Alpine Meadows congratulates Errol Kerr of the Jamaica Ski Team for his 9th place finish at the 2010 Winter Olympic Ski Cross competition. To welcome him home, Alpine Meadows has officially deemed Kerr the guest of honor and star judge for the Red Bull Schlittentag competition March 13.

Although Schlittentag has yet to be named an Olympic competition by the I.O.C., Kerr will incorporate Olympic standards to score contenders on each craft’s artistic merit, innovation, team spirit, and race results.

German for “sledding day”, Schlittentag is a day of fun, friends and competitive spirit where students zoom down a ski hill in homemade crafts. Wood working skills are a plus, not a must.

Schlittentag will bring together university students from all over Northern California to participate in a competitive day of fun and originality as each team brings their homemade craft in hopes of winning it all and walking away with some great prizes.

Red Bull Schlittentag turns a simple day of sledding into a creative masterpiece.

After the competition, join Kerr and his entourage of Shlittentaggers at the Alpine Meadows Last Chair Bar & Grill for Red Bull drink specials, a disc jockey, and special blend of Jamaican homecoming cheer and après-Schlittentag revelry.

When: March 13 1:03pm

Entry participants: College Students only – with a valid student ID. Pilots must be at least 18 years old. Register here.

After party with Errol Kerr: Last Chair Bar & Grill in the Alpine Meadows base lodge from starting at 4pm.

Scattered snow showers are in the forecast for today. Here is the ski report from Curtis Fong, the Guy from Tahoe.

By Kathryn Reed

Tim Cohee’s dream of owning a ski resort may be realized in a matter of days.

Long known as the voice of Kirkwood Mountain Resort’s ski report, as well as president 13 of the 17 years he’s been at the Lake Tahoe area resort, Cohee and a group of investors have put together a deal to buy Sierra Summit Mountain Resort.

Tim Cohee

The resort is 65 miles northeast of Fresno on Highway 168. It has 1,679 vertical feet, with a base elevation of 7,030.

“People should not jump to the conclusion I will leave Kirkwood and run (Sierra Summit) on a daily basis,” Cohee told Lake Tahoe News on Friday.

The paperwork was supposed to be signed March 5. This was the second delay. Now the deal is supposed to be consummated March 12 assuming all of the kinks can be ironed out. Escrow on the multimillion dollar deal would close April 30.

Snow Summit Ski Corp. is the seller. When they acquired the operation in 1981 they abandoned the China Peak name.

Cohee is used to owning businesses far from where he lives. He has owned a couple ski shops in Wrightwood in Southern California for a handful of years. He checks in on them and the house he owns about once a year.

Like most deals of this magnitude, there are a lot of moving pieces. For one, no paperwork has been signed. If it does go through, Cohee and his partners have someone in mind from outside of the Lake Tahoe area who could run the resort and therefore not require him moving there. Plus, he said the staff in place is good.

Cohee has been in the ski industry for 36 years, all but five of them he’s been in management.

Cohee doesn’t expect to have a conversation with the ownership and management team at Kirkwood regarding his role at that resort until all is done with the Central California resort.

Cohee envisions Sierra Summit, which may revert to its old name, to be a feeder resort of sorts for Kirkwood. The two could have season pass deals.

Caregiving is a difficult and often challenging role that one can undertake, and taking the opportunity to share information and feel connected to others who are providing care is a vital step to perform this task to the best of your ability. Take the opportunity on April 8, 2010 from 5:30-7:30pm at the South Lake Tahoe Senior Center, 3050 Highway 50, South Lake Tahoe to become connected and rejuvenated at your local support group.

Refreshments will be served. Free respite care is available to qualified caregivers. Pre-authorization is required for respite services. Questions? Contact Penny with the Alzheimer’s Association at (530) 541.2304 or the Family Caregiver Support Program at (530) 621.6251 or (530) 621.6151.

David G. Schwartz, Center for Gaming Research

Since the advent of the current economic decline, speculation about the impact of “tighter” slot machines on gaming revenues and visitation patterns has been rife. Indeed, it is easy to make an intuitive link between higher slot hold percentages—that ultimately make the slot playing experience either shorter in duration or more costly, or both—and declines in revenue, handle, and visitation. But examining the slot hold percentages and slot denomination mix in the context of the changes in slot technologies over the years 1992 to 2009, it becomes apparent that there was no sudden arbitrary decision by slot managers to increase hold percentages. Instead, players have chosen, in increasing numbers, to play higher‐hold, lower denomination machines in place of lower‐hold, higher denomination ones. Player choice, not managerial initiative, has been the key determinant of higher slot holds in Nevada, and this pattern likely holds across the national industry.

Click gaming report for the whole document.

By Shanna McCord, Santa Cruz Sentinel

LAKE TAHOE — With new jobs hard to find, some of the unemployed are heading to the mountains to look for work, even if the work only lasts as long as the snow.

Lake Tahoe ski resort officials say they’ve seen a significant surge in the number of applicants this winter, many overqualified, for positions such as lift operators, parking lot attendants, ski instructors and chefs.

