United Blood Services’ blood inventory level has been trending at an approximate two-day supply for patients, which is half of the ideal quantity needed to provide a safe and available blood inventory.

Supplies are projected to be at least 4,700 pints below required inventory levels. That’s the equivalent of more than 14,000 lives that could be saved.

United Blood Services has issued a critical public appeal urgently encouraging blood donors of all types to give blood now. The agency’s service area includes Lake Tahoe; it ranges from San Francisco to the west through Northern Nevada in the east, to the Oregon border and south to Merced.

Hospital demand for blood has also increased significantly this year. Compared to last July, approximately 500 more pints of red blood cells are projected to be in demand from hospitals this July.

To schedule a donation appointment, call 800.696.4484.

·       The Ridge Tahoe spent $2 million to expand wedding and conference capabilities.

·     Tahoe Donner has upgraded its equestrian center. Events this summer include cowgirls and cocktails, Saturday night barbecues, and pancakes and ponies.

·       Southwest Airlines has added a nonstop flight between Reno and Dallas Love Field.

·       Participants in the annual Wildfire Awareness Half Marathon and 5K Runs in Washoe and Clark counties raised more than $10,000 for the Wildland Firefighter Foundation.

·       A four-day grand opening party for Goodwill’s South Lake Tahoe store on Emerald Bay Road begins July 21 at 8am. Regular store hours will be Monday-Saturday 10am-7pm; Sunday 11am-7pm.

Jaycee Lee Dugard talked to ABC News about life after captivity. Photo/ABC News

By Robert Salonga, Bay Area News Group

At long last, Jaycee Lee Dugard looks like she is in control.

So much so that in an hourlong TV special with ABC’s Diane Sawyer that aired Friday, one of the most prominent segments shows her directing and calming a horse with a series of nonverbal gestures and commands.

The exercise was among the kinds of therapy that have helped transform Dugard, who famously survived 18 years of captivity in an Antioch backyard, during which she bore two daughters fathered by her rapist kidnapper. She had been kidnapped from a school bus stop in Meyers.

Since she resurfaced in August 2009, and released a best-selling memoir in 2011 — the year she gave her first public interview, with Sawyer, as a coming out of sorts — Dugard has come to exude a preternatural confidence and acceptance of how half her life was stolen by captors Phillip and Nancy Garrido.

Read the whole story

To the community,

Thursday night’s vote by the Placer County Planning Commission to reject the proposed development at Martis Valley West is great news for all who love Lake Tahoe.

By voting to not adopt the Martis Valley West Specific Plan and to reject its inadequate environmental review, planning commissioners showed that they had clearly heard the valid concerns expressed by hundreds of community members and stakeholders, who for months have expressed alarm that the proposal offered no solutions to the negative impacts of the project.

The League to Save Lake Tahoe has repeatedly expressed grave concerns about the project, notably its addition of significant traffic impacts — and traffic-related pollution — to the Lake Tahoe Basin. Approval of the project would have set a dangerous precedent. Developers must not be allowed to get off the hook of proposing projects that threaten Lake Tahoe without  providing solutions or adjusting their proposals to reduce such threats.

We encourage the Placer County Board of Supervisors to heed the wisdom of their planning commission and to demand that the Martis Valley West project’s proponents go back to the drawing board to develop a project that represents better community planning with stronger safeguards to protect Lake Tahoe.

This decision should send a message that while lake-friendly redevelopment has a welcome place in Tahoe’s future, principled decision makers will reject projects that significantly threaten the lake’s clarity, including those coming down the pipeline in the near future.

Darcie Goodman Collins, executive director of League to Save Lake Tahoe

Steph Curry played in the ACC tournament in 2014. Photo/LTN file

By Ron Kroichick, San Francisco Chronicle

One way to bounce back from a disheartening loss in Game 7 of the NBA Finals: help your team successfully recruit free-agent forward Kevin Durant.

Another way: Play golf on the shores of Lake Tahoe.

Warriors guard Stephen Curry, with new teammate Durant now in place, soon will check the second item off his list. Curry will play in the American Century Championship, the celebrity event scheduled for July 22-24 in Stateline.

Read the whole story

·       John Pickett, forester with the Tahoe Douglas Fire Protection District, will give a free talk about defensible space on June 20 at 6pm at the South Lake Tahoe Library, 1000 Rufus Allen Blvd.

·       HICAP (Health Insurance Counseling and Advocacy Program), the government sponsored Medicare counseling program, is in search of a part-time volunteer to continue to provide services in South Lake Tahoe. For more info contact Emily Haines at 916.375.3761 or ehaines@hicapservices.net.

·       South Lake Tahoe Fire and Rescue will host a blood drive July 11 from 9am to 1pm at Fire Station No. 3 located at 2101 Lake Tahoe Blvd. To schedule an appointment, contact Kim George at 530.307.9596.

·     Vokab Kompany is the headliner July 21 at Live at Lakeview in South Lake Tahoe. The free concert starts at 4:30pm with Black Star Safari.

