Join Best Barbeque Catering Co. and select Sierra foothill wineries this summer at one or more events featuring specialty BBQ food and wine pairings, with live entertainment. Story Winery is featured July 20.
All events are at the Grand Hall on the Tallac Site on the South Shore from 6-9pm.
Cost is $35 at the door.
Aug. 24 is Bella Grace Winery.
Sept. 21 is Mount Aukum Winery.
Various faiths are coming together to have a picnic in Carson City.
Christians (various denominations), Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Baha’is, and others will share food, music, games, prayers, a “Peace Cake” and more. The idea to find similarities between the diverse traditions.
The second annual Heal the World Interfaith Picnic of Nevada is July 31 from 1-5pm at Mills Park (Pavilions B and C) in Carson City.
Participants, who include clergy as well as congregations, are asked to help the less fortunate by donating food items to Friends in Service Helping. The picnic’s goal is to donate 1,000 food items.
Publisher’s note: This editorial is from the July 10, 2012, Reno Gazette-Journal.
As Jaycee Lee Dugard, the young girl kidnapped in South Lake Tahoe and held captive for nearly 20 years, promotes a memoir of her ordeal, a federal judge in San Francisco has admitted what was obvious to most observers: Federal agents failed in their duty to monitor the convicted sex offender to grabbed her off of the street, raped her and fathered her two children.
A report by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, released on Friday by Chief U.S. District Judge James Ware, should be a warning as the states and federal government look to save money by releasing more prisoners from overcrowded prisons.
“Had Mr. Garrido’s federal supervision been conducted properly from the onset,” Ware wrote, “it is possible that he may have been deterred from some of the acts now attributed to him.”
California officials already have admitted mistakes in their supervision of Garrido, who had been convicted of a particularly nasty attempted assault that started at Lake Tahoe and ended in a Reno storage unit when his intended victim escaped.
By Kathryn Reed
Reconfiguring the three sections of the Camp Richardson Campground, making the road leading to the Beacon Restaurant more efficient, reducing congestion in the area, and removing parking from dirt areas along Highway 89 are the major components of a multi-million dollar, multi-year project the U.S. Forest Service wants to undertake.
The federal agency is taking public comment on the 79-acre project until Aug. 8.
Campsites at Camp Rich are slated to be improved by the USFS. Photos/Kathryn Reed
But the homeowners on Jameson Beach Road are not happy with the proposal because some believe their needs are not being met. This is the road that goes from Highway 89 by the cabins to the Beacon and then turns right to the residences.
Daniel Cressy, who is in charge of the project for the Forest Service, said the last meeting regarding the Jameson Road issue was Thursday, but there is still uncertainty over who owns the road. He told Lake Tahoe News his agency is looking into the issue.
Jameson Beach Road residents are doing research, too.
At issue is whether the residents own the road or have an easement or right-of-way to use it to get to their property. The houses were there long before the Forest Service acquired the land in the 1960s. There also used to be another route to get to the houses, which the USFS has closed off. That was next to the general store.
Both sides agree congestion is horrible in that area.
Cressy said the proposal calls for having homeowners have an ID that would allow them to get home without enduring the backup at the parking kiosk. This would also entail widening the road to legally allow for cars to pass to the right.
A bike-pedestrian trail will be put in along Jameson Beach Road with easy access for people parking on the road so people and vehicles are not using the same strip of asphalt, as is the case now.
Four alternatives are being proposed in the environmental assessment. One is the standard to do nothing. Alternative 2 is the one the agency would like adopted.
With the campgrounds, all alternatives call for a reduction in sites from the 325 that are now available.
“As we redevelop the campsite to meet modern accessibility standards and vehicle radius turning, the campsites take more space (based on) how campsites are currently configured,” Cressy explained. “Now they are tucked in wherever they can fit.”
New bathrooms will be available this summer.
Alternative 2 calls for 253 campsites. Up to 170 of those would have sewer-water hook-ups. The majority would accommodate six people, with some designed for 12 and others for groups of 24.
Cressy said feedback from users reflects a changing demographic for camping – bigger groups, more RVs.
Moving the check-in for the campgrounds out of the main commercial area is designed to reduce congestion.
Work on the campgrounds could begin next summer. Without specific engineering and design work, it’s unknown today if this would take two seasons.
Instead of needing a four-wheel drive to pull into the campground, the road will be improved, defined routes (instead of driving through the forest), and identifiable spurs for campers will be installed.
To accomplish this and other components of the proposal about 1,000 trees are slated to be felled – with about 40 of those being more than 30-inches in diameter.
