• South Lake Tahoe’s 2010-11 budget won an award for how well it was put together from the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada. It was not judged on whether it was an accurate, functioning document.

• Ken Mayer, who leads the Nevada Department of Wildlife, is the co-recipient of U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s Secretary’s Award for his role as a partner with the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Sage-Grouse Initiative Team.

• Northern Nevada Business Weekly reports, “Great Basin Brewing Co. will launch its Brewmaster Artisan Beer bread later this month. The bread is made with the company’s signature Ichtyosaur IPA and locally made Hidden Valley Honey.”

• Safeway is closing its store in Carson City the day before Thanksgiving. Look for C-A-L Ranch Store to take its place next year.

• Squaw Valley is having a job interview fair Nov. 11 from 10am-4pm in the Palisades Conference Room adjacent to the lobby of the Village at Squaw Valley.

• National Park Service officials on Oct. 21 said they won’t allow the Tour de California to ride through Yosemite. The 2012 bike route is expected to be announced any day.

Lake Tahoe South Shore Chamber of Commerce this week announced the contenders for the group’s 4th annual Blue Ribbon Awards.

More than 100 businesses and individuals were nominated for the eight categories. Winners will be announced Nov. 17 at Embassy Suites during a dinner event from 5-8pm. Tickets are $50. (775.588.1728)

The nominees are:

• Geotoursim Award (sponsored by El Dorado County): Angora Lakes Resort, Tahoe Rim Trail Association, Jon Paul Gallery, Sorensen’s Resort, Tahoe Lakeshore Lodge & Spa, and Ski Run Boat Company.

• Tourism Award (sponsored by Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority): Getaway Reno/Tahoe, Ski Butlers Lake Tahoe, Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority, Tahoe Photographic Tours, Tahoe Rim Trail Association, Lake Tahoe Bicycle Coalition, Borges Sleigh Rides, Edgewood Tahoe, Lakeside Inn & Casino, MontBleu, Ski Run Boat Company, and Sorensen’s Resort.

• Experience Award (sponsored by South Lake Tahoe Lodging Association): Escobar Training Grounds, Overland Meat Company, Sugarpine Bakery, MacDuff’s Public House, South Tahoe Standup Paddle, Swiss Chalet, Tahoe Bowl, Tahoe Derby Dames, Tahoe Rim Trail Association, Capisce?, Lake Tahoe Boat Rides, Moxy Fitness, South Tahoe Crossfit, Lakeside Beach Grill, Ski Butler’s Lake Tahoe, Straw Hat Pizza, Tahoe Tot Spot, Aramark Lake Tahoe, Borges Sleigh Rides, Weidinger Public Relations, Edgewood Tahoe, Lakeside Inn & Casino, Naked Fish, Tahoe Powder House, S.S.V., and Sorensen’s Resort.

• Entrepreneur Award (sponsored by Getaway Reno/Tahoe): Ski Run Boat Company, Powder House, Tahoe Tot Spot, Cakes By Grace, Straw Hat Pizza, South Tahoe Standup Paddle, Strategic Marketing Group, Sessions Salon, Tahoe Powderhouse, Grocery Outlet, Forever Dance, Bona Fide Books, Bike the West, Ski Butlers Lake Tahoe, Highmark Designs, Dog Dog Cat, The Bridge Language Academy, and Apres Wine Company.

• Large Green Business Award (sponsored by Heavenly Mountain Resort): Harrah’s & Harveys, South Tahoe Express, and South Lake Tahoe Public Utility District.

• Small Green Business Award (sponsored by South Tahoe Refuse & Recycling): Custom Floor Care, Winter’s Electric, Lake Tahoe News, California Colors Paint & Auto, Sorensen’s Resort, Tahoe Outdoor Living, and Tahoe Resource Conservation District.

• Public Agency Service Award (sponsored by Tahoe Supply Company): Nancy Kerry/city of South Lake Tahoe, Chris Horton/U.S. Postal Service, Russell Wigart/El Dorado County Department of Transportation, Joanne Marchetta/TRPA, Judi McCallum/El Dorado County, Dennis Slater/Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, Gary Wiegel/TRPA, Lucy (no last name provided)/El Dorado County, Dennis Cocking/STPUD, Officer Aaron Crawford/SLTPD, and Tom Pandola/CalStar.

