Placer County will have a town hall meeting in Kings Beach on Oct. 25 to kick off the process for updating its long-range plans for North Lake Tahoe.

The meeting starts at 6pm at the North Tahoe Event Center, 8318 North Lake Blvd., Kings Beach.

Placer County has nine community plans for the Tahoe basin. Most are joint planning documents developed about 20 years ago by the county and the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.

TRPA is in the process of updating its Regional Plan, and all community plans within the Lake Tahoe Basin must be consistent with that plan.

Placer County intends to consolidate the nine plans into a single policy document with four planning areas. Each planning area will have its own distinct zoning ordinance and community-specific design guideline standards.

The planning areas are:

* North Tahoe east, which covers Kings Beach and the state line community;

* Greater Tahoe City, which includes Tahoe City, Tahoe City Gateway, Lake Forest, and Dollar Hill;

* North Tahoe west, including Carnelian Bay and Tahoe Vista; and

* West Shore, which includes Sunnyside, Homewood and Tahoma.

The county’s update process involves the Placer County Community Development Resource Agency, Placer County Redevelopment Agency and TRPA.

For more information about the town hall meeting and community plan update process, contact Supervising Planner Crystal Jacobsen at (530) 745.3085 or cjacobse@placer.ca.gov.

UC Davis Native Demonstration Garden organizers are looking for people to help weed, clean, and plant in the native demonstration garden.

The event is Oct. 4 from 9am-2pm at the UC Davis Tahoe City Field Station, 2400 Lake Forest Road, Tahoe City.

Bring work gloves, hat, lunch, sunscreen and water.

For additional information, contact Katie Merrill at klmerrill@ucdavis.edu or (775) 881.7560, ext. 7483.

Allison Steinmetz with Barton Internal Medicine, will talk about women’s health issues Oct. 26 from 6:30-7:30pm at Lake Tahoe Community College, 1 College Drive, South Lake Tahoe.

Steinmetz will discuss perimenopause, which is the process of change that leads up to menopause. She also will provide the different remedy options, both natural and hormonal for menopause which is a natural part of growing older for women.

For more information, call (530) 543.5656.

By Kathryn Reed

A man wanted in Canada on child molestation charges was arrested today in South Lake Tahoe.

James William Robertson, 71, has been living at Lakeland Village for the past year. Officers could not pick him up sooner because of a “series of issues which occurred on the other side of the border,” Police Chief Brian Uhler told Lake Tahoe News.

James William Robertson

SLTPD has been working with the Royal Mounted Canadian Police, U.S. Marshals Service, and the U.S. Department of Justice in expediting the extradition process.

Even though there was a warrant out for his arrest, Robertson, who is an attorney, was not stopped at the border because he is a dual citizen. Having a U.S. passport sent him into this country without any questions asked.

Robertson served a five-year term in a Canada prison for crimes involving children that included indecent assault, common assault and sexual assault.

He was released in 2010 with specific reporting conditions. The warrant was for allegedly not meeting the conditions of his release.

Because the conviction was in another country Robertson did not have to follow the sex registry laws of California that would have allowed officers to notify people of his presence and possibly arrest him for not registering.

While surveillance of all his whereabouts was not implemented, Uhler said officers did keep tabs on Robertson.

The El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office is looking into taking action to have Robertson’s attorney’s license revoked.

U.S. marshals took Robertson to Sacramento where he awaits extradition to Canada.

The 7th annual Truckee Pink Party Fundraiser coined “The Best Pre-Halloween Costume Party” in town is hosted by Tahoe Forest Health System Foundation to raise money for local breast cancer patients.

Festivities start at 6:30pm Oct. 21 at Bar of America, Pacific Crest in Old Town Truckee.

Through the years a major highlight of the Truckee Pink Party is the outrageously wild pink costumes guests sport in honor of their support for local breast cancer patients and programs. Costume creativity is judged. Prizes are given to the best male and female contestants, assuming judges can tell them apart.

Tickets for the Pink Party cost $25 per person in advance and $35 at the door. To purchase a ticket in advance, go online or call (530) 582.6277. Cost includes one free drink (beer or wine), light appetizers and live music by Truckee’s Emily Tessmer Band. The evening also includes live and silent auctions.

By Thomas Frank, USA Today

At age 55, South Carolina state Sen. David Thomas began collecting a pension for his legislative service without leaving office.

Most workers must retire from their jobs before getting retirement benefits. But Thomas used a one-sentence law that he and his colleagues passed in 2002 to let legislators receive a taxpayer-funded pension instead of a salary after serving for 30 years.

