May was not a good month for Stateline casinos, which saw revenues drop 15.12 percent to $13.7 million compared to 2015.
The Gaming Control Board today said Nevada casinos won more than $958 million in May. This is 4.53 percent drop from a year ago.
Most of the state saw numbers decline.
— Lake Tahoe News staff report
A Truckee man was arrested this week on felony domestic violence and felony false imprisonment charges.
Greg Rowland
Officers said they found a woman crying and bleeding from her mouth on June 27 at 7:30pm outside a residence on Trout Creek Road.
She told officers her live-in boyfriend, Greg Rowland, 51, had beaten her and held her against her will in the residence throughout the evening. The victim told officers she crawled out the bathroom window after Rowland boarded the door shut and took her phone away.
Officers located Rowland hiding near the residence. He was initially uncooperative and holding an ax as officers approached him.
During the investigation it was determined Rowland was also in violation of requirements to register as a sex offender and he had allegedly assaulted the victim a week ago near Boca Reservoir, causing numerous additional injuries to her.
— Lake Tahoe News staff report
· For those who cannot make it to South Lake Tahoe’s Fourth of July parade, Tahoe Production House will live stream it from 10-10:45am. Here is the link.
· The Homewood Fine Arts and Crafts Festival is July 1-3 from 10am-5pm.
· No fishing license will be required in California on July 2.
· “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfe” is at the Boathouse Theater at Valhalla on June 30-July 3, July 14-17 and July 28-30. For tickets and times, go online.
· On June 24, 174 students graduated from Lake Tahoe Community College; 40 students graduated with honors and eight graduated with highest honors. Another 36 students received departmental certificates, and 61 students received transfer degrees guaranteeing them a spot at a CSU this fall.
By Jason Hidalgo, Reno Gazette-Journal
In a move that a Renown Health executive described as a “game changer” for the community, the Reno-based healthcare network announced a partnership with several Stanford University health entities on Tuesday.
The deal with Stanford Health Care, Stanford Children’s Health and Stanford Medicine expands the specialty services available to Renown patients, who will now have access to the advanced care available in Stanford’s network.
Examples include services for children with conditions such as cancer or brain tumors that require treatment not available in the area, said Tony Slonim, Renown Health president and CEO.
By Joe Mathews
Our state’s leaders keep asking communities to do more to make our local public schools better—even as they keep us in the dark about how those same schools are doing.
In the 2013-14 school year, the state suspended the Academic Performance Index, or API, the chief tool Californians had for seeing how their kids’ schools stacked up among schools across the state. API wasn’t a perfect measure, but it offered clear school rankings that could be understood by anyone in your neighborhood—from parents to real estate agents.
Joe Mathews
At the time the API was first suspended, our state’s leaders said they would give us a more useful index of schools. Three years later, they haven’t given us anything at all—except a promise that a new index will be in place for the 2017-18 school year.
I try not to take this personally. The oldest of my three sons started kindergarten in our local elementary in 2014. By the end of 2017-18, he’ll be heading into fourth grade—and his two younger brothers will be enrolled.
To be fair, state education officials had many reasons for creating a new system: the federal government was ditching its No Child Left Behind regime, and California schools were adopting the Common Core and a new local funding formula that gives parents and communities the bureaucratic burden of creating Local Control and Accountability Plans for their schools.
Given all these changes, didn’t we need a new index aligned with this new education universe? Of course. So where the hell is it?
The state’s answer: such transitions require lengthy consultation, and the State Board of Education is getting closer to putting a new system together. Good to hear. But no changes justify three years—and counting—of keeping Californians in the dark about their schools.
The state had better options. It could have kept the old index alive until it was ready to switch to a new one. Or, even better, the state could have used the previous years to experiment by compiling and releasing to the public a new draft index each year.
Which is why the darkest, most cynical view of this transition is almost certainly the right one. Is the real goal of state leaders less accountability for themselves and for California’s public schools?
After all, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson used the API’s suspension as justification for failing to publish a legally required list of the state’s 1,000 lowest-achieving schools last year. State officials have eliminated half of the standardized tests students are taking; they also have suspended the High School Exit Exam through 2018.
And the California Teachers Association, the state’s most powerful teachers’ union, has been lobbying hard against producing a statewide index that could be used to rank — or punish schools. CTA wants districts to have their own local evaluation processes that are aligned with the Local Control and Accountability Plans – which have, unfortunately, proven to be monstrously long and confusing documents.
The union’s “statewide ignorance is bliss” logic matches that of Gov. Jerry Brown, who recently told CALmatters that Californians shouldn’t expect the state’s work to close the achievement gap between black and Latino students and other students. “The gap has been pretty persistent,” he said.
Such educational fatalism isn’t just dispiriting—it’s at odds with California’s own record of educational progress. In 2013, more than 80 percent of schools scored above 700 on the API; only 31 percent had scored that high a decade earlier. The same decade saw declines in the dropout rate, more students taking challenging courses (especially math and science), and increases in the school performance of English-language learners and kids from low-income families.