• Customer Service Award (sponsored by Wells Fargo): Chris Kay/Montbleu, Brain Cohen/Overland Meat Company, Eric Guthy/Getaway Café, Kerri Neumann/MontBleu, Dan Jansen/MacDuff’s, Scott Craig/Riva Grill, Brain Miller/Capisce?, Megan Burk/Getaway magazine, South Tahoe Crossfit, Doug Friendshuh/Chart House, Cindy Reardon/MontBleu, Dan Palley/Sierra Athletic Club, Kim Aynedter/Lakeside Inn & Casino, Lynn Spencer/Spencer & Associates, Nancy Parker/Lake Tahoe Unified School District, Paula Crenshaw/Barton Internal Medicine, Rich Bodine II/Inn by the Lake, Dana Smith/Straw Hat Pizza, Katie Schultz/Sugarpine Bakery, Amy Thompson/Tahoe Tot Spot, Tommy Walker/Ciera Steak + Chop House, Cynthia Ferris-Bennett/Events, Ink., Barb Tenney/Après Wine Company, Bryan Davis/Edgewood Tahoe, Cory Escobar/Escobar Training Grounds, Ross Groelz/Groelz Dentistry, Jim Warlow/The Cork and More, John Urrutia/Mann, Urrutia, Nelson, CPAs, Mark Podesto/NorCal Beverage, Monica Sciuto/Barton Hospital, Ron Williams/Ski Run Boat Company, Tom Pandola/CalStar, and France Carreau/Yellow Pager.

A selection committee consisting of TahoeChamber board members, past Blue Ribbon Award winners, and community members is in the process of thoroughly reading through each nomination to competitively judge and decide this year’s award winners.

By Carlos Alcalá, Sacramento Bee

A 57-year-old injustice weighing on El Dorado County may have finally been lifted Wednesday, when Derrick Bonar raised a 90-pound piece of granite and carefully set it into wet concrete prepared by John Cooks.

The two men, inmates from Folsom Prison, were installing the last of 36 new markers on graves at the Mormon Island Relocation Cemetery, which straddles the El Dorado-Sacramento county line near Folsom Lake.

The graves were those of people who had been buried in the town of Negro Hill before the reservoir rose behind the dam and flooded the old cemetery.

The new stones culminated a decadelong effort to replace older concrete markers that bore a racist version of the town’s name.

“I feel like I’m a part of history,” Cooks said. “I’m giving back to society.”

The cemetery is now operated by El Dorado County, but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers took responsibility for having placed the markers bearing the epithet in the 1950s.

Read the whole story

A.J. Marino, 14, of South Lake Tahoe secured the title of the Pacific Regional Mountain Bike Champion and the California/Nevada State Champion in the Junior Cross Country Division in the final race of the Sierra Cup Series earlier this month.

Marino won the series by a close 12 points over Nelson Bedient of Incline Village.

Nelson Bedient of Incline, from left, A.J. Marino of South Tahoe, and Blake Milner of Reno. Photo/Provided

Marino has been competing locally and on the national level in the cross country discipline since he was 10. He is ranked 14th in his age group.

By Kathryn Reed

MEYERS – Tears of relief. Gearing up for the next hearing.

Those were the reactions from the two sides in the divisive Washoe Meadows State Park, Upper Truckee River, Lake Tahoe Golf Course issue.

On Friday, before a crowd that at times numbered more than 100 people, the California State Park and Recreation Commission unanimously approved staff’s recommendation to accept the final EIR for the river restoration project, and to swap land between the park and Lake Valley Recreation Area to allow the golf course to be reconfigured.

State Park and Recreation commissioners on Oct. 20 get an earlful. Photo/Kathryn Reed

It was Cyndie Walck, State Parks hydrologist who after the vote was taken, broke down in tears. She had no idea how the six commissioners would vote. She has been working on this project for five years, attending dozens of public forums.

“I’m surprised,” Walck told Lake Tahoe News after the vote.

On the opposite side are members of Washoe Meadows Community. They don’t want undisturbed parkland on the South Shore to be developed into nine holes of golf. They have been working just as hard as Walck – but for a different outcome.

“We revise our strategy and we get ready for TRPA,” Lynne Paulson said outside Lake Tahoe Golf Course as to what is next for her group.

(On Dec. 7 at 9:30am, Tahoe Regional Planning Agency APC votes on the EIR at the Stateline office. On Dec. 15 at 9am, the TRPA Governing Board votes on certification of final EIR at the Stateline office.)

