By Teri Mizuhara

It’s that time of year again, time to change your clocks and change the batteries in your smoke alarms. Set your clocks back one hour before you go to bed tonight and while you’re at it, take a few minutes and change the batteries in your smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. Then you can rest easy knowing your loved ones are being protected.

“According to the U.S. Fire Administration, 75 percent of fire deaths in residences occur in homes that either do not have smoke alarms or do not have working smoke alarms,” says Kelly Keenan, unit chief of the Amador-El Dorado Unit of CalFire. “It is the cheapest insurance to safe guard you and your family in the event your home catches on fire. Bottom line, a working smoke alarm greatly increases your chance of surviving a house

Smoke alarm and carbon monoxide alarm tips:

— At a minimum, install a smoke alarm and a carbon monoxide alarm outside each sleeping area.

— It is also prudent to install smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms in each bedroom/sleeping area.

— Install smoke alarms on each level of your home including the basement.

— If your alarms are plugged in to an electrical outlet, don’t forget to change the back-up batteries if they have them.

— If you have children, consider purchasing the smoke alarms with recordable voice announcements.

— If you or someone in your home is hearing impaired, there are specialized smoke alarms systems available.

— Make sure all the alarms are linked so that when one goes off they all go off.

— Test your smoke alarms once a month.

— Clean smoke alarms by vacuuming them. This removes dust and bugs that can cause them to malfunction.

For additional fire and life safety tips, go online.

Teri Mizuhara works for CalFire.

By David Rose, Daily Mail

It was hailed as the scientific study that ended the global warming debate once and for all – the research that, in the words of its director, “proved you should not be a sceptic, at least not any longer”.

Professor Richard Muller of UC Berkeley and his colleagues from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures project team (BEST) claimed to have shown that the planet has warmed by almost a degree centigrade since 1950 and is warming continually.

Published last month ahead of a major United Nations climate summit in Durban, South Africa, this month, their work was cited around the world as irrefutable evidence that only the most stringent measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions can save civilization as we know it.

It was cited uncritically by, among others, reporters and commentators from the BBC, the Independent, the Guardian, the Economist and numerous media outlets in America.

The Washington Post said the BEST study had “settled the climate change debate” and showed that anyone who remained a skeptic was committing a “cynical fraud”.

But the Mail can reveal that a leading member of Muller’s team has accused him of trying to mislead the public by hiding the fact that BEST’s research shows global warming has stopped.

Read the whole story

By Steve Green, Las Vegas Sun

Hotel-casino operator Tropicana Entertainment Inc. of Las Vegas on Wednesday posted a third quarter profit, even as its Nevada properties continued to struggle through the recession.

Tropicana Entertainment, which has two properties in Laughlin and one in Lake Tahoe, among other properties around the country, said it earned $14.9 million in the quarter ended Sept. 30 vs. a profit in the year-ago quarter of $1.5 million.

Net revenue of $175.4 million was down from $176.15 million.

The profit increased as operating costs fell from $161 million to $148 million.

The company, controlled by investor Carl Icahn, said its Nevada properties generated net revenue in the quarter of $33.2 million, down from $34.7 million in the 2010 quarter.

The company’s Nevada properties are the Tropicana Laughlin, River Palms in Laughlin and the MontBleu in Lake Tahoe. (The Las Vegas Tropicana is owned by a different investor group).

Read the whole story

Not only do the shovels need to be ready based on the forecast, but warm clothing will also be needed this weekend.

South Lake Tahoe on Saturday set a record low at 13 degrees, breaking the previous record of 16 from 2002.

Tahoe City and Truckee are equally as cold, but not setting records. The National Weather Service in Reno said this is likely because the cloud cover is not letting the temps on the North Shore drop to record lows.

“South Lake Tahoe for the first four days (of November) has been running a tab cooler. (Friday) it was 15 degrees cooler than average,” Jessica Kielhorn, meteorologist technician in Reno, said.

Don’t expect the highs to be out of the 30s this weekend, with an overnight low of 12 degrees forecast for Sunday in South Lake Tahoe.

A winter weather advisory is in effect for the greater Lake Tahoe area from 5pm Saturday to 10am Sunday.