Cressy acknowledges this sounds like a lot, but said to make the campground function – which includes having a fire truck be able to come and go – trees need to come out. He also said the density of some areas makes this no different than a thinning project.
Millions of dollars in improvements are proposed by the USFS.
Having more transit stops and ones off the highway to allow the flow of traffic to continue are being proposed.
Restrooms are part of the project, too. Those are in addition to the two facilities that will be open later this summer. (They replace ones built in the 1960s.)
One will be by the beach to replace the port-a-potty near the cabins.
Funding initially will come from Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act money. Cressy roughly estimates about $2 million worth of work could take place in 2012, with another $1.5 million in work the following year.
The entire project could cost between $10 million and $15 million. Cressy stressed this is not a hard figure by any means. He also said funding for the project is not secured. Oftentimes dollars are not available until the environmental review is finished.
Once the public weighs-in, the agency assesses the comments to see if more work is needed. The forest supervisor has ultimate authority in signing off on the document.
Components of the proposed action plan that will affect the masses who use or drive through the Camp Rich area – which is about three miles north of the Y in South Lake Tahoe on Highway 89 – include eliminating the free parking in the dirt along the highway.
More defined parking areas on Jameson Beach Road will be installed.
With all of this will come better filtration of stormwater runoff to reduce sediment flowing into nearby Lake Tahoe.
Other parking areas will be built.
Congestion like this on July 9 may be reduced.
The bike trail that crosses Jameson Beach Road close to the highway will remain because it acts as a sidewalk as well. But cyclists will be directed to a new path that will go behind the general store on one side of the beach road and behind the lodge on the other side.
User-created trails in the Pope Marsh area will be decommissioned, with the most logical ones being revamped to encourage they be the only ones used.
The trail design is being worked on with the Forest Service employees who are involved in the larger bike-pedestrian plan being formulated for the area that goes to Fallen Leaf Lake Road. (That document is slated to be released in the fall for public review.)
The current document is online as well as at the USFS office at 35 College Drive, South Lake Tahoe. Questions may be directed to Cressy at (530) 544.2857 or dcressy@fs.fed.us.
By Martha Groves, Los Angeles Times
As 14-year-old Jaycee Dugard struggled in a crude backyard shed to deliver her baby daughter, the serial predator who had abducted and raped her stepped in to unwrap the umbilical cord that trapped the infant.
“She was beautiful,” Dugard said of the child she birthed three years into her captivity in Northern California. “I felt like I wasn’t alone anymore. I knew I could never let anything happen to her.”
ABC News' Diane Sawyer, left, speaks with Jaycee Lee Dugard in her first interview. Photo/Jill Belsley-ABC News
In an exclusive interview with Diane Sawyer broadcast Sunday on ABC, Dugard, displaying remarkable poise and smiling often, provided chilling details about the 18-year ordeal she endured at the hands of her captors, an increasingly deranged parolee named Phillip Garrido and his wife, Nancy, who aided the abduction and condoned his rapes.
Dugard’s memoir, “A Stolen Life,” to be released Tuesday, tells how the Garridos informed her she was pregnant when she was 13. At the time, she knew she was putting on weight and waddling, but she didn’t know why.
A naive, toothy-grinned blond when she was taken captive at age 11 in 1991, Dugard is now 31 with brown, shoulder-length hair and impossibly young skin — the result, she said, of years spent with little exposure to the sun. Around her neck she wears a pine cone on a chain.
A pine cone, she told Sawyer, was the last thing she grabbed after Phillip Garrido shocked her with a stun gun and Nancy Garrido dragged her into the car as she walked toward the school bus on the street in front of her South Lake Tahoe home.
The Animal Coalition of Tahoe has been working hard since the Mutt Strut in October — raising funds raffling several snowboards during the long winter, issuing more than 40 spay-neuter vouchers to bring the total in the past seven years to more than 1,500.
The next fundraiser (dinner and drinks) is July 19 from 6-9pm at the Flight Deck restaurant at the Lake Tahoe Airport.
A portion of the proceeds will benefit ACT’s spay-neuter program and the El Dorado County Animal Shelter. There will also be a raffle.
The Animal Coalition of Tahoe is an all-volunteer nonprofit organization that raises funds to help local residents spay and neuter their dogs and cats in an effort to reduce the population of unwanted pets. Ten percent of all funds raised go to the animal shelter in Meyers. Call (530) 400.4766 or email info@tahoeanimals.org for more information.
The South Lake Tahoe Police Department will be continuing its Neighborhood Traffic Enforcement Program for the next two weeks in the Tahoe Keys.
