By Kathryn Reed

All things Lake Tahoe are on the agenda of the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors when the gang meets Nov. 10 on the South Shore.

This is the board’s once a year meeting when they leave Placerville and make their way to Lake Tahoe – the other part of the county they rule over, but seldom visit.

Happy Homestead Cemetery district is on the Board of Supervisors' Tuesday agenda.

Supervisor Norma Santiago, the lone voice of the basin, said an ordinance regarding invasive species will be brought forward. It is based on Lake County’s ordinance. That area is home to Clear Lake.

Another issue will be the appointment of two board members to sit on the Happy Homestead Cemetery board. First supervisors must decide to expand the special district board to five members from three. The theory is bringing the board to five members will allow it to function better.

The only applicants for the board are John Poel and Joe Tillson.

The cemetery district has been in a state of unrest for the past year as it deals with two members who have been on for a short time, and a staffing situation that not everyone is happy with.

Lakeview Commons is also on the agenda. For what was expected to be a slam dunk at an earlier meeting is now a growing concern and could derail what was known as the 56-acre project.

Supervisors will meet Tuesday at Lake Tahoe Airport at 9am.

By Cathy Locke, Sacramento Bee

El Dorado County health officials say local healthcare providers have begun receiving shipments of the H1N1 flu vaccine.

“Doctors in the community who ordered the vaccine should have received the vaccine or will be getting it within the next few weeks,” Cathy Dunbar, county immunization coordinator, said in a news release. “People who are interested in getting the vaccine should check with their doctor’s office.”

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Eldridge Moores, with the UC Davis Department of Geology, will speak Dec. 9 about Assembling California and Western Nevada: Point Reyes to Lake Tahoe.

The landscapes of California and western Nevada have a long and storied past including plate movements, granitic intrusions, volcanism, and collisions of island arcs and continental fragments with the western US over the past 250 million years. The rocks and structures that we see at the surface and at depth record this history. Rocks are historical archives. One can read these archives of Earth history if one knows the language. The language is geology.

Major challenges in the 21st century, including climate change, energy, resources, water, and earth hazards, deeply involve geology. To function as an informed citizen, everyone needs knowledge of geology.

Eldridge Moores Biography:

Eldridge Moores is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the UC Davis Geology Department, where he has been a faculty member since 1966. His specialty is Structural Geology and Tectonics, with special emphasis on the Alpine-Himalayan and western North American mountain systems. He has authored or co-authored over 100 scientific and general interest publications, including several books, and he has mentored hundreds of students. The famous American writer John McPhee prominently features Moores in the books “Assembling California” and “Annals of the Former World”. He and his wife Judy regularly give geology/landscape field trips for non-specialists.

Specifics:

Date: Dec. 9

Time: 5:30-7:30pm. Lecture begins promptly at 6:00 p.m.

Cost: $5 donation requested. No-host gar.

Location: Assembly Rooms 139 & 141, Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences, 291 Country Club Drive, Incline Village, on the campus of Sierra Nevada College.

By Kathryn Reed

A few drivers might be regretting dodging the small suitcase in the middle of Tahoe Keys Boulevard the other morning.

South Tahoe public works crews saw it and knew to remove the obstacle. What they didn’t know is inside was $5,000 in two bundles of one hundred dollar bills.

Before retrieving it near the corner of Highway 50, Walt Schild and Aaron Schmalenberger joked there may be money inside the bag. Unzipping it to find a name of who it might belong to revealed the cash and clothes.

The crew drove to the job site, called the cops, and then took everything to the police station.

The out of town couple who the bag of money belonged to was at the station about 8:50am Monday when the city crew arrived. Officers verified the goods belonged to the couple.

“We met the people. They were nervous,” Schild said.

Why they were carrying so much cash is not known.

Schild said he’s found a few wallets with cash through the years, but nothing like the find this week.

“I turn them in and people look at you like you’re nuts,” Schild said.

By Marc Lifsher, Los Angeles Times

STATELINE – When big investment firms want to tap public pension funds for money, they often put in a call to Alfred J.R. Villalobos.

From a modest office near Lake Tahoe’s casinos, Villalobos has spent years helping Wall Street players like Apollo Management gain access to the vast wealth held by the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and other funds.

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Reno Gazette-Journal

Federal, state and local officials have completed a restoration project for a creek at north Lake Tahoe they say will improve fish habitat and reduce sediment flows into the lake while enhancing recreational opportunities.

One major component of the Third Creek project was removal of fish passage barriers that not only made it difficult for fish to get upstream, but caused bank erosion that allowed sediment to flow into Lake Tahoe.

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New to winter driving?

Then the Nov. 17 class taught by the California Highway Patrol is for you.

Attendees will at the South Tahoe High School library from 6-8pm. Space is limited to 50.

Call (530) 577.1001 to reserve a spot.

Disabled Sports Far West at Alpine Meadows Resort needs volunteers to teach people with disabilities to learn how to ski and snowboard.

Volunteers must be a strong intermediate or above.

A two-day training is mandatory.

Lift tickets are provided.

Applications are at www.disabledsports.net, or call (530) 581.4161.

By Gus Thomson, Auburn Journal

After seven months, nightly traffic detours off Interstate 80 east of Colfax are over.

The $70 million Caltrans project to rehab 11 miles of the freeway between Colfax and Alta is essentially completed, allowing two-way traffic back on I-80 24 hours a day.

The final convoy of trucks, buses and RVs making the nighttime detour along Highway 20 and Highway 49 finished Wednesday morning, Caltrans spokeswoman Rochelle Jenkins said.

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By Vern Pierson

In response to the release of the Inspector General’s report pertaining to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s supervision of parolee Phillip Garrido, we welcome this report as a critical first step to: (1) Identify the problems with the federal and state systems that supervise dangerous sexual offenders released on parole; and (2) Implement the changes and reforms that are needed to assure that this type of oversight does not happen in the future.

A more critical question which was has not yet been addressed is why a dangerous sexual predator like Phillip Garrido was released after serving only eleven years of a fifty year federal sentence and a five-to-life Nevada State sentence. Ultimately, that is an issue to be addressed by federal and state legislatures who determine the criteria for parole board reviews and who set funding levels for corrections facilities. Unfortunately, California’s current financial crisis and the pending prisoner healthcare litigation may lead to further reduction in funding which is necessary to ensure the incarceration of dangerous criminals and their supervision upon release.

We look forward to working with Matt Cate, Director of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and California Inspector General David Shaw to ensure that reforms are instituted that will protect the citizens of El Dorado County and the State of California.

Vern Pierson is El Dorado County district attorney.