Snow accumulation is expected to be 4-8 inches at lake level and 6-12 inches above 7,000 feet.

With it already cold out, the snow should hit lower elevations – and will likely start falling before the advisory takes effect.

— Kathryn Reed

Retail Opportunity Investments Corp., owners of the Round Hill Square Shopping Center, posted its quarterly earnings report this week showing net income attributable to common stockholders for the quarter ending Sept. 30 at $2.5 million, or $0.06 per diluted share.

Revenue for the quarter came in at $13.56 million, compared to $4.84 million this time last year.

ROIC bought the Nevada center in August for $22 million in a foreclosure deal. The 117,000-square-foot center anchored by Safeway is 79.3 percent occupied.

As of Sept. 30, ROIC had total assets of $650.7 million with $200.6 million of debt outstanding, including $110 million outstanding on its unsecured term loan and $29.9 million on its unsecured revolving credit lines.

A cash dividend of $0.12 per share of common stock will be paid to investors Nov. 30.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Kathryn Reed

STATELINE – Land capability is being redefined on the South Shore.

Mostly it has to do with using what exists to its maximum potential. A presentation Nov. 4 by Richard Shaw, principal planner with Design Workshop in Aspen, pointed out what is lacking on the South Shore and what could be changed.

“One of the fundamental problems is recreation is not close to the bed base,” Shaw said during the inaugural joint meeting of the South Lake Tahoe City Council and Douglas County Commission.

Richard Shaw presents the South Shore Vision Plan on Nov. 4 to South Tahoe and Douglas County officials. Photo/Kathryn Reed

The South Shore Vision Plan if implemented, would aesthetically and functionally transform the area of Highway 50 from Ski Run Boulevard to Kahle Drive.

It’s about creating an area that appeals to locals and tourists. It’s also about making the built environment as pleasing as the natural landscape, recognizing gaming is not going to be the driving economic force it was, and that the environment could benefit from redevelopment instead of the status quo.

While Shaw talked about providing more public beach access in the Stateline area if and when Edgewood Lodge is built and via a future water borne transit terminal at Lakeside Marina, South Tahoe Mayor Hal Cole took issue with whether the plan really provides more beach access when people might have to get on a boat to get to some strip of sand.

The casinos are a seven-minute walk to Lake Tahoe, but there is no signage in the casino corridor saying where any recreation entity is.

The financial feasibility of the project is going forward, with the South Tahoe Alliance of Resorts having sought request for proposals. Mike Bradford, CEO of Lakeside Inn and a driving force behind the South Shore Vision Plan, said Carl Ribaudo’s company Strategic Marketing Group is likely to be selected for the job.

All that is holding back the financial analysis is South Lake Tahoe agreeing to put in $10,000. STAR, Douglas County and Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority have contributed to the pot.

Once the feasibility study is done, the next major component is environmental analysis.

The LTVA board will hear a presentation about the RFP candidates at its Nov. 10 3pm meeting in Stateline.

Other items

• The two elected bodies also discussed looking at ways to better share resources, perhaps even combining things to reduce redundancy. While no decisions were made at the gathering at Edgewood Tahoe – libraries, police, fire, recreation, special events, transportation – all were broached.

• John Hester with the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency gave a brief update on the Regional Plan, saying the idea is to give more control to local jurisdictions.

• Nevada Senate Bill 271, which could alter how TRPA functions, was touched on. All agreed it seems to have been a stimulus for igniting dialog in the basin about what really needs to happen.

• The electeds agreed more joint meetings need to occur. This was the first time many of them had met each other.

By Kathryn Reed

Lake Tahoe Airport in the near future may not be run by people on South Lake Tahoe’s payroll.

“It’s not so much what we save in employee costs, as it is having a more entrepreneurial approach to managing the airport,” City Manager Tony O’Rourke told Lake Tahoe News. “We have vacancies in the hangars, we hope to have commuter service. Technically, this is an enterprise operation and it should break even.”

Lake Tahoe Airport is busy one time of year -- during the celebrity golf tournament. Photo/LTN file

Instead, the city is subsidizing the airport by about a half million dollars each year. If the airport ever evolved from being primarily a general aviation facility into a commuter hub, that figure would drop substantially.

