Dear to publisher,

I have read with interest many of the “Letters to the Editor” concerning the race for sheriff of El Dorado County.

Most voters desire a positive campaign, but there are many who only speak negatively of their candidate’s opponents. We think all six candidates are qualified to run the sheriff’s department and would not have the backing of their supporters if they were not people of good character.

We do, however, feel Bob Luca’s education, experience and qualifications make him the best candidate. He was the chief of the California Bureau of Information and as such supervised a staff much larger than the sheriff’s department. He developed the worldwide security department for E-Trade; again heading a staff larger than the sheriff’s department. His wide experience with budgets gives Bob the tools he needs in order to deal with these difficult economic times. He has done it before. In addition he has extensive “street” experience as well having worked undercover fighting gangs and drugs.

Bob has traveled throughout the county in a variety of venues, including walking neighborhoods, meeting with citizens and listening to their concerns and ideas. One concern always stands out; they want a sheriff who will lead a department that addresses the new problems that our County is facing. They want new ideas and innovative programs. Bob Luca will fulfill the voter’s hopes for the Department.

Bob believes the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Department needs new direction and leadership. We and many others agree with him. He has the support of more law enforcement officials, both in the county and throughout the region than all the other candidates combined. In addition, Bob has more support from the deputies in the Department than all the other candidates. They all know Bob Luca is the right man for the job of sheriff of El Dorado County.

Thank you for your coverage of this important race.

Joe and Marilyn Whiten, El Dorado Hills

P.S. Mr. Luca has declared that he will not accept a pension for the County if he is elected. Now, there is an excellent example of cost cutting and leading by example.

Many campgrounds and recreation sites within the Tahoe National Forest will be open for Memorial Day, however snow is expected to keep some of the more popular sites closed until early or mid-June.

“Our recreation crews and campground concessionaires have been working hard to get the campgrounds ready for the Memorial Day weekend,” Tom Quinn, forest supervisor, said in a statement. “The heavy snow and rain received this past winter and spring has delayed the opening of many campgrounds, roads, picnic areas and trails. Considerable snow can still be found at 6,000 feet and above, especially on north facing slopes or in shaded areas.”

Mosquito Ridge Road east of Foresthill in May at about the 6,000 feet. Photo/Provided

The following status report of campgrounds, roads and trails is listed by major transportation corridor or area.

Bullards Bar Reservoir – Yuba County

All campgrounds, picnic areas, boat ramps and trails are open.

Highway 49 – Sierra County

Most all campgrounds, picnic areas and trails in the lower elevations are open or will be by Memorial Day including those along the North Yuba River. These include Indian Valley, Ramshorn, Rocky Rest, Carlton, Cal-Ida, Fiddle Creek, Union Flat, Loganville, and Wild Plum. Fiddle Creek Ridge and Halls Ranch Trails are open.

In the higher elevations, Yuba Pass, Sierra, and Chapman Campgrounds are still closed and expected to be closed over Memorial Day due to snow levels.

Cal Ida Road – open for 8 miles from Highway 49. The 25 Road is open for 8 miles and the 35 Road for 6 miles.

Sierra Buttes area – Sierra County

Gold Lakes Road is open from intersection with Highway 49 for 3 miles. Sardine and Salmon Campgrounds will be open for Memorial Day. Sardine Lake is still frozen in spots. Sand Pond trail is open with some snow drifts. Packer Lake Road is open to Packer Lake.

Highway 89 North – Sierra and Nevada counties

Most all the campgrounds are open including Cottonwood, Cold Creek, and Upper and Lower Little Truckee.

Jackson Meadows Area – Sierra County

The road has been plowed to Webber Lake – 8 miles from Highway 89. No camping at Jackson Meadows expected for Memorial Day weekend. Snowmobiling continues however from Webber Lake.

Reservoirs East of Truckee – Nevada County

Most of the sites are open around Boca and Stampede reservoirs. At Prosser, Lakeside and Prosser Group Camp are open, however, campers need to boil the water as the water system has not been certified for drinking. Prosser Family Campground is not open.

The Commemorative Overland Emigrant Trail is open and is a nice trail for mountain bikes or hiking.

Highway 89 South – Placer County

Granite Flat and half of Goose Meadows Campgrounds are open.

