members on one boat — a decision their father sought to reverse — but America was not at war, and Hawaii was about as far from Europe’s fighting as you could get.

That’s how the Barber boys, Malcolm, 22, Leroy, 21 and Randolph, 19, came to serve together as firemen on the USS Oklahoma. And that is how they died: together, on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941 — 75 years ago today — when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and drew America into World War II.

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By Brad Stulberg, Outside

Although it may seem counterintuitive, you don’t get faster, bigger, or stronger during a workout. The main function of hard physical training is to break your body down so it can grow back stronger.

Fitness gains come later, during recovery, and recent research is revealing that simply being sedentary post-workout isn’t enough: in order to maximize recovery, you must also relax your mind. 

“More and more evidence suggests that stress is stress,” says John Kiely, senior lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire’s Institute for Coaching and Performance. “If you finish a workout and throw yourself into something that is mentally or emotionally taxing, even if you are seated with your feet up, odds are that you’ll still obstruct the recovery and adaptation process.” 

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Jeff DeFranco in January will become Lake Tahoe Community College’s fifth president. Photo/Kathryn Reed

By Kathryn Reed

Jeff DeFranco will become Lake Tahoe Community College’s fifth president effective Jan. 3.

He was greeted with applause and a standing ovation from the nearly 20 people at the board meeting after the announcement was made Tuesday night.        

The board of trustees on Dec. 6 unanimously approved the hire. DeFranco has been the vice president of Administrative Services at the South Lake Tahoe institution since summer 2012. His contract goes to June 30, 2019. He will be making $165,000 a year.

“I’m honored and humbled by this opportunity,” DeFranco said. He spent about five minutes talking about what this job will mean to him, his immediate plans, thanking the board, those in the audience and all who work at the college.

A special thanks went to outgoing President Kindred Murillo for taking a chance on him. Prior to coming to LTCC, DeFranco was the director of communications and facilities at Springfield Public Schools in Oregon. The two will be working together through January, at which time Murillo will leave to be president of a community college in Southern California. 

DeFranco, 39, also acknowledged the administrative team Murillo assembled, giving them all kudos for their effectiveness.

“Jeff is one of those people who will not fail,” Murillo told Lake Tahoe News. “He exceeded my expectations in every sense.”

It was while DeFranco was an undergraduate at CSU Chico that he figured out one day he wanted to be a college president. He was on the associated student body board and got a glimpse into the inner workings of higher education.

“I knew how much that experience changed me and I knew my ultimate goal was to be a college president one day,” DeFranco told Lake Tahoe News. “A number of steps led me to this.”

However, he also knew it wasn’t just any college presidency that he would want. His grandfather built a cabin in Meyers in the 1960s. Tahoe has been a part of his life since he was a boy.

But it wasn’t until 2010 that he discovered South Lake Tahoe had a community college – and that was a fluke. He went to get a permit that December to cut a Christmas tree. The U.S. Forest Service office is on College Way. That’s how he discovered LTCC. Less than two years later he was working at LTCC.

“I wanted this presidency,” DeFranco stressed.

One of most important jobs in his first year to will be to fill his current position.

“My goal is to bring in somebody who is better at the job than I am,” DeFranco said.

He is on a state board for people who have similar jobs as his so he has an insider’s knowledge about potential candidates working in California.

DeFranco at the meeting said some of things he will be working on when his job title changes include continuing student access and success, working on accreditation, ensuring the university center thrives, and facilitating the bond.

By Sarah D. Wire and Bettina Boxall, Los Angeles Times
 
House Republican leaders and California’s senior senator announced Monday a new attempt to pass legislation that would increase water deliveries to San Joaquin Valley agribusiness and Southern California.

The 90-page proposal was added to a water infrastructure bill that Congress is expected to vote on this week before adjourning for the rest of the year.

The deal sets Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on a collision course with her colleague, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who blasted the proposal as a poison pill and vowed to do everything she could to stop it, including halting all action in the Senate unless it is removed.

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Tommy Caldwell, rock climber of international fame, will present his show “A Year of Firsts: An Enchainment of Patagonia’s Fitzroy Massif, Yosemite’s Dawn Wall and an Infant Son” on Jan. 5 at Squaw Valley’s Olympic Village Lodge.

This is the third installment of Alpenglow Sports’ 11th annual Winter Film Series.

Throughout 2014 and into early 2015, the entire world watched, enthralled as Caldwell completed never-before rock climbing and mountaineering feats of staggering physical endurance. His feats brought climbing out of the periphery and into the mainstream as major national news organizations followed him throughout the journey.

The nonprofit beneficiary for the evening is Tahoe Nordic Search & Rescue.

Come early for drink specials and good seating. The show begins at 7pm. Doors open at 6:15pm.

TART, the North Shore bus company, will offer daily service along the North and West Shores with connections to Squaw Valley, Northstar, and Truckee. TART’s ski shuttle service will be offered every 30 minutes between Incline Village, Kings Beach, Tahoe Vista, Carnelian Bay, and Tahoe City with connections to Squaw Valley every 30 minutes between 6-8:30am and 4-6pm.

An hourly service will be offered beginning at 6am between Crystal Bay, Kings Beach, Truckee, and Northstar. The Donner Summit shuttle makes a return connecting daily with the Truckee local route.

TART’s free night service resumes, offering nightly bus service between Crystal Bay and Squaw Valley, Tahoe City and Tahoma, and Crystal Bay and Northstar until 2am with service continuing until 9pm beginning spring 2017.

For information and schedules, go online.

By Amelia Pak-Harvey, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Combine educational issues with Nevada’s upcoming legislative session and you’ve got a scene straight from the movie “Jerry Maguire”: Show me the money.

When legislators convene in February, they’ll have a number of topics tugging at the state’s purse strings.

First, they’ve got to get an estimated $400 million deficit squared away.

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