Fifty people spoke during the 2½ hours of public testimony. Thirty-one were against the preferred alternative 2 in the environmental impact report, 17 in favor, and two were in the middle.

The reach of the Upper Truckee River that flows through State Parks property is called one of the worst. Banks are eroding, causing sediment to plop into the river and be carried into Lake Tahoe – which is said to be helping to maintain that body of water’s clarity loss.

Most of the opponents to alternative 2 are in favor of river restoration. What they opposed is moving half of the 18-hole course into the park.

Each side disputes how much pristine v. disturbed land will be affected. Each side gives tours that are very different and show their respective realities.

Ultimately, though, the commissioners know that if they don’t fix the sediment issue, Lahontan Water Quality Control Board will level the hammer. While they had issues with Washoe cultural sites being covered in dirt as a way to preserve them, it wasn’t enough to vote against the project.

Commissioner Elva Yanez echoed LTVA Executive Director Carol Chaplin’s comments that the triple bottom line is crucial – the economic, environmental, and social needs.

“It’s very clear river restoration has to happen,” Yanez said. “I’m moved by the notion that millions of dollars are generated by the golf course.”

But alarming to many is that Goldman Sachs and Starwood Capital own American Golf Corporation, the concessionaire of the Meyers course on Highway 50.

Jeff Perry, with American Golf, said the Meyers course generates $2 million a year in revenue, of which the State Parks receives one-quarter of that figure. His firm is interested in bidding on redesigning the course.

(Any concessionaire will pay for moving the holes, which will likely mean a smaller annual fee to State Parks. But in the end the park system owns the upgrades.)

Huey Johnson, California secretary of Resources from 1978 -82, gave the commissioners a book about how Michigan put together a trust from oil serverance taxes to fund its parks.

Some questioned how the parks people could think about spending millions of dollars on river restoration when dozens of parks are slated for closure in 2012. Officials said the money for restoration would come from grants, while the concessionaire pays for the golf course.

Getting into Harveys at Stateline has been a bit difficult lately because of the work out front.

The sidewalk project is expected to be finished Oct. 26. The walkway will be heated so the ice and snow melt faster than the natural way of letting Mother Nature take care of it.

Crews work on the sidewalk in front of Harveys. Photo/LTN

The path on the other side of Highway 50 in front of Harrah’s Lake Tahoe already has the snowmelt system below the concrete.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

A South Lake Tahoe investment broker who in July pleaded not guilty to wire fraud switched her plea Oct. 21 to guilty.

Lori Zoval, 46, was indicted in July 2010 on three charges of wire fraud stemming from an alleged investment fraud scheme in 2005-06. She declined a plea agreement in February.

According to a Department of Justice press release, Zoval today admitted to embezzling nearly $25,000 in client money while working for a Folsom brokerage firm.

Zoval confessed she took the money after lying to clients about setting up tax shelters with the funds. Authorities say Zoval created false documents to make everything look legitimate.

Sentencing by U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. is scheduled for Jan. 6.

Lake Tahoe News first reported about Zoval in February regarding her dealings with Holly’s Place, a South Lake Tahoe vacation resort. However, no charges have been brought against Zoval concerning her interactions there.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Kathryn Reed

After a 90-minute closed session and another hour of discussing the issue in open session, Dale Rise’s colleagues on the South Tahoe Public Utility District board told him to apologize to the employee who brought a complaint against him.

Rise, who is chair of the board, was out of the room during the open deliberations per counsel’s advice.

Dale Rise

He was given a chance to speak before the board members talked among themselves on Thursday afternoon.

“I did nothing wrong,” Rise told the board. He also went into great detail about issues leading up to the alleged incident.

Jeri Callian, whom works in customer service and is the employee who filed the claim, said, “I can’t express in words my shock and disappointment.”

Callian claims Rise created a hostile work environment when he came to the district in his capacity as a contractor. The investigator’s report says otherwise. What was determined is Rise violated three board policies.

It was as though the two were not party to the same incident in listening to their words.

After the public spoke – which was Kenny Curtzwiler and John Runnels on behalf of Rise – counsel told the board to focus on the facts, the report and not the extraneous words that had been spoken.

It was left to board members Eric Schafer, Chris Cefalu and Jim Jones to decide what to do. Marylou Mosbacher, who is vice chairwoman of the board and who should have been running the meeting on this matter, decided she could only stay two hours.