Last week officers concentrated their enforcement efforts in the Sierra Tract; with 41 traffic related traffic stops were made. Officers wrote three speeding citations, 11 stop sign violation citations, 11 citations for other violations, and 18 warnings. One motorcycle was impounded for the driver having a suspended license, no insurance, no registration and speeding.
Another violation that is often seen and not regularly enforced is bicycle traffic violations. Bicyclists must follow the same traffic laws as the driver of a motor vehicle, stop signs, stop lights, riding on the roadway in the same direction as traffic flows and not ride while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Anyone riding a bicycle under the age of 18 must also wear a helmet. The South Lake Tahoe Police Department has free bicycle helmets for our youth.
If anyone would like their street or neighborhood put on the enforcement list, call or email Sgt. Shannon Laney at (530) 542.6104 or slaney@cityofslt.us. Leave your name, number and a description of the problem in as much detail as possible and include times of days the problem is most prevalent.
The South Lake Tahoe Recreation Facilities Joint Powers Authority will continue its public hearing regarding the possibility of turning the 2000 voter approved Measure S into Measure R on July 13 at 1pm in the Creekside Room (near the cafeteria) at Lake Tahoe Community College.
Experience the energy of a drum circle, traditional dancing and the time-honored hand games at one of Nevada’s many American Indian cultural events this summer.
Nevada’s American Indian tribes work together to promote and market themselves through the Nevada Indian Territory, a nonprofit arm of the Nevada Commission on Tourism.
Here’s a look at some summer events:
July 22-24: Sacred Visions Powwow at Big Bend Ranch, 50 Big Bend Ranch Road in Wadsworth. To learn more, contact William Wadsworth at (775) 575.7063.
July 23-24: Wa She Shu It Deh arts festival at Tallac Historic Site on the South Shore.
July 29-31: Ely Shoshone Tribe Fandango at the Wappin do-Ya-Be Center, 250 Heritage Drive in Ely. For more information, call (775) 289.5373.
Aug. 26-28: Spirit of Wovoka Days at the Joe Parr Sports Complex in Yerington.
By Elizabeth Maimon
A favorite summer pastime for many of us is relaxing by a pool or a lake while unwinding from the day or — better yet — even spending the whole day poolside blissfully relaxed. If your dog is in tow, however, it is essential to stay alert.
Contrary to popular belief, not all dogs enjoy swimming or can swim particularly well. If it seems like your dog does not want to swim, it is important not to force him. If your dog falls in and appears to be struggling, offer a net or an object to help rescue him. Jumping in after him is seldom a good idea. In fact, a safety vest such the canine flotation device, is designed to keep your pet afloat in the water. These vests are adjustable and designed to fit around your pet’s chest. Having a ramp installed in the pool or around the dock may also help your pet exit the water without struggling.
If your furry family member is an avid swimmer who enjoys a refreshing dip, it is important for you and your children to swim at a safe distance to avoid getting scratched or pulled under while swimming. Children who swim alongside one’s dog should always wear a life jacket.
Watch for water-related problems such as ear infections, a dull, dry coat and signs of dehydration. Dehydration can occur quickly — an easy way to check that your dog is not dehydrated is to lift your dog’s lips and look for bright pink and moist gums.
Outdoor exposure to water can change your dog’s vaccination needs. Know your dog’s travel history, disease exposure, age, breed and health status to tailor a vaccination protocol. Pets can contract several contagious water-borne illnesses and intestinal parasites such as Giardia from exposure to outdoor untreated water. For example, leptospirosis, a highly contagious water-borne illness, is preventable through annual inoculations.
Leptospirosis is especially dangerous because of its zoonotic (spreadable from animal to human) potential to people. Animals and people can experience a high fever, liver and kidney diseases, and vomiting and diarrhea.
Also, excessive ingestion of heavily chlorinated pool water, saltwater or stagnant lake water can result in vomiting and diarrhea. You might consider bringing plenty of fresh filtered or bottled water to the pool or lake to avoid intentional ingestion of these and other potentially harmful agents.
Be sure always to have plenty of fresh water available at all times to all pets in the home, year-round. Provide plenty of shade and a cool, dry shelter from the heat and the elements. To avoid burned footpads and heat exhaustion, exercise your pets during the early morning and at dusk when the pavement is cooler and heatstroke is less likely.
When in doubt about future outdoor activity and travel, contact your local veterinary team for additional health, safety and travel tips.
Elizabeth Maimon is veterinarian with a master’s in public health.