Incline Village Artists Studio Tour is Aug. 7-8 from 10am-5pm Friday and to 4pm Sunday in Incline Village and Crystal Bay.
Watercolors, oils/acrylics, photography, pottery, printmaking, textile/fiber art and jewelry will be on display.
There is no charge.
For more information, call (775) 833.0637 or go to www.inclinearts.com.
• Heavenly Mountain Resort will break ground Aug. 6 on its 14,980-square-foot restaurant at the top of the gondola. It should open in February 2011.
• Douglas Woods and Shawn Kearney are opening Tahoe Duck Tours Stateline. A Duck Tour allows people to experience the sites and sounds of a locale from land and water.
• Charter Cable is making channel changes this month affecting El Dorado County, Meyers, South Lake Tahoe, Zephyr Cove, Glenbrook and other parts of Douglas County.
• Charlie Brown out of Atlanta has taken over the emcee role at Carnival Cabaret at Horizon in Stateline. His act alone is reason to see the show.
• Big Blue Adventure brings the Lake Tahoe Open Water Swim on Aug. 8 with an 8am race start at West Shore’s Sugar Pine State Park, with half-mile, 1-mile and 2-mile courses set up just off the beach from Ehrman Mansion.
Hyatt Regency in Incline Village is having is inaugural Wine on the Water festival Aug. 29 from 1-5pm.
Featuring 20 wineries and a dozen local restaurants, the event will include exclusive tastings of some of the region’s best food and wine, live music, and a noteworthy silent auction. Set against a backdrop on the Cottage Green beside Hyatt’s private beach, 100 percent of all proceeds generated from ticket sales and silent auction sales will be donated to the Boys and Girls Club of North Lake Tahoe.
Tickets are $65 per person in advance, $75 at the door.
For tickets or more information, call (775) 886.6889 or go to www.loneeaglegrille.com.
By Matt Weiser and Marjie Lundstrom, Sacramento Bee
Holiday visitors seeking a quiet day off beside the water at Folsom State Recreation Area on July 5 instead had front-row seats to a pursuit, as park rangers chased an assault suspect on foot through throngs of picnickers.
It was like a scene from a big-city television crime drama. But this was a state park.
Mountain bikers in Washoe Meadow State Park in Tahoe. Photo/Kathryn Reed
Crime is on the rise in California’s state parks, up nearly threefold in the last decade, according to Department of Parks and Recreation data analyzed by The Sacramento Bee.
Last year, 62,575 crimes were reported in the parks – or about 170 a day, compared with 65 a day in 1999 – even as crime in the rest of the state declined. Taking park use into account, crime last year reached record per-capita levels.
By Kathryn Reed
This morning’s ground breaking of Lakeview Commons almost had to be rescheduled. That’s because South Lake Tahoe’s City Council didn’t have a contractor in place until Tuesday morning.
Three items on Aug. 3’s consent agenda all related to the project. They took about as much time to resolve as it did to listen to the litany of public speakers who turned out to plead their case for keeping pot dispensaries open. (Creation of an ordinance to ban the clubs will go to the Planning Commission, then the council at yet to be determined dates.)
Beach-goers will soon have a better experience at El Dorado Beach. Photo/Kathryn Reed
Today’s 10am event at El Dorado Beach is mostly ceremonial. It was scheduled this week so outgoing City Manager Dave Jinkens could be part of the ceremony since it has been under his watch that this portion of the originally named 56-acre project has become a reality. (This is Jinkens’ last week.)
The real work to transform the beachfront area into a more user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing gathering spot will begin next week.
The council restarted the bid process in June after deciding what was sent out was a bit convoluted.
On Aug. 3 the council voted 4-1 to award the nearly $4.5 million project to Reeve-Knight out of Roseville. Councilman Jerry Birdwell voted no without giving input to why he dissented.
Clark & Sullivan Construction out of Sparks petitioned the bid award, saying Reeve-Knight’s numbers for subcontractor work v. in-house work were out of whack.
The Sparks firm was picked as the lower bidder in the first round that was subsequently quashed by the council in June.
A couple local contactors spoke at the council meeting, saying Reeve-Knight should not be awarded the bid. One spoke about the irregularity of being able to change the bid once submitted; another believes not enough locals would be hired.
City Attorney Pat Enright and engineer Jim Marino told the council they have confidence in the bids and Reeve-Knight.
In other action:
• Even though incoming City Manager Tony O’Rourke had asked for the 2010-11 budget to be worked out once he started next week, Jinkens insisted it be approved on his watch. It was on Tuesday. But it was a 3-2 vote to have a super majority (at least four) say yes to tapping into the 25 percent reserves. Councilmen Bill Crawford and Jerry Birdwell don’t like the idea of tying future council’s to that requirement.
Publisher’s note: Bill and Jean Lane have had a home at Cascade Lake for many years.