Northstar-at-Tahoe had no problem finding qualified employees this season. Photo/Kathryn Reed

People with graduate degrees and years of professional experience laid off from their “real jobs” have been willing to move to the snow, live with roommates and work for minimum wage.

Read the whole story

By Gus Thomson, Auburn Journal

With 2010 census packages due to be delivered to every household in the nation starting mid-month, concern is mounting that Placer and surrounding counties may lose out in the count.

A projected $38 billion in federal funding is tied to census totals in the six-county area surrounding Auburn over the next decade.

But if the count is lower than the actual total number of residents, Auburn and the surrounding Sacramento region could end up with less than its share.

Auburn City Councilman Kevin Hanley is working with the Sacramento Area Council of Governments to get the word out to residents about the importance of filling out the census form. Census Day is April 1.

Read the whole story

Publisher’s note: The following was sent to the media at 6:15pm (the meeting was at 10am) from STATA via Dennis Oliver who works for Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. He put BlueGo Communications on the press release even though he is not on their staff. Board member Stacey Dingman, who was supposed to be the spokesperson, returned LTN’s call at 5:45pm, saying to call before 8pm. LTN offices were closed during that time period.

To increase operational efficiency and cost effectiveness in fiscally challenging times, the South Tahoe Area Transit Authority Board (STATA) today approved an organizational restructuring. STATA has secured the services of the consulting firm Transit Resource Center for an interim period. Moving forward, the authority has eliminated its transit administrator position and will apply budget savings resulting from this change to hire a permanent Executive Director to guide the growing transit system through increasingly complex challenges while focusing on improving service for its riders and the community.

BlueGO is a service of the South Tahoe Area Transit Authority which consists of members representing the City of South Lake Tahoe, El Dorado County, Douglas County, Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, Tahoe Transportation District, The Ridge Resorts, Harrah’s, Harveys, Lakeside Inn, MontBleu, Horizon and Heavenly Mountain Resort. Collectively, these partner agencies provide a coordinated transit system to reduce vehicle miles traveled on the south shore of Lake Tahoe and to improve the quality of life through the implementation and management of innovative transit solutions.

By Kathryn Reed

STATELINE — Halfway into the four-hour annual Business Expo, it was hard to get around. Organizers thought this was a good thing.

Friday night was a time for members of Lake Tahoe South Shore Chamber of Commerce to show off what they are all about.

Bistro Danielle caters to vegetarians and meat lovers. Photos/Kathryn Reed

The convention center at Harveys casino was filled with about 70 booths – the maximum that could fit. This is less than 10 percent of the businesses that are part of the chamber.

More than 1,000 people — the same as last year — filled aisles. Some were picking up veggie bites at Bistro Danielle’s booth; a long line was at the Beacon for their rum runner; Sierra and Heavenly were boasting about things other than snow; art; authors; media; medical; solar; and more were represented.

One thing people commented on being different this year compared to recent years was new vendors. Sacramento International Airport, which is

Tom Sakowski of Deep Lake Design based in Stateline.

starting a shuttle service between South Lake and the airport, was one of the newbies; so was Deep Lake Design of Stateline with its display of logos — many of them for local businesses.

By Kathryn Reed

John Andoh no longer has a job in Lake Tahoe.

For the last two years he has been transit administrator for the South Shore’s bus system. On Friday, the attorney for the South Tahoe Area Transit Authority told Andoh to pack his things and be out by 5pm.

John Andoh

Andoh said his initial reaction was an “enthusiastic, great.”

“I’ve been advocating for executive leadership since July of last year,” Andoh told Lake Tahoe News while he was still on the clock. “The agency was getting too big to warrant a person like me at the top.”

When Andoh was hired it was as an associate planner. His background is in transit and planning projects for those entities.

In his short tenure he has had to handle restructuring the entire system, working with one agency that abruptly left and bringing in another to operate the bus system known as BlueGo, watch the budget grow from $422,000 to $5.9 million per year, and consolidate seven contracts into one.

“It’s definitely been a good experience,” Andoh said.

He will continue on with the part-time work he’s done for a couple of Bay Area cities while he’s been in Tahoe. He is also in the running for two transit coordinator positions —  one in Southern California, one in Washington.

He was given two weeks severance pay.

According to Andoh, Transit Resource Center, the people the STATA board listened to in closed session last week per the city of South Lake Tahoe’s request, will operate the system in the interim. He described the company as a consulting firm that does short range transit plans.

Nancy McDermid, chairwoman of the transit board, deferred comment to board member Stacey Dingman. This, McDermid said, was so a uniform message was presented.

Apparently the board’s united message is silence. Dingman didn’t return calls, nor did South Lake Tahoe’s representatives Bruce Grego and Rick Angelocci.

South Lake Tahoe City Attorney Patrick Enright did not return a phone call, as it is a furlough Friday for the city. So the question as to whether the meeting was noticed properly can’t be answered, nor is it known if out of closed session the board properly reported out its actions. Nor is it known what direction STATA is going in, how long the firm Andoh mentioned will be on board, or what cost savings if any are part of the changes.