Interstate 80 – Nevada and Placer counties

The Pacific Crest Trail and other trails along the Sierra crest are still very snowy.

Campgrounds including Hampshire Rocks, Indian Springs, North Fork, Tunnel Mills and Onion Valley are all closed due to snow.

Rattlesnake Road is closed due to snow. Loch Leven trails are very snowy.

Big Bend Visitor Center is expected to open for the Memorial Day weekend.

Highway 20 – Nevada County

White Cloud and Skillman Campgrounds are open. The Pioneer Trail is open from Bear Valley to the west. The Burlington Motorcycle Trails are open from Chalk Bluff Staging Area to the west. hose trails to the east are still blocked by snow. Rock Creek Nature Trail is open.

Bowman Lake Road – Nevada County

The road has been plowed almost to the Grouse Ridge Road turnoff. Fuller Lake is accessible.

Foresthill Area – Placer County

Sugar Pine Reservoir campgrounds and picnic areas are open. Big Reservoir campground (Morning Star) will be open for Memorial Day weekend. The Sugar Pine OHV Trail – Loops 1,2,3, 4, and 7 will be open May 24. Loops 5 and 6 have considerable downed trees/branches and snow -– check the website for current status.

Mumford Bar Trailhead is accessible, but the trail does have some snow.

Mosquito Ridge Road is open to the French Meadows Dam, but access to the campgrounds is blocked due to snow. Drivers are urged to drive carefully as the road is narrow due to snow banks on either side. Placer Big Trees are not accessible. Robinson Flat Campground is not expected to be open until later in June due to snow.

River Caution

Rivers are running fast, cold and high. Caution should be taken near the water –- especially with children and pets.

For more information, see the Tahoe National Forest website or call one of the Ranger Stations listed below:

Tahoe National Forest Headquarters – in Nevada City (530) 265.4531.

American River Ranger District – in Foresthill (530) 367.2224.

Sierraville Ranger District – in Sierraville (530) 994.3401.

Truckee Ranger District – in Truckee (530) 587.3558

Yuba River Ranger District – in Camptonville (530) 288.3231.

The Douglas County Public Library in Minden will be closed on May 31 for Memorial Day. The library will resume its regular schedule on June 1 at 10am.

For more information, call the library at (775)782.9841.

Reno Gazette-Journal

A local group of senior women, ages 50 and older, qualified for the United States Tennis Association’s Senior National Tennis Tournament held Oct. 8-10 in Palm Springs.

The team will represent the Northern California area including Reno and Lake Tahoe in the championships.

Read the whole story

Several Lake Tahoe Community College Fire Academy cadets have received scholarships from Tahoe Douglas Fire Protection District and the South Lake Tahoe Rotary Club.

Paul Butterweich earned a $500 scholarship from Tahoe Douglas Fire Protection District; Mark Lookerse, $500 scholarship from Tahoe Douglas; Jyota Smith-Howard, $500 scholarship from South Lake Tahoe Rotary; and Nick Giordano, $500 scholarship from South Lake Tahoe Rotary.

Cadet Paul Butterweich, Cadet Mark Lookerse, Battalion Chief Ben Sharit TDFPD, Battalion Chief Gareth Harris LVFPD, Cadet Jyota Smith-Howard, Cadet Nick Giordano

To the community,

As some of you already know, I helped start the Tahoe Victims of CPS in 2007. We are a Child Protective Services (CPS) reform group. CPS is a good organization of good people but due to funding cuts and high case overloads, they have been unable to keep pace with their required “system improvements”.

As a result, their system has become flawed and 90 percent of all the parents, grand parents, friends and relatives involved in dependency court cases are complaining.

Most of these complaints are about the errors in the CPS reports being entered into the court records. Because Judge Proud in Placerville and Commissioner Shepherd in Tahoe base their decisions on these erroneous reports their decisions are flawed. These flawed decisions end up devastating families, sending cases to the court of appeals and leaving El Dorado County vulnerable to lawsuits.

