To the community,

Please support Dr. Scott Forvilly for Douglas County School board trustee. Dr. Forvilly is a lifelong resident of Douglas County and attended lake schools. Dr. Forvilly lives in the Carson Valley and has two children who attend valley schools. He also operates businesses at the lake and in the valley. It is critical that we elect someone who will represent the entire school district.

Unlike his opponent, Dr. Forvilly understands the needs and challenges of running small schools at the lake, while also dealing with the demands of operating large schools in the valley. He realizes that the policy set for a large school may be different then what is needed for a small school. He knows that one size does not fit all.

After dealing with the embarrassing circus that the current board created when trying to hire a new superintendent, it is clear that change is needed on the school board. Electing someone who has deep roots in the community, runs a successful small business, and has young children attending county schools would be a great start. Please vote for Scott Forvilly on Nov. 2.

Kristy Kjer, Stateline

By Chris Macias, Sacramento Bee

If you’re rooting for the San Francisco Giants as the World Series kicks off today, there’s one wine you should keep by your side. Tip your cap and take a sip from Bumgarner Wines.

OK, so the winery owners aren’t related to Madison Bumgarner, the Giants lefty who pitched two scoreless innings Saturday to help San Francisco become National League champions. But the name “Bumgarner” on any bottle is pretty much a must for any Giants fan with a thirst for wine.

“It’s a question I’ve been getting asked a lot lately,” said winemaker Brian Bumgarner about the possible tie to the Giants pitcher. “It’s definitely exciting and interesting that the Giants are in the World Series. I’ll be rooting for them.”

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• Military veterans and those on active duty can eat free at Applebee’s on Nov. 11. You must provide proof of service. For more information, go online.

• Mammoth is installing landing pads at its terrain parks.

• On Nov. 10 the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Advisory Planning Commission is scheduled to have a public hearing regarding the final EIS for the Boulder Bay Community Enhancement Program project. The meeting at the Stateline office is set to begin at 9:30am.

• Alpine Meadows Ski Resort and Homewood Mountain Resort have named Kevin Mitchell regional director of snow sports and resort services.

• Fred Findlen has been named general manager at the Hyatt in Incline.

• South Lake Tahoe City Council is scheduled to have a public hearing on the General Plan on Nov. 2. Meeting starts at 9am at Lake Tahoe Airport.

• Women undergoing chemo may receive monthly house cleaning free for four months through Cleaning for a Reason. For more information, visit the website.

• Tahoe Tot Spot is having a Halloween bash. Click on flyer for the details.

By Kathryn Reed

After interviewing four teams, the Lake Tahoe Community College board picked Professional Personnel Leasing Inc. to find candidates to be president of the two-year institution.

Carl Ehmann and Robert Griffin spoke a bit at the Oct. 26 meeting; both saying LTCC is an easy sell to potential applicants. It goes beyond being located in South Lake Tahoe. It’s the stability of the board, the way groups on campus interact, student life, and learning objectives.

For the $24,000 the Marin County firm will be paid, the team will also structure a transition process between interim President Steve Maradian and whomever is hired as the fourth full-time president of the 30-plus-year-old institution.

The representatives said the college being in the throes of the accreditation process should not have a bearing on the search.

A committee representing various segments of the campus will be selected at the Nov. 9 meeting to help create the blueprint for what the next president will look like in terms of credentials.

The plan is about a dozen candidates would be interviewed in the spring – coming to town at their expense – then narrowing it to five finalists. Those five would likely be brought back with expenses partly paid for by the college.

The next president could be on board in May or June to allow for a transition.

The vacancy was created when Paul Killpatrick left this past summer after not fulfilling his three-year contract.

2010 is turning out to be the year of the education documentary. This summer, no fewer than four documentaries, most of them independently produced, were released. All present various perspectives on the current state of U.S. education. School reform has become compelling drama and the media attention surrounding these films and others has helped spark a national debate.

To give this important issue the platform it deserves, Sierra Nevada College’s Teacher Education Department has collaborated with Lake Tahoe School Parents Association to present the 2010-11 “Discussions on Education Series.”

During the next few months, the series will present “The Race to Nowhere,” “Two Million Minutes,” “Do Schools Kill Creativity,” and “Bring on the Learning Revolution” on the SNC campus, Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences, rooms 139/141, Incline.

