Adrian Ballinger with Alpenglow Expeditions based in Olympic Valley has been leading Everest climbs for years. Photo/Alpenglow Expeditions

By Brian Hickey, KCRA-TV

Northern California climbers called off their trips to the world’s tallest mountain this week after growing tension in base camp and dangerous climbing conditions on Mount Everest led to their tough decisions.

Adrian Ballinger is the lead guide and owner of Alpenglow Expeditions based in Lake Tahoe. Ballinger was to lead a group of six climbers to the summit of Everest in the coming weeks, but via his Facebook page Thursday morning announced he was canceling the trip.

The decision comes after 16 Sherpa were killed in an avalanche earlier this week.

The Sherpa are essential support staff for the hundreds of international climbers who attempt to scale the mountain each year.

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• The annual wagon train will roll through the South Shore on May 31.

• Heidi Hill Drum has been hired as executive director of the Tahoe Prosperity Center.

• El Dorado County Fair is June 12-15 in Placerville.

• “As You Like It” will be performed July 11-Aug. 24 at Sand Harbor during the annual Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival. There will be entertainment on Mondays, too. For more info, go online.

• Jon Sween of Lake Tahoe is now director of sales at Hampton Inn & Suites Carson City.

A mother and daughter from Incline Village on April 23 admitted in court that they tampered with a bear trap. Cheryl Ann Morrison and her 35-year-old daughter, Season, contend they did so because state wildlife officials illegally set the traps.

According the the Reno Gazette-Journal, Judge Alan Tiras did not render a decision after the daylong hearing in Incline Justice Court, but instead wants more input from both attorneys regarding the Oct. 9 incident.

Charges against the women include deliberately tripping a trailed culvert trap, obstructing or interfering with an officer of the Department of Wildlife and tampering with a vehicle.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Kyle Roerink, Las Vegas Sun

Democrats outnumber Republicans by 77,000 voters in Nevada, they control the state Legislature and they boast the most powerful member of the U.S. Senate.

But they’re unabashed about their failure to find a viable candidate to challenge incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval.

“We couldn’t find a candidate,” Sen. Harry Reid, godfather of Nevada Democrats, said in an interview with the Las Vegas Sun this week.

That’s a much different message than the Senate majority leader gave two months ago.

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By Laurel Rosenhall, Fresno Bee

Imagine this: A state senator is carrying a package of bills for a major corporation. The same company backs a foundation that plans to give the senator its national legislative achievement award. The award comes with $25,000 cash.

What ethical or legal issues does the scenario raise?

That question was among several that California senators discussed Wednesday during special ethics training prompted by the unusual spate of problems to hit the Capitol in recent months.

Two senators have been charged with corruption in separate FBI investigations and a third has been convicted of perjury for lying about where he lived when he ran for office. A fourth is fighting a judge’s recommended order that he pay a fine for campaign money-laundering, and two high-profile Sacramento lobbying firms have paid record-setting fines for violating state lobbying laws.

“Money has a corrosive effect on politics and on legislatures and congresses throughout the land,” Senate leader Darrell Steinberg said after the training. “But these are the rules.”

The rules forbid a direct exchange of money for policy, as described in the example above and as alleged by federal authorities who claim that Democratic Senators Ron Calderon of Montebello and Leland Yee of San Francisco took bribes from undercover FBI agents seeking official actions from them in the Capitol. Calderon and Yee have pleaded not guilty.

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Reno and community partners will host a David Wise Parade of Champions on April 26 starting at 5pm.

Wise, a gold medalist in men’s ski halfpipe at the recent 2014 Winter Olympics and the first person from Reno to win Olympic gold, will be escorted to Aces Ballpark, where the parade will end at approximately 5:40pm.

The parade head west from the corner of Center and Fourth streets, continue south on Virginia Street, continue east on Second Street, then move north on Evans Avenue.

Festivities include a ceremony at the ReTRAC Plaza, a performance of the national anthem by 12-year-old singer Erika Hill of Reno, a Reno police honor guard salute at the Virginia Street Reno Arch, classic cars and other automobiles provided by Hot August Nights and a vintage fire truck. Other parade participants will be the eNVision Drumline & Color Guard and members of the local Sky Tavern Junior Ski Program.

Wise will be signing autographs inside Aces Ballpark and throwing out the first pitch prior to that evening’s Reno Aces game, scheduled for 6:35.

The two-vehicle accident that snarled traffic on Kingsbury Grade on Thursday involved drivers from South Lake Tahoe and Gardnerville.