Thomas’ $32,390 annual retirement benefit — paid for the rest of his life — is more than triple the $10,400 salary he gave up. His pension exceeds the salary because of another perk: Lawmakers voted to count their expenses in the salary used to calculate their pensions.

No other South Carolina state workers get those perks.

Since January 2005, Thomas, a Republican, has made $148,435 more than a legislative salary would have paid, his financial-disclosure records show. At least four other South Carolina lawmakers are getting pensions instead of salaries, netting an extra $292,000 since 2005, records show.

Pension perks aren’t unique to legislators in South Carolina.

More than 4,100 legislators in 33 states are positioned to benefit from special retirement laws that they and their predecessors have enacted to boost their pensions by up to $100,000 a year, a USA TODAY investigation found. Even as legislators cut basic state services and slash benefits for police, teachers and other workers, they have preserved pension laws that grant themselves perks unavailable to voters they serve or workers they direct.

Read the whole story

UC Davis Native Demonstration Garden organizers are looking for people to help weed, clean, and plant in the native demonstration garden.

The event is Oct. 4 from 9am-2pm at the UC Davis Tahoe City Field Station, 2400 Lake Forest Road, Tahoe City.

Bring work gloves, hat, lunch, sunscreen and water.

For additional information, contact Katie Merrill at klmerrill@ucdavis.edu or (775) 881.7560, ext. 7483.

By Christopher Dickey, Newsweek

Paul Stockton, the Pentagon’s point man for security in the homeland, plans for the kind of apocalyptic events that could forever change the lives of millions of Americans. Assistant Secretary of Defense Stockton, a lifelong academic who speaks passionate jargon, calls them “complex catastrophes” with “cascading effects,” and, like Sept. 11, 2001, these new tragedies could have gut–wrenching social and political consequences. Yet the horrors he’s preparing for are far bigger than 9/11: tens of thousands of people killed, the economy devastated, national security gravely compromised. And the terrorist who will be responsible for these atrocities is Mother Nature. Stockton’s yardstick for cataclysms is not “worse than 9/11,” it is “disasters even more severe than Hurricane Katrina.”

Hail in South Lake Tahoe in July 2010. Photo/LTN file

They’re coming. Of that, Stockton and other disaster-management specialists have little doubt. Last month the East Coast suffered the psychological shock of a relatively small earthquake and what turned out to be a pretty weak hurricane after some pretty strong hype. “Apocalypse Not,” headlined the New York Post. New York City “dodged a bullet,” as Mayor Michael Bloomberg put it. But New Jersey, upstate New York, and several states in New England didn’t. In Connecticut alone, a record 650,000 households lost power, many of them for several days. In Vermont, food had to be airlifted to towns cut off by flooding. All told, Hurricane Irene killed 43 people in the United States, and estimates of the damage range up to $20 billion.

That’s just a little taste of things to come. Whatever the cause—greenhouse gases, natural warming, or both—-rising temperatures and sea levels already are breeding bigger, more intense hurricanes and more dangerous storm surges. Former vice president Al Gore, the teller of so many inconvenient truths about climate change, says it is “absolutely” a national-security issue. “We can expect continued increases in the frequency and severity of extreme floods, droughts, wildfires, storms and other events,” he says. “We need to begin the process now of preparing for the disasters that are to come.”

According to Gore, “some scientists are considering adding a Category 6 classification to the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, which uses wind speed to measure hurricane intensity.” (Irene hit the Northeast as a low-grade Category 1 and then was downgraded to a tropical storm; Katrina hit New Orleans as a Category 3. A Category 5 hurricane has sustained winds greater than 155 miles per hour; Category 6 would be upwards of 175 or 180mph.) And each notch on that scale means an exponential increase in destructive power.

Read the whole story

Unity at the Lake hosts contemporary eclectic-Celtic-classical-pop-world music singer-songwriter and composer Chris Waltz as guest speaker to share an inspiring talk and music during the Oct. 9 celebration service at 10am.

Using voice, nylon and steel string guitars, mandolin, Irish flutes and whistles, Waltz brings to life the melodic language of each tradition. With his powerful yet gentle voice, each song is finely crafted so the audience can experience the passion and emotion behind each turn of the melody.

The event is at the South Lake Tahoe Senior Center, 3050 Lake Tahoe Blvd. For more information, call (530) 544.2266.

The 33rd annual Freakers Ball at the Opal Ultra Lounge, Blu Nightclub, and MontBleu Convention Center in Stateline is Oct. 29 at 8pm.

Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 that day; plus tax and fees.