Kiwanis Club of Tahoe Sierra’s annual SeptOberfest fundraiser is Sept. 27 at 6pm at MontBleu in Stateline.
Tickets are $35 — which includes food, wine tasting and beer.
Call (530) 318.9197 for more details — like location and where to buy tickets.
By Sacramento Business Journal
The union representing Raley’s workers announced Tuesday night it had agreed to a contract extension and mediation in an effort to avoid a strike against the West Sacramento-based supermarket chain.
Citing what it called a joint statement by leaders of United Food and Commercial Workers and Raley’s president and chief executive officer Michael Teel, the union said the contract would be extended to June 6.
The contract expired Oct. 8 and had been extended repeatedly. It lapsed April 30. The agreement covers workers at Raley’s, Bel Air and Nob Hill Foods stores.
On June 6 at 6:30pm at the South Lake Tahoe branch library there will be a free Trail Talk with the Tahoe Rim Trail Association.
Meet other trail enthusiasts and learn about what the TRTA does from trail building, hiking and youth programs as well as numerous educational opportunities.
The library is at 1000 Rufus Allen Blvd.
May is 31 tidbits about Lake Tahoe News month.
LTN tidbit No. 9:
By the end of May, Lake Tahoe News will have two new capabilities.
The first change is LTN will be a mobile site. This means that when you read the news site on your phone or tablet it will be formatted to that device. (This does not impact people reading it on their computer.) It just makes it easier for people who are reading on the go – which is a growing segment of our readership.
While some people have asked when we are getting a mobile app, well, the answer is we have that on hold for now. We believe by making the website mobile this accomplishes what our main objective in having an app would be – to make the site easy to read on an apparatus other than a computer.
The other change coming by the end of this month is on the Events page. Soon people will be able to upload an event onto their calendar on the device they are reading on. This means no more cutting and pasting.
Carolyn and Dee Phillips, formerly of Kizmetech, the same company that developed Lake Tahoe News, are doing these two additions.
Here is information about becoming a paid subscriber.
By Ken Cook and Kari Hamerschlag
If you believe the government ought to play an aggressive role in the nation’s economic life, admit it: You’re a liberal. But you’re probably not as liberal as the average Republican member of the House Agriculture Committee.
Thanks to their generosity with your tax dollars, the government has shelled out a quarter of a trillion dollars since 1995 in federal farm subsidies to grain and cotton farmers and landowners. (Go to farm.ewg.org for a list of every recipient and the amount each received.)
Right now, the farm subsidy lobby and its friends on Capitol Hill are on track to write a costly, ill-conceived new chapter to this unhappy history of bankrolling industrial commodity crops. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Instead, we can invest in healthier eating and a cleaner environment. In the bargain, we can help keep 20 million kids from going hungry, give a huge boost to California agriculture, save taxpayers money and support family farmers.
What would a “healthy food” bill look like?
It starts with a moral commitment that no children in this country should go to bed hungry because their families can’t afford to feed them. Today, more than 45 million Americans, half of them children, receive benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly “food stamps”), which accounts for more than 70 percent of farm bill spending. Are they deserving? If you’re in a household of three and make more than about $24,000 a year, you’re too prosperous to qualify.
Next, by redirecting some of the billions we now are spending on industrial crops such as corn and cotton, we could help make a reality of the government’s public health advice to cover half our mealtime plates with fruits and vegetables every day.
Ken Cook is president and Kari Hamerschlag is senior food and agriculture analyst at the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization.
The first solar eclipse since 1994 is coming May 20. And the West will be one of the best places to see the moon covering the sun.
The Fleischmann Planetarium in Reno is having a viewing that night. For more details, go online.
But the event in the sky should be visible from most Lake Tahoe backyards between 6:28-6:33pm that Sunday.
By Carlos Alcalá, Sacramento Bee
The California Administrative Office of the Courts will host a public hearing May 15 in Placerville on a site under consideration for a new El Dorado County Courthouse.
The county’s current Superior Court operations in Placerville are split between two locations, both of which have significant deficiencies.
Criminal trials in the original Main Street Courthouse require defendants to be walked through the same areas used by jurors and witnesses.
A new location is proposed for 300 Forni Road, near the jail.
What do editors want? And once you’ve caught their eye with your proposal, what happens then?
Former Random House senior editor and co-author of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Getting Published”, Jennifer Basye Sander pulls back the curtain to reveal what happens inside the publishing house.
Writers will get an up close understanding of what make publishers tick, how they make their decisions, and how they create ideas in house.
Find out what publishers want from authors.
This event at Bona Fide HQ on May 17 from 6-8pm is free and open to the public.
Bona Fide is behind the Getaway Cafe in Meyere at 1069 Magua St., No. 4.
By Kathryn Reed
Taking possession of a rundown house in the city limits may provide funding to better enhance the look of areas throughout South Lake Tahoe.
That is the goal of Police Chief Brian Uhler.
Code enforcement and graffiti eradication in large part fall under his department’s purview. But time and money are limited. And the problems keep increasing.
An open dumpster and one with graffiti on it sits outside the Forest Manor apartments in South Lake Tahoe. Photo/LTN
A surge in graffiti is typical this time of year. Those who tag don’t like being in the snow and cold. They seem to hibernate a bit in the winter.
Uhler says much of what is showing up on buildings and other locations is not gang related. An area on Ski Run Boulevard and Pioneer Trail was hit a few weeks ago that resulted in the arrest of two teenagers and four others who may be behind bars soon, he said.
“F— the cops” has been seen on both ends of town – near the would-be convention center and on the might-be TJ Maxx.
“We have someone who has some dislike for us,” Uhler said of those tags. “Someone out there feels the need to express that.”
Profanity gets covered up the quickest.
But what Uhler hopes to do is take the property on Chris Drive that the owner gave to the city, sell it and use the money to hire a full-time code enforcement officer who would be driving a vehicle bought with the property proceeds that is fully equipped to abate graffiti.
A few things need to happen first.
Firefighters plan to use the structure to train on after asbestos and any other hazards are removed. Then the debris will be hauled away and the lot put on the market.
Plus, the council needs to approve of how the money would be spent.
At one time city officials talked about turning this lot into a pocket park, but upon further discussion it was deemed not to be the best location for open space and would be more beneficial to the city to sell it – which also means getting property taxes.
A part-time code enforcement officer is in the process of being hired, with the idea that person’s work will pay for his job. The same would be true if Uhler is able to convince higher ups to hire a full time enforcer.
Uhler wants to take each of the five councilmembers on a tour of the city so they see firsthand what officers see. Then he wants consensus on what they want done.
The city has ordinances on the books about signs, trash, graffiti and other items that would fall under code enforcement, but the council recently has been a bit wishy-washy and tends to side with people who appeal the decisions made by staff.
“There are interpretations as they relate to aesthetics, but trash and debris piled up and loose are clearly violations of our ordinance,” Uhler said. “We will go after general piles of trash, junk, boxes. There are things piled up in places all along the Highway 50 corridor. Then we’ll go into neighborhoods. Our effort is to make our town more closely be aligned with the beauty of our natural environment.”