The City Council at its Dec. 13 meeting is expected to vote on whether a request for proposal to replace the management at the airport with private operators should go forward. A change could come in February.

Five people work for the city.

“The city needs to know what is best for the city and that is what they will find out by putting an RFP for certain services at the airport,” airport Manager Sherry Miller said. “They will find out if it’s less expensive to have their own employees or more expensive, and what kind of qualified people they can get.”

O’Rourke said instead of having the entire operation run privately, it would be the management. He wants to base it on what the Minden airport did in the last year.

If the airport were to ever get any form of commercial services, the downstairs offices used primarily by the city attorneys would need to be vacated for security and baggage claim.

“That would be a nice problem; to have to relocate them,” O’Rourke said.

By Kathryn Reed

I have found a reason I would live in Reno. To grow carrots. Yes, really.

A friend of Sue’s gave her a bag of homegrown carrots. And then another bag. Oh, my. These little orange gems are so incredible.

They don’t look anything like what can be found in a grocery story. They are stubby.

Better yet, they don’t taste like a store bought carrot. They are sweet.

I don’t know how many I consumed as I cut some up for a salad. A slice for the salad, a slice for me, a slice for me, a slice for the salad.

But then I thought there must be something else I could do with them besides eating them raw. So, I attempted to glaze them. Now, I’ve never been a huge fan of glazed carrots, but I knew Sue would enjoy them.

Devoured. That is what happened when she got a hold of the glazed carrots. No leftovers. (I thought I had made enough for leftovers.)

Most recipes call for butter and brown sugar. I decided to melt a couple tablespoons butter, then add the carrots, and then poured in pure Vermont maple syrup. (It must be pure Vermont maple syrup when you live with someone from the Green Mountain State.)

I let them simmer a bit and then let the carrots sit in the pan to soak up the syrup. Cook them until the carrots are the consistency you want to eat them.

Measurements will depend on the number of carrots being cooked. It’s a great side dish (and apparently a meal for others).

Yes, I realize I turned a perfectly good healthy food into something almost resembling a dessert, but it was tasty, and sometimes it’s good to be bad. And to keep it vegan, consider starting the carrots in oil instead of butter.

• Fresh Ketch’s Pray for Snow Party is Nov. 16 at 7:30pm. Cool Black Kettle and Headphone Union will be playing at the South Lake Tahoe restaurant.

• William Cottrell, physician with Tahoe Orthopedics & Sports Medicine, will begin serving patients in the Carson Valley on Nov. 14.

• Bearpaw Footwear is making a donation as well as dedicating a portion of the profits from its 2012 flip-flop collection to the League to Save Lake Tahoe.

• Sierra Nevada College has hired Lynn Gillette to be president. He has been executive vice president and provost at the college for the past four years overseeing all academic departments as well as the registrar’s office, financial aid, information technology, admissions, student affairs, food services, library, and academic support services.

• Early tickets for South Lake Tahoe’s SnowGlobe sold out in 10 minutes on Nov. 4. More tickets coming.

In rural areas, heating fires account for 36 percent of all house fires, according to CalFire.

Tips for a warm, worry-free winter:

• Make sure your wood burning (pellets or firewood) stove or fire place is clean and ready for the winter. Chimney fires often occur when the first cold nights arrive and someone lights a fire in a stove or fireplace that has not been properly maintained. Creosote builds up over time in your chimney or stove pipe and can catch on fire which can spread to your roof and/or attic. It is best to hire a professional who can check the entire system, not just clean out the chimney or stove pipe.

• Never use an outdoor heater, such as a patio heater or barbecue, indoors. They are designed to burn fuels such as propane, natural gas or wood all of which

release carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas that kills 500 people annually and sends another 15,000 to emergency rooms.

• Never heat your home with your kitchen oven, they are not designed for that purpose and could overheat and catch fire. If your oven is gas, the resulting carbon monoxide can pose a deadly threat.

• If you use space heaters, make sure they are a minimum of three feet away from flammable materials such as curtains, drapes, furniture, etc. Also make sure

they will shut off automatically if they are tipped over. Kerosene space heaters are illegal to use inside a home in California. You can use them in a garage or barn where the ventilation is more open and able to dissipate the fumes.

— Provided by CalFire