·     Tahoe Rim Trail Association is putting on a backcountry camp July 31-Aug. 2 for ages 14-17. For more information, contact the TRTA at 775.298.4485 or info@tahoerimtrail.org.

By Kathryn Reed

Jeremy Meyers, the disgraced ex-superintendent of El Dorado County Office of Education, was hired this week to work even closer with children.

The Black Oak Mine Unified School District board in Georgetown on July 6 voted 4-0 (Darcy Knight was absent) to hire Meyers on a 90-day contract to be principal of Golden Sierra Junior Senior High School. This is a 7-12 school.

Jeremy Meyers

In May, Meyers was sentenced to 110 days in jail after being arrested on driving under the influence charges twice in five months in 2015. Both were misdemeanors. He pleaded no contest to the first offense and guilty to the second.

For the first offense he was sentenced to five days on home arrest. The second driving under the influence charge came with the jail time, four years of formal probation and having to install an alcohol device in his vehicle.

However, the only time Meyers actually spent in jail was when he was initially arrested the second time. Still, he has served his sentence. The brief time in jail counted toward time served, the bulk was alternative sentencing. The two main forms of alternative sentences are community service and being confined to one’s home with a monitor. Lake Tahoe News was not able to ascertain Meyers’ specific sentence or how he was able to fulfill the 110 days when the sentence was rendered May 25 – just 44 days ago.

The county board was not able to fire him because the superintendent is an elected position. Meyers told the board the only way he would leave is if they paid him through June 30, 2016. He was gone in November with two checks — $114,821.55 was essentially his salary, with another $10,930 for the value of his medical, dental and life insurance for that same time period.

In hiring Meyers, the Black Oak Mine board overlooked the fact that both of his arrests came in the middle of workdays, with his blood alcohol level more than twice the legal limit.

Meyers has never issued a public apology for his behavior.

“That is shocking, but not surprising as poorly as that school board runs their district,” Mike Patterson, California Teachers Association board member, said of the hiring. Patterson represents certificated personnel on the state board.

“I was at one of the their school board meetings last year. The current board has done such a horrible job. They pretty much forced the automotive and construction teacher to resign,” Patterson told Lake Tahoe News. “A lot of other teachers have resigned and found other jobs where they are more valued and more fairly compensated.”

Meyers can take this job because his convictions were not felonies and he never lost his credential.

“Normally when there is an issue with a credentialed person it is the school district or county school board that notifies the California credentials department,” Patterson said. “Being that he was the county superintendent, I’m sure no one at the county office notified the state there was an issue, which in and of itself should be an issue.”

Black Oak Mine is struggling to keep people at all positions. This has to do with why Meyers has a short-term contract. Enrollment has also been declining as parents seek better opportunities for their children, including schools with more advanced placement classes.

Since mid-April Superintendent Robert Williams has been out on stress leave, with no indication of if or when he’ll return. Elizabeth Haines, who formerly worked for the district, has been brought in to be the substitute superintendent.

Brian Spears lasted one year as principal of Golden Sierra Junior Senior High School. That is why there was a vacancy Meyers could fill.

The board, though, has voted to ultimately consolidate the superintendent and principal positions into one job. That can’t happen as long as the current superintendent is on the payroll. But it might mean Meyers would have the opportunity to extend his contract.

By Larry Weitzman

For the past two years I have been writing about corruption in El Dorado County. Many of my critics say my facts are wrong or I cherry pick data. Some critics simply pooh-poohed the information saying I don’t know what I am talking about or I am not to be believed. But a 95 page, very thorough (it is the third in a series) 2015-16 Amador County Grand Jury report totally supports my conclusions about the misdeeds of Terri Daly before she became EDC’s CAO in 2010.

Daly remained EDC CAO for about 4½ years until she became an overwhelming embarrassment to the EDC Board of Supervisors.

Larry Weitzman

One of those columns discussed a long-term Amador County lease that Daly modified to the severe financial loss to Amador County. Now this new Amador County Grand Jury report issued two weeks ago details failures, corruption and incompetence of CAO Daly in procuring a new lease for Amador County’s Health and Human Services Department. Her actions parallel what she did during her tenure as EDC’s CAO.

Problems started for Daly in March 2008 when she accepted from the lessor $400,000 if she would eliminate the county walk-out clause which allowed Amador to terminate the lease, which cost  $1.5 million annually, five years early and further extend the lease for another five years (a total of 10 years). For $400,000 paid to the lessee (Amador County), the lessor was able to increase the value of his building as determined by the Amador County assessor $3.3 million. And the lessor shortly after this transaction did sell the building for at least a $3 million higher price. Amador County because of the lease extension was now obligated for an additional $15 million to $18 million.

Below are seven of the most damning of the 19 findings that were made by the Amador County GJ. Notice how the grand jury is critical of how CAO Daly tried to use a subterfuge to hide the money and how she broke county rules and intentionally kept county officials — also a violation of county rules and policies — from knowing about this transaction and writing recommendation to the BOS.

