To the community,

Thank you to Riva Grill for hosting the annual Business After Hours Mixer for Charity on Jan. 16. Riva provided their entire second floor for the event, as well as an impressive selection of appetizers, drinks and desserts. Approximately 200 guests attended to support the South Shore community and local food banks Christmas Cheer and Bread & Broth. All proceeds from the event were donated to charity.

Guests helped Lake Tahoe South Shore Chamber of Commerce raise $3,500 for the two food banks and also donated non-perishable food items. Christmas Cheer and Bread & Broth help feed the less fortunate in the South Shore community; donations from last night’s event will help restock both food banks so they may continue to provide meals for those in need.

Shannon Early, Lake Tahoe South Shore Chamber of Commerce

By NPR

If you have teenagers in your house, you may find this hard to believe, but texting is on the decline.

For the first time ever, traditional texting — the kind you do through your cell phone provider — has dropped in Britain. That’s according to annual technology predictions report from Deloitte, which reported that the number of text messages passed around by Brits decreased by 7 billion last year.

Instead, the company predicts, people in the U.K. will send around 300 billion instant messages in 2014. That’s the kind of messaging that requires an app and uses the Internet. Old-fashioned texting is only expected to account for about 140 billion messages.

Read the whole story

The Tahoe Maritime Museum is partnering with Placer Arts and NCArts to host the juried art exhibit Sunken Treasures.

The goal of the exhibit is to showcase work by local artists that explores the unseen world at the bottom of Lake Tahoe. The art exhibit will coincide with TMM’s history exhibit Ghost Ships opening on Memorial Weekend and running until April 19, 2015. There will be $300 in prize money awarded to artists in various categories.

Works submitted for Sunken Treasures need to imply or connote a sunken vessel or artifact, but this does not need to be the main focus of the piece. This exhibit is open to all artists from Lake Tahoe and its surrounding communities.

The entry deadline is March 14. Email Christine@tahoemaritime.org with questions or to requests= an artist’s information packets.

By Craig Trudell, Bloomberg

Drivers’ privacy needs to be protected by law, said Alan Mulally, chief executive officer of Ford Motor Co., as more vehicles use data for services such as location tracking amid the booming in-car technology market.

The company is “supportive and participating” in talks with regulators who are considering such legislation, Mulally said this week at the Detroit auto show. He countered comments made last week by the automaker’s global marketing chief, who said Ford knows when drivers of its vehicles violate traffic laws through global-positioning system data.

Documents released by former government contractor Edward Snowden last year have sparked a firestorm in the U.S. related to data-privacy concerns with technology and telecommunications companies. The comments by Jim Farley, Ford’s executive vice president of global marketing, have directed attention to the car industry as in-vehicle technology becomes more common.

Read the whole story

By Jacob Gershman, Wall Street Journal

Prompted by growing concerns by law-enforcement authorities over undetectable 3D-printed guns, California is considering a new law that would make it a crime to assemble a weapon without permission from the state.

A Democratic state lawmaker from Los Angeles pushing a bill that would require anybody who constructs a homemade firearm to first obtain a unique serial number or other identification mark from the state attorney general’s office. Within a day of assembly, the number or mark “shall be engraved or permanently affixed to the firearm.”

People banned by state or federal law from possessing or owning a firearm would be barred from constructing the weapons. Violators would face up to a year in prison. The state would also be authorized to charge applicants a fee for the registrations.

Read the whole story

The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency in its role as the Tahoe Metropolitan Planning Organization has $600,000 in grant money to dole out.

The On Our Way Community Grant Program is designed to help Lake Tahoe organizations and local governments improve walking and biking or support economic vitality.

Up to a maximum of $200,000 will be given per request.

The On Our Way grants are part of the Lake Tahoe Sustainable Communities Program which lays out strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through projects like pedestrian and bike trails that provide alternatives to auto transportation, and that also improve economic and community well-being.

Proposals are due March 14. Details are available online.

By Anita Creamer, Sacramento Bee

Seniors First, the nonprofit agency that administers Placer County’s federally funded seniors programs, lost its contract late last week to deliver meals to more than 100 homebound seniors.

The Area 4 Agency on Aging board instead awarded the Meals on Wheels contract for the Placer suburbs and foothills communities to Meals on Wheels by ACC, which since 2010 has been the senior nutrition provider for Sacramento County.

The $85,000 contract for the remainder of the fiscal year ends June 30 but can be renewed for up to three years.

Read the whole story

Tahoe Regional Planning Agency is accepting nominations for the 24th annual Best in the Basin awards.

Projects completed between Oct. 12, 2012, and Dec. 31, 2013, may be nominated.

This is a new schedule for the awards program to allow judges to tour project sites in better weather conditions.

Nominations are due March 28.

Entry forms are online.

By Andrew Doughman, Las Vegas Sun

Nevada’s politicians are assembling stockpiles of money, the ammunition for this year’s election campaign season.

They will report millions of dollars in campaign contributions this week on annual disclosure forms, but that’s just the money elected officials are required to report.

As in the 2012 election, groups unaffiliated with any candidate will likely spend millions of dollars to bankroll advertisements aimed at Nevada voters, and it’s unclear what, if anything, these groups need to tell you about who’s paying for the ads.

Judges in several Nevada court cases are considering whether groups sending political messages must disclose their donors in Nevada.

Read the whole story

Publisher’s note: This is one of a series of blurbs about how the lack of winter is impacting businesses in the Lake Tahoe Basin. If you have an idea, please email it to info@LakeTahoeNews.net.

There are traditional mountain passes that close for the bulk of the winter. Monitor Pass is usually among those.

However, this stretch of Highway 89 has opened after closing at the start of the season. There just isn’t any snow now so Caltrans is letting motorists use it.

This is the earliest it has opened in seven years. But if winter returns, the road closure is likely to return as well.

Sonora Pass (Highway 108), Ebbetts Pass (Highway 4) and Tioga Pass (Highway 120), remain closed. However, Highway 120 east from Highway 395 to the town of Benton is open. Normally it is closed all winter and spring.

These passes are likely to open in mid-May.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report