To the community,

On behalf of V-Day South Lake Tahoe and Dolphin anti-rape and AIDS prevention, thank you to BioSpirit and Elevate Wellness for donating their space and energy to raise $750 for Dolphin’s self-defense workshops.

Seven local massage therapists donated their time on Nov. 12-13 for Community Massage Days. One hundred percent of this money will go to provide life-saving self-defense education to girls and women in Kenya.

Great work, South Lake Tahoe.

Julie Lowe, V-Day South Lake Tahoe

A celebration of life for Dennis Oliver will be Nov. 30 at 5:30pm at the Tahoe Biltmore Hotel in Crystal Bay.

For more information, email jcowen@trpa.org.

A New York native has been hired to run the day-to-day operations of Northstar-at-Tahoe.

Bill Rock, 42, is leaving his post as president and chief operations officer at Showshoe Mountain Resort in West Virginia to be COO of the Truckee resort that was just acquired by Vail Resorts. Showshoe is an Intrawest property.

Bill Rock

At Northstar, Rock has a much bigger mountain to contend with – 3,000 skiable acres compared to 224, a 2,280 vertical drop v. 1,500 feet, 93 trails – a 50 percent increase.

Rock has been at the helm of the East Coast resort since 2007, having been vice president and general manager before that.

“Bill led a restructuring of operations to achieve major cost savings, while improving measures of guest satisfaction in key categories,” the Intrawest website says.

He has a background in sales and marketing. He has also worked at Durango Mountain Resort in Colorado, Stratton Mountain Resort in Vermont and Bristol Mountain Resort in New York.

Before joining the ski industry 14 years ago, Rock was a lieutenant in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. Rock and his wife have 3-year-old twins.

Rock will report to Blaise Carrig, co-president of Vail Resorts’ Mountain Division.

— Kathryn Reed

The Lahontan Regional Water Quality Board unanimously approved the amendment to the Total Daily Maximum Load rules.

The state board met Nov. 16 at Lake Tahoe Community College.

Board members commended staff, said they are eager to work with partners in the basin, and that the regulations are needed to ensure Lake Tahoe’s clarity.

It was also said that as new science is introduced, the document would be revisited to ensure it is current.

More information about the TMDL is on Lahontan’s website.

— Kathryn Reed

By Robert J. Hawkins, San Diego Union Tribune

SAN DIEGO — John Tyner won’t be pheasant hunting in South Dakota with his father-in-law any time soon.

Tyner was simultaneously thrown out of San Diego International Airport on Saturday morning for refusing to submit to a security check and threatened with a lawsuit and $10,000 fine if he left.

And he got the whole thing on his cell phone. Well, the audio at least.

The 31-year-old Oceanside software programmer was supposed to leave from Lindbergh Field on Saturday morning and until a TSA agent directed him toward one of the recently installed full-body scanners, Tyner seemed to be on his way.

Tyner balked.

Read the whole story

Snowshoe Cocktail Races at the Beacon Bar & Grill at Camp Richardson are Dec. 17, Jan. 21, Feb. 12, March 18. Races begin at 7pm.

Wanderlust California at Squaw Valley from July 28-31.

For more info, click here.

Champagne brunch and fashion show on Dec. 5 at 11am is part of annual Festival of Trees and Lights put on by the Barton Foundation.

The event is at MontBleu in Stateline. Proceeds from the $35 tickets benefit the Barton Community Clinic.

For more information, go to www.festivaloftreeslaketahoe.org or call (530) 543.5909.

By Kathryn Reed

“If there had not been the pressure to award the contract, I may have recommended at the August 3 meeting to continue the decision to August 17, to further review the last minute submittal by Clark & Sullivan [and perhaps had their attorney appear at the hearing to make his case].”

That is what South Lake Tahoe City Attorney Patrick Enright wrote to the City Council in a five-page memo dated Nov. 10. It has also been given to the three incoming councilmembers despite the entire Nov. 2 ballot not being certified.

Patrick Enright

After a 50-minute closed session hearing Nov. 16 there was no reportable action. However, the participants all looked haggard when it was over.

As for the pressure, with the meeting being in closed session, the details are not public. But the vote in August came at former City Manager Dave Jinken’s last meeting and this has been a pet project of Mayor Kathay Lovell’s, whose term ends in less than a month.

City engineer Jim Marino and Enright were asked to defend last summer’s recommendations to the council regarding awarding the bid to Reeve-Knight for the nearly $6 million Lakeview Commons project at El Dorado Beach.

It’s a serious concern because a competing contractor, Clark & Sullivan, sued the city and won – meaning the judge tossed out the bid and the city must start over. The legal brouhaha has added another nearly half million dollars to the project.

Although no one lost their job or was reprimanded Tuesday, that isn’t necessarily going to remain that way. A new council will be seated Dec. 14. Getting the item on the agenda worded correctly for closed session will be the key. That oversight precluded such a vote from taking place Tuesday.

Enright in his memo defends his legal opinion and advice to the council.

Enright plans to have on the Dec. 14 agenda for open session the rescinding of the contract with Reeve-Knight – which based on the judge’s decision is just a formality. The council – this would be the new one – will also consider Clark & Sullivan’s bid. The council could also reject all bids.

Patrick Markham, Clark & Sullivan’s attorney, was at the council meeting Nov. 16 telling the council his client is the responsive low bidder and should be awarded the bid. He anticipates resuming work May 1 and being done by October.

“With no urgency to award the Project immediately, my recommendation will probably be to rebid the Project …,” Enright said in the memo. Ultimately, it’s up to the council to decide which direction to go – rebid the whole thing or award the project to Clark & Sullivan.

By Ed Fletcher, Sacramento Bee

Barrett Burghart can’t cast thunderbolts or heal the Earth and doesn’t wear a frilly dress. But he does play Mother Nature.

Where nature leaves off, Burghart and his staff fill in the gap, blanketing Heavenly Ski Resort with acres of man-made snow.

Boasting the largest snow-making operation on the West Coast, Heavenly’s staff says it can cover a football field with 8 feet of snow in three hours.

Heveanly fired up its snowmaking guns in October. Photo/Heavenly

With less than one week to go before the resort is scheduled to open, this is crunch time. Three shifts of snow-makers work — weather permitting — using more than 100 emitters, or “guns,” to turn million of gallons of water into snow.

Burghart and his team can create mountains — of snow — but they can’t do it without help from nature. Air and water are pushed through water cannons and when the ambient temperature is cold enough, the water freezes and gently falls as snow. When it is too warm, the operation shuts down. The recent cold weather has allowed snow-making to continue around the clock.

Snow-making used to be seen as a luxury for West Coast ski resorts, but it has become essential as resorts try to open earlier and stay open during drought years.

Buoyed by more than a foot of natural snow at higher elevations, Boreal Mountain Resort and Mammoth are already open. Heavenly is planning a Friday opening. The next day, both Squaw Valley USA and Northstar-at-Tahoe are opening.

Read the whole story