Bill Lane, who built Sunset magazine into an icon of Western living, helped found the town of Portola Valley and donated millions to Stanford University and environmental causes from open space preservation to restoration of Yosemite National Park, has died.
Bill Lane
With family members at his side, Lane died of respiratory failure at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Stanford Hospital. He was 90.
Lane and his brother, Mel, who died in 2007, ran Lane Publishing from the late 1950s until 1990. Mel Lane oversaw Sunset books, while his brother was publisher of Sunset magazine. From their Menlo Park headquarters, the brothers turned their father Laurence’s 1928 investment of $65,000 into one of the nation’s leading regional publishing companies.
“He saw incredible possibility in the West. It was a can-do place. That’s what Sunset stood for — build your own house, make your own food, hike a trail,” Bill Lane’s daughter, Sharon Lane of Nevada City, said Monday. “He saw himself and the magazine as an ambassador for the West.”
By Kathryn Reed
Sixty percent of the South Lake Tahoe City Council will be new after voters cast their ballots Nov. 2.
Jerry Birdwell joins Kathay Lovell and Bill Crawford in deciding not to seek another term.
Jerry Birdwell
“I’m going to take a breather. I’m going to enjoy running the (Black Bear) Inn, sitting on the farm (in Sutter Creek), and doing more traveling with my partner,” Birdwell told Lake Tahoe News on Tuesday night.
At 68, Birdwell is ready to turn his attention to things besides city government. But he isn’t turning his back on the city. Before running four years ago, Birdwell was active with the Ski Run Boulevard BID. This is something he anticipates doing again.
He wishes he could have brought more transparency to city government. He said it would only come with honesty and openness about what is going on.
“I think the first time it came to my attention was when I asked (former City Attorney) Cathy DiCamillo what the city was paying in outside counsel. She looked at me across the desk and said, ‘I have no idea.’,” Birdwell said. “I said, ‘Why not?’ She said, ‘It doesn’t go through me.’ That to me was my first knowledge that transparency was lacking in city government and it was bothering me.”
Birdwell said that interaction got him thinking about his days on the Ski Run BID board and not being able to get a straight answer out of the city about the money paid in by BID members and how much had been spent.
He thinks the city needs to figure out where it wants to be and what it wants to look like in five, even 10 years. He also thinks the city better have a realistic understanding about revenues, realize property taxes aren’t going to be what they were a few years ago and that the bleeding has not stopped.
“We need to adjust our budget accordingly. I think future councils will have a major problem dealing with that,” Birdwell said.
While he continues to serve the rest of his term for the next few months, one thing he will work on is securing a permanent city hall for the town. He and Councilman Bruce Grego were appointed Aug. 3 to an ad hoc committee to investigate whether the Tahoe Daily Tribune building on Harrison Avenue would be viable.
(The paper is not selling or going out of business, just the structure is for sale.)
With presses having been there years ago, soil studies would need to be done to make sure no ink leached into the ground.
An appealing aspect to officials is other city entities are directly across Highway 50.
With no incumbent running for City Council, the deadline to file paperwork is Aug. 11. Here are the people who have taken out papers.
By Carlos Alcalá, Sacramento Bee
Five uniformed employees of the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office are under investigation in connection with using online education from unaccredited sources to qualify for higher pay.
A survey of officers’ credentials began following questions about the educational credentials of Stan Perez, a CHP officer who had been a candidate for Sheriff until he dropped out of the race last year.
Stan Perez
“We said we better make sure we don’t have the same problem,” said Sheriff Fred Kollar.
By Reno Gazette-Journal
Smoke was visible in the Reno area on Tuesday as winds blew in smoke from the Bar Fire in the Plumas National Forest two hours west of Reno, said Zach Tolby, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Reno.
Progress was made Tuesday on the 900 acre fire as firefighters utilized helicopters and an aerial ignition process to burn out an inaccessible chunk in the center of the fire area, said Michele Jiménez-Holtz, a spokeswoman at the Plumas National Forest.
Along with continued work to mop-up the northern perimeter of the fire and hose-lays on portions of the east and west flanks of the fire, the strategic burn-out has given fire managers increased confidence that the Feather River Canyon fire will be successfully contained this week, Jiménez-Holtz said.
By Cathy Locke, Sacramento Bee
An 82-year-old Sacramento man drowned Saturday afternoon in Lake Tahoe after his inflatable boat capsized, official said today.
The incident occurred near the 700 block of West Lake Boulevard.
Sgt. John Giovannini of the Placer County Sheriff’s Department said Robert Clyde Cook was transporting family and friends between a boat and the shore when his Zodiac craft capsized at 3:46 p.m.
Cook, who was not wearing a life jacket, tried to swim to safety but drowned about 250 yards offshore where the water is about 10 feet deep.