The first film “Race to Nowhere” will be screened Nov. 4 at 6:30pm.

The series will explore depictions of the American school system from provocative, at times opposing, perspectives with the intent to start and support an on-going dialogue among the audience; and to seek answers, discussion, and understanding from a variety of points of view. The premise of the SNC/LTS discussion series is that the documentaries are the start of the conversation and not the end.

Facilitators from both schools will lead post-film discussions designed to create positive dialogue about the challenges facing education reform in the U.S.

All events are free and open to the public. Seating is limited.

For more information, contact Katrina Midgley, Teacher Education Department, at (775) 831.1314, ext. 7517, kmidgley@sierranevada.edu, or Mary Danahey at marydanahey@gmail.com.

Upcoming discussions:

Jan. 13: “Two Million Minutes” is a groundbreaking, controversial documentary film about how students in the United States allocate their high school years (approximately four years or 2 million minutes) compared with India and China. www.2mminutes.com/films

March: “Do Schools Kill Creativity” and “Bring on the Learning Revolution” are two TEDTalks lectures by visionary leader/author Sir Ken Robinson in which he challenges the education system to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence. http://www.ted.com/speakers/sir_ken_robinson.html.

Best-selling author Terry Walters, whose bestselling first book “Clean Food” fueled a nationwide “clean” movement, will teach Reno how simple and uncomplicated it is to eat cleaner and add more whole foods to their lives.

Her new book “Clean Start” (Sterling Epicure, November 2010) is designed to be an all-you’ll-ever-need guide for a healthy and sustainable approach to eating and living well.

She will be at Whole Foods in Reno on Nov. 12 at 7pm.

Walters believes “clean food” is whole, minimally processed and close to the source for maximum nutrition. “Clean Start” features easy guidelines and recipes for getting the most nutritional value and taste, while minimizing waste.

By Catey Hill, SmartMoney

All the charm of Asheville, but with cheaper housing. The recreation of Boulder, without the income tax. The sunshine of Sedona, with a lower cost of living. With today’s would-be retirees as concerned about whether they’ll get to retire as they are about where, the best cities and towns for retirees now have a much higher bar to clear: They can’t just be great places – they have to be affordable.

That leaves most of the old standbys off the list. As boomers have gotten older, they’ve flocked to places like Sarasota, Fla., Pinehurst, N.C., and Eugene, Ore., driving up prices along the way. Two decades ago, Asheville was a tiny, affordable North Carolina town; in the last two decades, since the North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement was established, the population’s grown 24%, and the cost of living is now higher than the national average, according the Council for Community and Economic Research. But the real story is in the meteoric rise of real estate prices in retiree-friendly markets: Despite the national housing collapse, prices in Boulder, Colo., have risen 10% in the last four years, according to Zillow.com, while other cities, like Madison, Wis., have suffered very small declines. As a result, many of those spots are prohibitively expensive, even after prices have fallen.

Meanwhile, nest eggs have shrunk, and retiree incomes are stagnating. Social Security benefits didn’t rise in 2010, nor will they in 2011. Benchmark Treasury bond yields are at their lowest since January 2009, and certificates of deposit are earning almost nothing – at 0.55% interest, a one-year $10,000 CD would earn just $55. Forget what the Social Security Administration says: For anyone looking to make their savings last, cost of living does matter.

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Publisher’s note: The following editorial is from the Oct. 24, 2010, Reno Gazette-Journal.

By all rights, the most important decision facing Nevadans on Nov. 2 is who will be the state’s next governor.

The governor, after all, can have a direct impact on the daily lives of all residents of the state. He — the candidates all are men — will play a major role in determining the future direction of a state that has been hit harder than any other by the economic downturn, with the highest unemployment and the highest foreclosure rate.

Yet the gubernatorial contest has played second fiddle in recent months to the ugly campaign between Democratic Sen. Harry Reid and his Republican challenger, Sharron Angle, for the right to represent the state in Washington, D.C.

As the Democratic candidate for governor, Clark County Commission Chairman Rory Reid, says, the Senate race, featuring his father, has sucked most of the oxygen out of the gubernatorial campaign.

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Tangled Roots Writing is hosting a series of creative writing workshops in downtown Truckee this fall.

Each workshop is different:

Oct. 30 10am–1pm “Inspiration”

Nov. 13 1-4 pm “Feedback”

Dec. 11th 10am–1pm “Publishing”

Connect with a writing community, generate new material, work on a piece in progress, play with language and meaning, and develop a writing practice in a supportive creative environment.

