By Kathryn Reed

“You have just hit us with a bomb.”

That was the reaction of a care-giver when told Tahoe Wellness Cooperative will likely close next month.

The medical marijuana dispensary’s permit expired in May. City officials have been working with Cody Bass, who operates the nonprofit, to get the business into compliance. The city finally said enough is enough and told Bass the company must cease operations Dec. 13 if it does not have a valid permit.

A condition of the two-year permit is for the collective to have written permission from the landlord to operate this type of business. That permission has been elusive.

Patty Olson owns the commercial strip in the Bijou Center where the collective is located. She was a pioneer here, having moved to the city in the 1950s before it was a city. Olson moved to Sparks a couple years ago.

The property is under the auspices of a family trust that is controlled by her son, Patrick. The family has run into some difficult financial times since she relinquished control of her finances. They almost lost the family house behind the center. This fall a local businessman came forward with funding so the house would not be foreclosed on. Patrick Olson still lives in the house.

Patty Olson told Lake Tahoe News she has been advised by her attorney, Bruce Grego, to not talk about what is going on.

“I’m not privileged to give you any information,” the 91-year-old Olson told Lake Tahoe News.

Grego also is not talking.

The trust also owns the cabin that houses the tattoo shop.

Bass and the Olson family are involved in several lawsuits.

In March, Bass told Lake Tahoe News he was buying the property where the collective is as well as the Olson family home. He has sued the family for breach of contract. Those close to the case told Lake Tahoe News that the option to buy expired.

The Olsons have filed suit trying to evict Bass, contending that he is arrears in rent by at least six months.

Bass could not be reached for comment.

A settlement conference is scheduled for Nov. 29 regarding the eviction and a trial is set to start in February for the breach of contract lawsuit.

Waiting in the wings for the lawsuits to settle is a well-known South Lake Tahoe businessman who owns other property in the Bijou area. LTN sources said the sale of the Olson property is contingent on Bass not being there.

What isn’t known is why the Olsons prefer selling to the unnamed businessman over Bass. However, it is well-known that city officials have wanted TWC to close and are working with the businessman.

With TWC being the last place to get medicinal marijuana in South Lake Tahoe, if it closes, it would create a void in the lives of those who need the product.

“The patient that I am caregiver for has been going to the collective since it opened. I go weekly to get this person’s medicine and it has allowed this person to have a better appetite, and dramatically cut back on pain medication,” Rosemary Manning told Lake Tahoe News. She is the one who said news of the closure hit her like a bomb.

Recreational marijuana is not likely an option because that will be a while before California actually allows it even though voters approved the use earlier this month. Going to Nevada will be an option she and the patient will look into.

The original moratorium in South Lake Tahoe on three pot clubs was approved in November 2009. Bass’ is the last one in existence. Part of the ordinance that was later passed said the dispensaries were only allowed to operate at the address of their original permit. That means that even if Tahoe Wellness Cooperative wanted to move, it would require the council rewriting the ordinance.

Marijuana is going to be a big part of the Dec. 13 council agenda – the same day as TWC’s deadline to come into compliance or lock its doors. Police Chief Brian Uhler is scheduled to give a presentation about Proposition 64, the recreation marijuana initiative that voters OK’d this month. The city probably has to change its ordinance in regards to growing marijuana.

By Jennifer Ferro

An open letter of apology to my daughters and all the women coming up after me:

I want to start by saying I’m sorry. I have failed you in a way that only now do I shamefully and truly understand.

I am a 48-year-old woman. A mother. A boss. But because of actions I didn’t take, you’re still getting sexually harassed. You’re still getting belittled. You still have to wrestle away from body-hugs that no male colleague would tolerate. You still have to endure comments about your appearance that make you cringe inside. You still are fending off dinner meetings that end up feeling like first dates. You still are expected to put up with someone’s version of a joke about your sexuality in front of others because you don’t want to damage your standing in your career.

You see, I had to do all those things too. It starts young, when you’re walking down the street at 14, with catcalls from passing cars. This is when you realize that your body is “fair game” for any man who feels like taking aim. You face dress codes at school that presume men can’t be controlled if they see you in spaghetti straps or shorts.

Then there’s the workplace, where anyone from the delivery guy to the mucky-mucks you’re meeting with size you up. I will never forget an opportunity I had to meet one-on-one with the politically connected director of the organization where I volunteered during my ambitious early 20s. What started as a late afternoon meeting was switched to dinner at a location that I didn’t realize was his penthouse. When he pushed me against the wall to be groped and kissed, I felt stupid and naïve. I ran out with an excuse of having somewhere else to be.