As she left at 4pm she said, “Maybe you could give me a little more notice.” Apparently no one told her elected officials are supposed to stay until the end of the meeting and not put personal matters first on meeting days.

Schafer then took the gavel.

The three members agreed to accept the report given to them in regards to the findings from the investigation. But it was 2-1 vote in regards to what punishment should be meted. Jones was the dissenter.

“This is very serious. He has violated what code of ethics we do have. I think more needs to be done than an apology,” Jones said before the vote.

Cefalu and Schafer were of like minds in that not much could be done based on the infractions, which in large part have to do with a board member talking policy with an employee.

In the end, Rise must apologize to Callian in writing or verbally.

But it was also agree board members should be conducting themselves at a higher level as an elected official. Staff was directed to review the policy manual regarding board member conduct to see if it should be beefed up.

By Sean Whaley, Nevada News Bureau

CARSON CITY — A report from the Tax Foundation on unemployment insurance taxes says 34 states have had to borrow $37 billion from the federal government to pay jobless benefits, and employers around the country face the prospect of higher tax rates as a result.

“Businesses are in danger of facing higher UI (unemployment insurance) taxes at a time when private sector hiring is already at a low level,” says the background paper by Joseph Henchman titled “Unemployment Insurance Taxes: Options for Program Design and Insolvent Trust Funds” released this month.

Henchman, vice president of legal and state projects at the Tax Foundation, said the adverse conditions currently existing within the unemployment insurance programs could be an impetus for reforms, such as experimenting with individual accounts to encourage saving.

“These changes can enhance the program’s ultimate goal of ensuring a viable safety net for transition periods between employment,” he said.

Nevada and California are two of those states borrowing from the federal government to pay benefits. An amount that totals $773 million so far for the Silver State. Even so, the Nevada Employment Security Council voted earlier this month to recommend against raising the tax next year from its current 2 percent average rate. The taxes are assessed on the first $26,400 of an employees’ wages.

The rate was raised in Nevada for this calendar year to 2 percent from 1.33 percent. Concerns over stifling job creation led to the recommendation to maintain the 2 percent tax rate into next year, even though it means the federal loans won’t be paid off until 2018. The rate will be formally set later this year by the state Employment Security Division.

The Tax Foundation report shows that Nevada was one of nearly 20 states with a healthy trust fund when the national recession began in December 2007. But Nevada’s highest-in-the-nation jobless rate depleted the fund and required the state to borrow from the federal government beginning in October 2009.

Of the 34 states that have borrowed to pay benefits, seven have repaid the loans, either by dipping into general funds or by borrowing instead from the private sector, Henchman said in his report.

The idea of having Nevada borrow money on its own to pay benefits instead of relying on loans from the federal government was considered by the Nevada Legislature but was not pursued.

States that have repaid their federal loans are Hawaii, Idaho, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, South Dakota and Texas.

States have to pay interest on the borrowed federal funds starting this year. Nevada was the only state to get an extension on its $22.5 million interest payment until June 30, 2012, due to the state’s high unemployment rate. Other states had to make their interest payments by Oct. 1 of this year.

In addition to raising taxes on employers, several states have opted to reduce unemployment benefits.

Nevada pays benefits for 26 weeks as do most states, although federal funding has allowed payments to be extended for up to 99 weeks during the recession.

States reducing the number of weeks of benefits are Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri and South Carolina. Three states, Florida, Rhode Island and South Carolina, also implemented reforms to their unemployment insurance programs.

The Tax Foundation reports that in Florida, reforms include an expansion of what constitutes misconduct that would make someone ineligible for benefits, and making laid-off employees who get severance pay ineligible for benefits.

“Lawmakers have an opportunity to take a new look at benefit levels, program requirements, and whether such programs should be expected to accomplish additional fiscal and social policy goals,” Henchman said.

Nevada has not thus far considered reforms to its unemployment insurance program.

The Tax Foundation is a nonprofit, non-partisan tax research organization based in Washington, D.C.

Saint Theresa Family Halloween Night is Oct. 28 from 7-9pm at Grace Hall, St. Theresa Church, South Lake Tahoe.

Wear a costume contest and bring a carved pumpkin for Jack-O-Lantern contest.

Cost is $12 for a family, with $2 for a canned food donation.