Award winning bronze artist June Towill Brown of J.T. Brown Sculptures will present an educational tour of her sculpting career that “started over a glass of wine” during the North Tahoe Women’s Club monthly meeting on May 16.

Women who live in the Reno/Lake Tahoe region are welcome to attend this luncheon at the Incline Village Community Hospital’s Community Meeting Room.

Tickets are $17 and the price includes a catered lunch and presentation.

The event starts at noon and generally concludes about 1:30pm. Seating is limited and advance reservations are suggested by May 12; contact Florine Kubel at (775) 831.9235.

By Jon Ortiz, Sacramento Bee

Battle lines sharpened Thursday over California’s public pensions with the release of a new report that concludes pay and benefit packages for public workers are better than those for their counterparts in the private sector.

Commissioned by pension overhaul advocates poised to seek changes, the report drew immediate fire from public employee unions, which have muscled up to fight the emerging pension wars.

The two-part study, released by the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, also cautions that public pension obligations threaten to crowd out money for public services.

The foundation, headed by longtime pension change advocate Marcia Fritz, has proposed several pension cost-cutting ideas, including a cap on pension payouts, higher employee contributions and higher retiree health premiums. The proposals would affect both current workers and future hires.

While Fritz has yet to offer the changes for potential voter consideration, former Fair Oaks Assemblyman Roger Niello has submitted an initiative, and another group, California Pension Reform, expects to have its own plan for the ballot.

Capitol Matrix Consulting, the Sacramento-based firm that researched the study for Fritz, estimated the impact of those proposals on various employees, based on length of service and whether they are safety or miscellaneous workers. Nearly every scenario envisions deep cuts to employee benefits and employer costs.

Read the whole story

Habitat for Humanity “A Brush with Kindness” is having a volunteer informative meeting May 17 at 6:30pm at Hope Lutheran Church, 930 Julie Lane, South Lake Tahoe.

A Brush with Kindness is a nationwide program serving low-income homeowners to maintain the exterior of their home to include exterior painting, minor repairs, and landscaping.

For more information, call Carolyn at (530) 541.4654 or email sltatahoehabitat@gmail.com for more info.

Nurses Trusted to Care is this year’s theme as hospitals and health care facilities recognize nurses across the nation for their hard work and dedication during National Nurses Week, May 6-12.

“Modern nurses of today are both men and women of different ethnic groups and portray courage, hope, service and are committed to making a difference in the lives of others,” Mary Bittner, Barton chief nursing officer, said in a statement. “Nurses are by the patient’s bedside most of the time and the patient relies on them [nurses] to be their advocate, caretaker, and sometimes even their confidant.”

Barton Health is recognizing the 150 nurses who devote their time to various areas throughout the health care system. These nurses serve Lake Tahoe, Carson Valley and beyond in areas of emergency and urgent care, ski clinics, family practice, internal medicine, general surgery, pediatrics, medical imaging, rehabilitation, sports medicine and other medical services to name a few.

By Susan Voyles, Reno Gazette-Journal

Stone Mother, a well-known tufa rock formation at Pyramid Lake, created the lake with her tears, according to ancient Paiute legends.

Now she’s weeping again. Graffiti vandals have left their marks in spray paint on nearby tufa rocks. Broken glass from past drinking parties sparkles in the sunlight.

Sick of the desecration, the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribal Council has closed to the general public the area near Stone Mother and the nearby Pyramid Rock island to motorists as well as boaters on the east side of the lake.

It was not an easy decision, as the tribe depends on permits from more than 150,000 visitors a year who come to the reservation, said Scott Carey, tribal planner. The namesake Pyramid Rock, as well as Stone Mother, also known as the Woman with a Basket, are popular attractions.

The ban on visitors will be enforced while Paiutes find solutions to prevent additional vandalism and promote responsible use of the sacred area, Paiute Chairman Wayne Burke has said.

Read the whole story

Mormon Emigrant Trail, once touted as an alternate route while Echo Summit is closed, won’t be an option.

With about 10-feet of snow covering it, according to the U.S. Forest Service, it may not see traffic until mid-June.

The trail goes between Sly Park and Highway 88.

Highway 50 will be closed across Echo Summit starting May 11 for 10-14 days, with about six weeks of controlled traffic after that while the rock wall is replace.

This website describes the alternate routes.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

As members of the South Lake Tahoe Police Department were responding to the usual calls for service on Cinco de Mayo, the Corado family was enjoying a quiet night at home. Their two worlds were about to collide in a chaotic, but positive way.

Maria Ortiz-Corado, nine months pregnant, was 10 days from her due date when she went into labor. This was not her first child so she did not panic. Her husband, Jonatan Corado, called a taxi to take them to Barton Memorial Hospital. The couple waited at the bus stop at the corner of Pioneer Trail and Aspenwald for the cab to arrive. The baby, however, did not wait.