A couple more from a list far too long to recount in its entirety here: As an assistant being told I had nice breasts by a well-respected person in the media I worked with. On another occasion in an entirely different setting, being asked by a board member—jokingly of course—if I’d like to stroke his gun to see if he was happy to see me.

All of those instances had the same effect. They were belittling. They made me feel self-conscious, embarrassed, ashamed. They led me to see—in that moment—that no matter how smart or capable I was, I was still to these men just a piece of ass.

This is where I failed you. I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t stand up for myself. I colluded with all of this by letting it slide. I smiled, evaded the hugs, endured the humiliating comments, rolled my eyes at the sexual jokes and believed that eventually my intelligence and skills would be regarded first and foremost, not my physical appearance.

Let me be clear. I’m not blaming myself or any woman for being the victim of sexual harassment. But I am blaming myself for not finding the courage to stand up for myself. I know it’s not just young women who deserve my apology. All of us, regardless of age, are vulnerable to this kind of debasement.

So even though we watched a woman make a serious run for the presidency, we see who won and what did and didn’t matter in people’s choice for leadership. All around us women face daily humiliations that aren’t enough to make news or merit a call to the police. But, over time, the damage done by “minor” verbal offenses and by seemingly “harmless” gropings is sinister. It chips away at women’s confidence. It causes us to second-guess ourselves, to keep our voices soft, our hands down, to lean back.

I have two teenage daughters and I worry for them. Not just for the comments and the insults they may face, but because I so greatly fear they will lose their voices, just as I lost mine. I want to show them how to speak up for their dignity and how to have self-respect. I want to show them that speaking up for yourself takes practice. Calling attention to yourself takes courage. Just accepting things when you’ve been wronged or made to feel insignificant is simply not OK.

Today, I’m taking responsibility for my role in all of this. For all the times I lied to escape boorish behavior. For all the times I nervously laughed off inappropriate comments that I am certain the perpetrator would never have uttered in front of his own wife or daughter. For the times I didn’t “educate” my offender by standing up for my own dignity, and for yours.

I am sorry.

The results of this election left many women feeling like they don’t matter. Today I’m making a change. Starting now, I pledge to do what I should have been doing for the past two decades. When someone says to me, “Turn around so I can get a good look at you,” I’ll say “No thanks. You can hear what I have to say better when you’re looking at my face.” And then I’ll tell them what I should have been saying all along.

Jennifer Ferro is president of Southern California public radio station KCRW and a member of the Zócalo Public Square board of directors.

By Anne D’Innocenzio, AP

Thanksgiving Day shopping — a delight to some, an anathema to others — isn’t going away, but some stores are rethinking their strategies on whether it makes sense to be open on the holiday itself.

Many of the nation’s major mall operators and the big retailers that anchor them, such as Toys R Us, J.C. Penney, and Macy’s, are sticking with what they want to be a new tradition, kicking off the holiday shopping season on Thanksgiving Day.

Others, including the Mall of America, the nation’s largest shopping mall, are closing for Thanksgiving this year after being open for the past several years. Some retailers that are closing cite respect for the holiday, but in truth the cost of being open might be more than the return.

“Once you let the genie out of the bottle, it’s hard,” said Stephen Lebovitz, president and CEO of CBL &Associates Properties, a mall operator that is closing 72 of its malls for the day. “More retailers are coming to their senses and realizing it is a family holiday, and from a business point of view, it’s not making much business sense.”

Stores being open on Thanksgiving started in earnest in 2011 and took a punch out of sales on Black Friday, which had usually launched the shopping season. Many places such as Macy’s, Target and J.C. Penney have been opening earlier and earlier on Thanksgiving as they try to outdo others to get first dibs on customers who could easily buy online. But the move has been controversial, as workers have voiced complaints that stores are putting profits over workers’ time to be with their families.

Some 89 of the 145 properties that Chattanooga, Tennessee-based CBL owns or has interest in opened at 6 p.m. on the holiday last year. While dozens of those will be closed this year, the department stores, movie theaters, restaurants and retailers with exterior entrances have the option to open on Thanksgiving. Other retailers including Office Depot and consumer electronics chain hhgregg Inc. plan to be closed after being open for the past several years.

Plenty of retailers, particularly high-end stores like Nordstrom or those like T.J. Maxx that offer discounts every day, never opened on Thanksgiving and have collected good will because of that.

In reality, analysts say, it’s all about stealing share in a market that isn’t growing that much.