To pressure state leaders, children’s advocacy groups are pushing legislation outlining a coherent and comprehensive index that parents and communities can understand. But the teachers’ union and some politicians are dismissing this legislation as premature—even though a new system is three years overdue.
State officials will object that this assessment is terribly unfair. But after three years, they’ve lost the benefit of the doubt. If state officials want to show they’re serious about building a useful accountability system, they should take on a make-up assignment: Produce an index of all California schools for each of the past two years—the academic year now ending, and for 2014-15. The state has testing and the other data to do it. And we parents sure could use the information, even belatedly.
But I bet they won’t. They’re too busy coming up with excuses for keeping Californians in the dark.
Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zocalo Public Square.
Six mosquito samples and one dead bird have tested positive for West Nile virus this week in Placer County.
The mosquito samples were collected from sites along the county’s western border, from as far south as the north Elverta area, and as far north as Lincoln. The dead bird was collected from Rocklin.
Mosquito numbers have also increased in the past week, most likely from sustained higher temperatures.
“We are concerned that the timing of this increase in West Nile virus activity comes right before a long holiday weekend, when people are more likely to be spending a lot of time outdoors, especially during the dusk and evening hours,” Joel Buettner, Placer Mosquito and Vector Control District, said in a press release.
The district is planning aerial treatments tonight and ground-based treatments Thursday morning for adult mosquitoes.
Fire restrictions on National Forest System lands in the Lake Tahoe Basin begin July 1 and will remain in effect until the official end of fire season.
Campfires will be restricted to certain exempted recreation sites and other fire-related activities will be prohibited.
Illegal and unattended campfires cause more than 90 percent of wildfires in the Lake Tahoe Basin and increased fire danger due to the ongoing drought and warm summer weather is a big concern.
On National Forest System Lands, fire restrictions mean:
· No open fires, campfires or charcoal fires are allowed outside of exempted recreation sites even with a valid campfire permit. Campfires must be built within agency installed and approved fire rings or grills. Lanterns and portable stoves using gas, jellied petroleum or pressurized liquid fuel are allowed with a valid California Campfire Permit.
· No smoking, except within an enclosed vehicle, building or exempted recreation site.
· Internal combustion engines are restricted to National Forest System roads, routes, trails and areas as identified on the LTBMU Motor Vehicle Use Map.
· No possessing, discharging or using any kind of firework or other pyrotechnic device, using an explosive or operating a welding or other torch with an open flame. All fireworks, including sparklers and firecrackers, are always illegal in the Lake Tahoe Basin.
By Associated Press
It’s going to be a busy holiday weekend on the nation’s highways.
A record 43 million Americans are expected to travel this Independence Day weekend, with the overwhelming majority driving, according to AAA, a car lobbying group and one of the nation’s largest travel agencies. This tops the joint record set last year and in 2007.
Lower gas prices, strong consumer confidence and a generally healthy domestic economy have led more families to take trips this summer.
AAA estimates that U.S. drivers have saved $20 billion on gasoline so far this year compared to the same period last year. Gas prices as of June 20 were 46 cents per gallon below prices from a year ago.
“We are well on our way for 2016 to be a record-breaking year for summertime travel,” said AAA President and CEO Marshall Doney.
Ahead of last year’s holiday, AAA predicted that 41.9 million people would travel 50 miles or more from home during the weekend. AAA has since revised that number to say that 42.3 million people actually traveled. This year’s estimate — the highest since AAA started tracking in 2001 — is for 42.9 million travelers with 84 percent of them driving.
The holiday travel period is defined as June 30 to July 4.
The number of travelers is estimated to be 10.7 percent higher than the average number during the past 15 years.
Douglas County sheriff’s deputies are searching for this man.
US Bank on Kingsbury Grade in Stateline was robbed this afternoon at gunpoint.
The amount of money taken has not been disclosed. The suspect reportedly had a gun and passed a note to a teller at 3:19pm June 29.
The suspect is described as a white man in his mid-20s, 6-feet-tall, blond hair, wearing a black fleece type jacket and white shorts entered the business and passed a note to a teller.
There are conflicting reports of his vehicle. One witness reported a black four-door vehicle with a single occupant waiting nearby. A second person reported the suspect vehicle may be a silver or champagne colored hatchback.
— Lake Tahoe News staff report
By Robert Kuo, Sacramento Bee
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife posted two videos last week of a wolverine in the Tahoe National Forest captured by cameras earlier this year, stirring the same excitement that occurred in 2008 when a similarly rare California sighting occurred after an 86-year absence.
The first video from this year was recorded on the night of Feb. 17, showing a brief glimpse of the wolverine before it scampered away. The second video, taken during the day on Feb. 27, provides an extended look at the wolverine scaling a tree to retrieve bait that wildlife biologists had tied to the tree.
The life expectancy of wild wolverines ranges from four to 10 years.