South Tahoe's newest resident gets a police escort to hospital. Photo/Provided

At about 12:28am Thursday, police dispatchers Jill Broadfoot and Linda Clark received a frantic phone call reporting a baby was being born at the bus stop. The dispatchers began coaching the caller through the birthing process, while simultaneously dispatching fire department medics and police officers to the scene. Officers Chris Webber, Angie Kallstrom, and Sgt. Brad Williams all responded. The Corados’ son, David, was born just as Webber arrived.

Kallstrom and Williams helped provide comfort to the new family until medics arrived to transport the family to the hospital via ambulance. Mother and son were a bit cold, but otherwise healthy.

• There is a blood drive June 6 from 11am-6pm at the South Lake Tahoe branch library.

• Just how much money did Lake Tahoe Community College spend on the Winter Expo, aka rail jam, earlier this year? Lake Tahoe News asked, but months later still hasn’t heard. The spokeswoman said the event is all about providing events for students and the community, even if it means operating at a loss.

• The public is invited to attend the interviews of the four Lake Tahoe Community College president candidates at 9am May 11 and May 12. The board of education will interview them in closed session those afternoons, do a site visit the following week, and ideally have someone hired by the end of the month.

• Marvin Child reeled in a record 36-inch, 15-pound, 15-ounce brown trout at Rubicon Point on the West Shore. He was fishing with guide Mike Nielsen.

• The Tahoe Vista Recreation Area courtesy docks project is complete. This project was funded by a grant from the California Department of Boating and Waterways.

• An intensive summer Spanish academy is being offered in South Lake Tahoe. Check out the flyer for information.

By Kathryn Reed

South Lake Tahoe has spent more than three quarters of a million dollars on a document that on Tuesday the League to Save Lake Tahoe all but said it would file a lawsuit against if the city approves it.

The controversy surrounding the General Plan update has to do with it not complying with the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency’s Regional Plan.

The goal was never to have it comply.

The idea when the $877,605 contract with Mintier Harnish was signed in August 2007 was the consultant would devise a document that was forward thinking and be done while TRPA updated the Regional Plan.

Then City Manager Dave Jinkens was a strong advocate for the city being able to control its destiny, put in writing what it wanted to do, and to have influence on the updated Regional Plan.

But that Regional Plan update got sidetracked and isn’t expected to come before the TRPA Governing Board until December 2012 at the earliest.

In the meantime, the city has a document that it is ready to have the council approve. It says which parts don’t comply with the Regional Plan and that projects wanting to do something in that section would not be able to without TRPA approval. Much of this has to do with height and density regulations.

Michael Lozeau, attorney for the League, and the council engaged in an unusual back-and-forth dialogue May 3 during the City Council meeting.

“I’m not trying to antagonize you. I’m trying to slow you down,” Lozeau said. This was long after he told the council it needed a “much more legally defensible document.”

The reason the city wants to go forward is that a current General Plan (the last one was updated in 1999) would allow the Tahoe Valley Community Plan to move forward. A community plan is needed in order for the two South Lake Tahoe projects (Raley’s at the Y and Mikasa) in the TRPA’s Community Enhancement Program to go forward. An extension to the CEP was granted, but those projects will need to show progress in early 2012 to stay viable.

The council on Tuesday was supposed to have a workshop on the General Plan, but they were too tired at 4pm to keep going with the agenda. For now, the plan is have the workshop as the first item of the open session May 17, which starts at 9am, with a vote likely to take place that day. Another public hearing will be conducted.

It was standing room only for the inaugural book launch for Bona Fide Books, the only small press operating on the South Shore.

The Meyers-base publishing house came out with “Permanent Vacation” on May 4. It’s a collection of 20 stories from people who have worked in a national park in the West. Publisher Kim Wyatt whittled the 200 submissions to 20 that stretch from Alaska to the California.

Publisher Kim Wyatt speaks about "Permanent Vacation" at LTCC May 4. Photo/Kathryn Reed

With more than 70 people, some who had to stand, it was a night about writers, about literature, about the written word. The May 4 event was part of the Writers Series at Lake Tahoe Community College.

Two of the authors read passages from their entries. Janet Smith, an instructor at LTCC, captured that teenage angst and wanderlust spirit that led her to be a maid at Yosemite National Park at age 18.

Tahoe City’s Joseph Flannery makes Tahoe’s black bears seem like house pets compared to the grizzlies he encountered while working in Yellowstone National Park.

Wyatt, publisher of Bona Fide, said her goal is to publish three to five books a year, offer classes through the Tahoe Center for Writers, and to create a literary center for the Lake Tahoe Basin.

— Kathryn Reed