By Sean Whaley, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Gov. Brian Sandoval said he isn’t going to abandon his longstanding opposition to creation of a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, whether or not President-elect Donald Trump or Congress renew efforts to entomb radioactive materials at the site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Sandoval said Monday he has not yet had a conversation with Trump and does not know his position on Yucca Mountain.

“It won’t change my position on Yucca Mountain,” Sandoval said. “As far as I am concerned the state will continue to aggressively oppose the siting of storage of high-level nuclear waste there.”

Read the whole story

By Matt Stevens, Los Angeles Times

The number of dead trees in California’s drought-stricken forests has risen dramatically to more than 102 million in what officials described as an unparalleled ecological event that heightens the danger of massive wildfires and damaging erosion.

Officials said they were alarmed by the increase in dead trees, which they estimated to have risen by 36 million since the government’s last survey in May. The U.S. Forest Service, which performs aerial surveys of forest land, said in a study released Friday that 62 million tree died this year alone.

“The scale of die-off in California is unprecedented in our modern history,” said Randy Moore, the forester for the region of the U.S. Forest Service that includes California. Trees are dying “at a rate much quicker than we thought.”

Read the whole story

Caltrans is alerting motorists to expect winter driving conditions this weekend over Echo Summit and Donner Pass.

The National Weather Service expects about a foot of snow on Highway 50 and Interstate 80 beginning Saturday. The snow elevation is predicted to reach 5,400 feet on Interstate 80.

“While chain installers will most likely be present in the chain installation areas, they are not Caltrans employees who work specific hours. Should they not be present, motorists should be experienced in putting on and taking off their vehicle’s chains,” Caltrans warned in a press release.

Licensed chain installers can be identified by the three digit number on their bibs. Caltrans provides this number and bib only to those persons who have been licensed and trained to be a chain installer/remover by Caltrans.

El Dorado County Animal Services has several older cats that need homes.

Many of these cats are 2 years older or younger. All cat adoptions offered through Animal Services’ shelters are $42.

All cats available for adoption at the shelters are spayed or neutered, microchipped, vaccinated, tested for leukemia and given a health exam.

The shelter in Meyers is at 1120 Shakori Drive and is open Monday through Saturday from 9:30am-noon and 1-4:30pm. The shelter in Diamond Spring is located at 6435 Capitol Ave. and is open Monday through Saturday from 9:30am-4:30pm.

Pictures of adoptable animals are online.

The U.S. Postal Service can help prove Santa is real when he replies a child’s letter — complete with a North Pole postmark.

Here are the steps to get a letter back from Santa:

1.    Write a letter to Santa and place it in an envelope addressed to: Santa Claus, North Pole.

2.     Later, when alone, open the envelope and write a personalized response.

3.      Insert the response letter into an envelope and address it to the child.

4.     Add the return address: SANTA, NORTH POLE, to the envelope.

5.     Affix a first-class mail stamp to the envelope.

6.     Place the complete envelope into a larger envelope with appropriate postage and address it to: North Pole Postmark, Postmaster, 4141 Postmark Drive, Anchorage, AK 99530-9998.

“Letters from Santa” must be received by the Anchorage postmaster no later than Dec. 15. Santa’s helpers at the Postal Service will take care of the rest.

By Thomas Moore, Las Vegas Sun

Even after Question 2’s passage last week, casinos will likely avoid dealing with the marijuana industry and continue to prohibit guests from using pot on their properties, if the discussions of Nevada’s gaming regulators Thursday are any indication.

Both the Nevada Gaming Control Board and Gaming Commission heard testimony and talked about the question that allows adults to legally possess up to one ounce of marijuana, or one-eighth ounce of concentrated marijuana, starting next year.

The issue was listed only as a discussion item on the agenda, so the commission did not vote or make a formal recommendation.

Read the whole story

·      State Controller Betty Yee awarded El Dorado County Auditor-Controller Joe Harn with the Financial Transaction Reporting award. According to Yee, “El Dorado County’s reporting excellence helps the state controller publish accurate and useful local government financial data in the Counties Annual Report. Policymakers and other interested parties throughout California rely on the quality of this uniformly reported information.”

·      South Lake Tahoe is a silver level Bicycle Friendly Community according to the League of American Bicyclists.

·      WinterWonderGrass Tahoe will return to Squaw Valley March 30-April 2 for a third year of bluegrass-acoustic roots music. For tickets and more info, go online.

·      Incline Village General Improvement District is having a workshop about the Community Services Master Plan on Nov. 30 from 5:30-7:30pm at the Chateau, 955 Fairway Blvd.

·      Both branches of the Douglas County library will be closed Nov. 24-25.