Pamela Tracy, 67, of South Lake Tahoe crossed over the center line, striking a GMC driven by Cynthia Hendrickson, 59, of Gardnerville that was traveling west, according to Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Daniel Lopez.

Both drivers were Care Flighted to Renown Medical Center in Reno with non-life threatening injuries.

The GMC was engulfed in flames after the accident.

“Drugs or alcohol is being considered to be a contributing factor,” Lopez told Lake Tahoe News.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

Filming for an ad campaign will close Jacks Valley Road from Arcadia Drive to Green Acres Drive from 8pm-6am April 27-29.

The purpose of the closure is to capture still frame images for an automotive headlight advertising campaign. The vehicles used to create the headlight images will be stationery and the headlights will be powered by an external battery source reducing and additional engine noise.

Traffic in the Carson Valley will be detoured south on Arcadia Drive to Pawnee Street and then north on Green Acres Drive back to Jack’s Valley Road. Traffic on the orth side of Jack’s Valley Road will be detoured to Bucks Way and south to Jack’s Valley Road on Green Acres Drive. Appropriate traffic control and location flagging teams will be provided.

By Kathryn Reed

Sometimes it takes just one application. That was the case for Tom Greene.

It means Lake Tahoe Community College’s vice president of Academic Affairs and Student Services is leaving. This summer he becomes president of American River College in Sacramento.

Tom Greene is leaving LTCC to be president of American River College. Photo/LTN file

“I didn’t send out a bunch of applications. This is the only one I sent out in California. I did because I know it’s a good fit and I worked in that district before,” Greene told Lake Tahoe News. “I know it’s a good college. It’s a real opportunity where the institution can invest in teaching and learning for students.”

Greene was hired in 2010 by LTCC from Sacramento City College where he had been associate vice president of Enrollment and Student Services. This was his second stint at LTCC. Previously he had been a counselor.

He doesn’t plan to make any dramatic changes at the get-go.

“It comes down to me to create the best conditions so that others can exercise their passion and talent. It’s more about removing barriers than building anything,” Greene said.

He will be going from one of the smallest community colleges in the state to one of the largest. American River College has 30,000 students. But Sac City was large, too, so he knows what he is getting into.

“At a smaller college you are forced to get involved with many things and into the granular detail,” Greene said. “At a larger college there are so many more layers. The people at a small college are the heart of the institution. My heart is still in Tahoe with the college and the people.”

Another thing he’ll miss is the outdoors – especially being able to mountain bike after work.

For the time being he will also be leaving his wife behind and returning to a commuter relationship. Suzanne Roberts is an English instructor at LTCC and intends to continue her position there through at least the next school year.

Before the couple married and Greene got the VP job at LTCC they did the Tahoe-Sac commute. It will resume again this summer. Greene does not have a definitive start date in Sacramento, but plans to leave LTCC in June.

“The college as a whole is very excited for Dr. Greene’s accomplishment. He is a very talented and exceptional college professional. While the faculty, staff, board, and students are saddened by losing Tom, we know he will go on to lead American River College in a manner that is student focused,” Kindred Murillo, president of LTCC, told Lake Tahoe News.

Murillo said LTCC is working on a transition plan that should be in place by mid-May that will be for the short term and long term.

In addition to Greene’s job at the college, he has been the chair of the board for the Tahoe Prosperity Center for the past 18 months.

He will give up those responsibilities knowing Heidi Hill Drum has been hired as the executive director, that a $167,000 grant from the state Public Utilities Commission to fund a comprehensive assessment of broadband in the entire Lake Tahoe Basin is about to be awarded the TPC, and that the organization will be the leader in maintaining the commodities bank for tourist accommodation units and commercial floor area are in place.

Greene said the greatest outcome to date with the center is creating a model for how collaboration can work among those in the basin and beyond.

Publisher’s note: This editorial is from the May 17, 2014, Modesto Bee.

Water flows uphill … toward money. That’s as true now as it was the first time it was uttered by some now unknown cynic. Sen. Dianne Feinstein is proving it.

Our senior senator introduced a drought-relief bill in February that included $300 million for conservation and efficiency measures, aid to low-income farmworkers who are indisputably being harmed by the drought, new tools to help farmers weather this dry year and emergency projects to help ensure the safety of drinking water in poor San Joaquin Valley communities. These were noble goals, especially considering that no such provisions were included in the bill the House passed – which was nothing more than an old-fashioned water grab.

So it was disappointing when the $300 million for those efforts was stripped out of Feinstein’s bill in an effort to get support from Republican senators.

What didn’t get stripped out, though, were two provisions that will help those who are a great deal better off than farmworkers or thirsty kids in poor farming towns.

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