Cost is $35 per day or $30 each for two or more sessions.

Contact Karen Terrey at (530) 386.3901 or tangledrootswriting@gmail.com for more information.

By Kathryn Reed

The man who oversees the department that accounts for the largest expense on El Dorado County’s ledger will face his five bosses Monday.

Sheriff Fred Kollar isn’t planning to go into the Board of Supervisors room with guns drawn, but he also isn’t about roll over and play dead even though he’ll be retiring when the next sheriff takes office in January.

Fred Kollar

To close the $11 million deficit for fiscal year 2011-12 that begins July 1, the county wants to make half the cuts by the end of the year and the next $5.5 million in the first two months of 2011.

The Chief Administrative Office is proposing a 2.7 percent across the board cut for law and justice that would total $1.6 million. The sheriff’s department would lose $1.13 million, probation $264,725, district attorney $152,056, and public defender $74,388.

“The 2.7 percent is somewhat deceptive,” Kollar told Lake Tahoe News. “Through early retirement we are going to eliminate 15 positions, which exceeds $1.5 million, so really it is almost 6 percent.”

One thing Kollar knows he will lobby for at the Nov. 1 meeting is to have his old job, that of undersheriff, be put back on the books. When Kollar took over for Jeff Neves, who left office last December before his term was up, undersheriff was wiped off the books instead of just being unfunded.

He is crunching the numbers to see what more could be cut.

“Part of meeting the $1.2 million might be what our organizational structure looks like,” Kollar said. “I want to spend time with the new sheriff. These don’t have to go into affect until Jan. 1. I don’t want to do anything significant to the department and have the new sheriff undo it.”

Human Services Department

For Daniel Nielson, director of the Human Services Department, he is slated to talk to the board Nov. 3.

For now, the $400,000 proposed to be slashed from the Community Service Aging Programs would mean eliminating five of the seven sites where meals are served to seniors. The South Lake Tahoe and Placerville centers are being funded – for now – in this first round of cuts, Nielson told Lake Tahoe News.

But the cuts mean 25 percent of the seniors getting a hot meal from one of the facilities on the chopping block would not get that meal. Instead, a frozen meal would be delivered, and perhaps once a week instead of five times. This is because health code mandates a hot meal be delivered at a certain temp, and increasing the driving distance won’t allow for that to happen.

Nielson is cognizant is will be a different type of delivered meal. The fresh food, like a salad, will be gone. He also knows the personal connection of the homebound senior and the meal deliverer is huge. But this program is a drain on the bottom line.

The suggested donation for a meal is $3 – eating it at a facility or having it delivered. In 2009-10, the average donation at the South Lake Tahoe Senior Center was $1.81 and $2.66 in Placerville. The average collected for home delivery in South Tahoe was 83 cents in that same fiscal year and $1.59 in El Dorado Hills.

El Dorado County served 59,402 meals at its facilities in 2009-10, while 81,761 meals were delivered.

In South Lake Tahoe, there were 10,179 congregate meals served to 1,003 people and 19,547 meals delivered to 645 people.

Tahoe budget meeting

The county conducted an information meeting in South Lake Tahoe on Oct. 25 about the proposed budget cuts. Seven members of the public (the city attorney, a council candidate, two county employees, two concerned citizens), three media reps and three county staffers were there.

County officials weren’t too disappointed by the turnout considering the Placerville meeting had 30 people.

Concerns that night centered on worries the basin will take a harder hit. (Staff said supes wants to play fair.) Employees questioned their plight compared to managers. (Everyone will be hit, though negotiations are going on now with the county’s 15 labor units so nothing is solidified.) Questions about the $540,000 promotions budget not being touched were raised. (The pledge is being honored to reinvest at least half what is brought in with the hotel tax back into tourism.) Snow removal concerns were voiced. (It won’t be impacted.)

“What is it that we don’t get when we cut people?” Rhonda McFarlane asked.

Terry Daly, assistant chief administrative officer, said, “We are trying and looking at ways to minimize service cuts. We are working with others to eliminate redundancy. But you are right. If the board decides to cut the UC Extension and your child is in 4-H, that is the service cut.”

The Board of Supervisors anticipates taking action on the proposed budget cuts Nov. 15.