The purpose of this letter is to publicly ask our Presiding Judge Suzanne Kingsbury to remedy this situation. I have met with CPS managers Jan Walker Conroy, Mark Contois and their boss Director Daniel Nielson three times in the last nine months with zero progress. Our group has gone before the Board of Supervisors 20 times in the last year with zero progress. Now we are going up the chain-of-command to the Honorable Suzanne Kingsbury.

We will continue to exercise our constitutional right to picket in front of the courthouse at 495 Main St. in Placerville and on Highway 50 in Tahoe until “system improvements” are made. Our numbers continues to grow with each picketing event. We are now over 50 strong. This month we joined forces with fathers-4-justice.us. This is a nationwide organization asking the state, local and Federal governments to focus on efforts to reunify families.

Here are some statistics:

43 percent of USA children live with one parent. (US Department of Census)

71 percent of pregnant teenagers live with one parent. (US Department of Health Human Services)

90 percent of homeless and runaways are from homes with one parent. (US Census)

85 percent of youths in prison grew up in homes with one parent. (Texas Department of Corrections)

71 percent of high school dropouts are from homes with one parent. (National Principals Association)

Each statistic by itself is not alarming, but when they are viewed together, a very ugly picture comes to light that says, “No one is hurt more than the children”.

The solution is to counsel, train, teach and supervise the parents, without removing the children from the home, so the family can eventually reunify. More than nine states have adopted this in-home-reunification process. This process is financially beneficial; court costs, foster care costs, juvenile detention costs, jail costs, welfare costs, lawsuits against the County, court of appeals costs, the crime rate and law enforcement costs all go down when this process is employed.

Please help us Judge Kingsbury. Let us put an end to the pain these children suffer.

Respectfully,

Ernie Claudio, South Lake Tahoe

Bistro Danielle is the featured restaurant for Taste of Tahoe starting today. The Zephyr Cove restaurant will be donating 5 percent of its proceeds from now through May 29 to the South Lake Tahoe Relay for Life.

To make reservations, call (775) 586.1070.

To learn more more about Taste of Tahoe, click here.‎

After a brief delay due to the issuing of a new 40-year special use permit by the U.S. Forest Service, the purchase of Sierra Summit Mountain Resort by ski industry veteran Tim Cohee closed May 21.

Cohee immediately returned the resort to its former name, China Peak.

“These types of transactions always have challenges at the very end,” Cohee, who has a history with China Peak, having been a member of the Snow Summit Ski Corporation management team when the resort was purchased in 1982, and until recently a member of the parent companies’ board of directors, said in a statement. “The Forest Service, specifically our local district team of Nancy Woolsey and Ray Porter in Prather, did a masterful job of moving our permit through the various levels, completing the process in three weeks, an amazing time frame given the amount of documentation necessary.”

Cohee, a 36-year ski industry veteran who spent the past 17 years as president of Kirkwood Mountain Resort, has indicated he will focus on providing a higher quality experience for the 2010-11 season, including overall service levels, food quality and an overall friendly vibe at China Peak.

Cohee resigned from his job at Kirkwood on April 30.

By Andy Rooney, CBS

I have good news for you tonight. According to an American Gaming Association report, revenue from casino gambling fell by almost two billion dollars last year.

A lot of people are out of work and it turns out that when people are unemployed, they gamble less. You’d think they might gamble more but they don’t. There’s some good things about everything, I guess.

Andy Rooney

In 2008 the casinos earned $32.5 billion. Last year they earned only $30.7 billion. I use the words “earned” and “only” loosely but casino income was down a lousy little two billion dollars last year. It’s enough to bring tears to your eyes.

Read the whole story

By Frank X. Mullen Jr., Reno Gazette-Journal

Reno is in fourth place nationally among cities that are “most doomed for divorce,” according to Men’s Health magazine.

Las Vegas came in second after first-place Cheyenne, Wyo. Billings, Mont., was third on the list of 100 cities ranked in order of their propensity to become Splitsville.

To determine where “I do” is most doomed, the magazine considered the rate of failed marriages, the stringency of divorce laws, the percentage of the population who have split and the number of licensed marriage and family therapists.

In 2007, Nevada had 6.5 divorces per 1,000 population, as compared to 5.4 rate in Wyoming and a 4-per-1,000 rate in Montana, according to the Division of Vital Statistics at the National Center for Health Statistics.

Read the whole story