“Finding 1 (F1) the grand jury did not find any compelling nor financially sound reasons in the March 4, 2008, HHS building lease to justify why the HHS director, the county counsel, the CAO and all county supervisors decided to amend the Oct. 17, 2006, HHS building lease. The March 4, 2008, HHS building lease significantly increased the value of the HHS building to the LLC (the original property owners). The LLC sold the HHS building for $3.3 million over the assessed value shortly after the renegotiated lease was approved.

“F9. Since at least January 1997 to present, Amador County has had written policies and procedures to direct employees, department heads, executive staff and elected officials, including the Board of Supervisors, in acquiring property either by lease or by purchase. However, the HHS director, the county counsel, the CAO, and the county supervisors chose to ignore them by deliberately keeping the GSA Director and Auditor from reviewing the March 4, 2008, HHS building lease before the BOS approved the lease.

“F10. Between December 2007 and March 4, 2008, the HHS director, the CAO, the county counsel, and the chairman of the Board of Supervisors prevented the county auditor from executing the auditor’s duties as identified in the county’s GSA Purchasing Policy 5-100, the county’s GSA Contract Policy 1-310.

“F11. Between December 2007 and March 4, 2008, the CAO, the HHS director, the county counsel, and members of the Board of Supervisors deliberately excluded the GSA director from the negotiations and a review of the March 4, 2008, HHS building lease and from executing the GSA director’s duties as identified in the county’s GSA Purchasing Policy 5-100, the county’s GSA Contract Policy 1-310.

“F12. Amador County’s Board of Supervisors, the Board of Equalization, former county supervisors and the county counsel knew that the March 4, 2008, HHS building lease with the LLC presented no risk to the LLC, that it had the highest per square foot cost of any commercial building lease in the county and possibly the Central Valley, that the March 4, 2008, HHS building increased in value because the county extended the term five years to twenty years and the county eliminated the county policy mandated early termination clause contingent on available county, state and federal funding for multi-year contracts.

“F14. The HHS director, the CAO, and BOS knew or should have known that by not publicly acknowledging the acceptance of the $400,000 from the LLC and by depositing the $400,000 in the County Reserve Fund under the guise of a HHS Reserve Fund, that it would be very difficult or nearly impossible for the general public, an independent auditor or a state or federal government agency to determine the original source of the $400,000 if funds were transferred to other accounts.

“F15. The HHS director, the CAO, and members of BOS used deceptive methods to move over $240,000 of $400,000 LLC money to various HHS departments’ trust accounts to hide the LLC money trail. About $167,000 of the $400,000 was traced back to paying the LLC for the HHS building rent, $45,000 was traced to the county’s CMSP Medi-Cal program, and about $28,800 went general operating expenses funded by the Mental Health Trust Fund.”

So where is the parallel between Daly’s actions in Amador County and actions in EDC? Long term Amador County Auditor Joe Lowe was intentionally kept out of the loop by Daly with respect to this HHS lease. When EDC’s county auditor was reviewing the CAO’s business practices and requirements in 2013 on her failure to comply with EDC policies, Daly began a campaign of attacking the county auditor, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars including the Vandermyden, Maddox report on bullying which became an indictment of Daly and her cronies and an exoneration of the county auditor, Joe Harn, of claims of him being a bully.

Another parallel is Daly violated BOS policy B-12. The policy intent of EDC was that the auditor-controller be given the opportunity to review all matters that potentially have a large financial impact. Daly did not give proper notice to Harn when she rammed through the recent 15 percent raise which now has decimated our county financially.

Daly then landed a job as assistant director at the Yuba County Water Agency at $160,000 annually. Obviously a thorough background check was not performed. It’s another failure of our government system.

Larry Weitzman is a resident of Rescue.

By Sonali Kohli, Los Angeles Times

A 13-year-old in California shook her head at the TV. A 5-year-old in Pittsburgh asked her father why people are so angry.

As America coped with one tragic moment after another this week, with the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile followed by the shooting of a dozen police officers in Dallas, the country’s parents had an added task: explaining each act of violence to their children.

“If [children] see a bunch of this on television, they can become the indirect victims of trauma,” said Suzanne Silverstein, director of the Cedars-Sinai Psychological Trauma Center.

African American children might be afraid for their own lives or for their friends and families when they see black men being shot. Children of law enforcement officers might be even more afraid for their parents after learning what happened in Dallas.

Read the whole story

Bryan Sperlin, 24, of Truckee was arrested July 8 on voluntary manslaughter charges.

Police officers said he was involved in a deadly assault that occurred in the downtown Commercial Row area of Truckee on June 18. Jesse Hill, 39, of Chico died of his injuries at Renown Medical Center in Reno on July 3.

Hill was found unconscious on the sidewalk in front of the Pastime Club on June 18 at 11:05pm. Truckee police officers said Hill and Sperlin began arguing earlier in the evening at the Tourist Club bar. Hill left the Tourist Club and was later standing in front of the Pastime Club. As Sperlin was entering the Pastime Club he and Hill began a second argument that led to the physical altercation, officers said.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report