El Dorado County sheriff’s deputies are looking for a teenager who ran away from her home in Shingle Springs.

Juliet Riffey

Juliet Riffey was last seen the night of Nov. 1.

Riffey is 15, white, 5-feet-2-inches, weighs 110 pounds, has dark blonde/brown hair, blue eyes, and wears oval wire framed glasses. She has a cleft lip, which causes her to become easily ill.

Deputies said there is great concern for Riffey’s safety due to her being home schooled and having limited contact with anyone outside her home.

Anyone with any information regarding Riffey’s whereabouts is asked to call (530) 642.4720 or (530) 621.6600.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Anita Creamer, Sacramento Bee

The third floor of the California governor’s mansion, which reopened to the public this month after being closed to visitors for decades, is a place filled with history that’s mostly quiet and personal rather than political: a place of family memories.

Gov. Jerry Brown, already in seminary and college when his father, Pat Brown, was elected governor in 1959, remembers holing up in the third floor in early 1965 to study for the California bar exam.

“I spent a lot of time there,” he said through a spokesperson. “The whole house was quite livable.”

His sister, former state Treasurer Kathleen Brown, spent much of her teenage years living in the mansion. She was the last governor’s child to occupy the house, which has been a state park since shortly after Nancy Reagan famously declared it a firetrap in 1967 and refused to live there. Kathleen Brown remembers the third floor as a secluded and unpretentious space in a large, grand house.

“The third floor had two bedrooms and an office, but it wasn’t used much,” she said by phone from Los Angeles. “There was an attic room, and I set up a clubhouse there.”

More than a decade before the Brown era, Robert Warren, the youngest of Gov. Earl Warren’s five children, also remembers spending time on the third floor, which then housed his father’s home office.

Read the whole story

By Carly Schwartz, Huffington Post

Legal marijuana is the fastest growing market in the United States, and it’s growing at a rate poised to outpace the expansion of the global smartphone market, according to a new report obtained exclusively by the Huffington Post.

Researchers surveyed hundreds of medical cannabis retailers, processors, dispensary owners and industry leaders over the course of six months this year, and estimated that more than $1.43 billion worth of legal marijuana will be sold in 2013. The report also predicts that figure to grow by 64 percent to $2.34 billion next year. Recent figures show the smartphone market expanded by 46 percent from 2012 to 2013.

“Cannabis is one of the fastest growing industries,” said Steve Berg, a former managing director of Wells Fargo Bank and editor of the report, the second edition of the State of Legal Marijuana Markets. “Domestically, we weren’t able to find any market that is growing as quickly.”

While it’s important to note that smartphones surged in popularity long before medical marijuana became a viable industry, and global sales numbers for 2012-2013 don’t offer a direct comparison to 2013-2014 domestic estimates, Berg said his goal was to illustrate just how rapidly the cannabis market is expanding by offering familiar data points. The U.S. smartphone market, by comparison, is growing at a rate of 7.3 percent.

Read the whole story

• Tahoe Wellness Center is offering a study hall on Tuesdays from 3-5pm in November.

• Nahid Rachlin, award-winning author of four critically acclaimed novels, will give a reading and talk Nov. 15 from 7-9pm at Sierra Nevada College in Incline Village.

• Gregory Cremeans has joined Coldwell Banker Select in Zephyr Cove.

• El Dorado County Connections – One Stop is hosting a free employer forum Nov. 20 at 10:30am at the El Dorado County Child Support Services Building at 3883 Ponderosa Road in Shingle Springs. A representative from Intel Corporation will share information about the organization, their current job opportunities and how to apply for job openings. For more info, call (530) 642.4850.

• Find out what Rob Katz, CEO of Vail Resorts, has to say about the ski industry.

El Dorado County Office of Education is organizing a coat drive. Donations will be distributed to schools and EDCOE operated programs throughout the county, including Lake Tahoe.

New coats ranging in sizes from infant to adult may be dropped off at the El Dorado County Office of Education at 6767 Green Valley Road in Placerville between 8am-5pm. All donations should be submitted to the office no later than Dec. 6.

For more information, call Angela at (530) 622.7130, ext. 0.

Sculptures by Simi Dabah are being added to the Lake Tahoe Community College Demonstration Garden.

Dabah has been creating sculptures as a hobby for years, and his works can be found throughout California, including several public libraries, municipal buildings and schools around the state.

Dabah donated four of his refurbished metal sculptures to LTCC.

By Kathryn Reed

Paid parking in South Lake Tahoe is working – based on when it comes to revenues being greater than expenses.

Paid parking in South Lake Tahoe is not working – based on the nine people who spoke Nov. 5.

Paid parking in South Lake Tahoe is evolving and will continue to – based on the direction the council gave staff.

Paid parking has been contentious for the 15-plus years the issue has been discussed here. More than $80,000 has been paid to consultants in that time period to study how best to manage parking. The studies finally stopped and action was taken. Most of the kiosks for paid parking went online in the city after the busy July 4 weekend.

For about two hours the City Council on Tuesday heard about what is working and what isn’t, as well as what the public thinks.

Many people just don’t like paid parking no matter how much money is generated. It would be difficult to find anyone in any town – local or visitor – who wants to pay a dime to park their vehicle on a slab of asphalt. So it could be a fact when the people who are against the parking fee say everyone is against paid parking for some reason.

The people who aren’t weighing-in are those who pay for it whether they like it or not. After all, 42,342 people paid to park in South Lake Tahoe in the three-plus months the kiosks have been working. Most were at Lakeview Commons – 20,876; then Lakeside Beach – 16,796; Venice Drive – 3,347; and Paradise – 1,223.

Bellamy Court kiosks have been in for a couple years, with 9,161 transactions during the same time period.

Of the 3,551 tickets issued in fiscal year 2012-13, 1,507 were in the paid parking areas. Other tickets include being in front of a fire hydrant, in a handicapped spot, snow removal or other reasons.

The ticket at the parking kiosk costs offenders $55. If there is no challenge to the ticket, the city pays the Southern California collection agency $3. That dollar amount goes up through the appeals process, so then the city is generating less income.

According to the staff report, the compliance rate at kiosks is 97.5 percent.

The city collected $190,976 off the kiosks in the 12- to 15-week period it was operational and another $211,183 from tickets. After expenses, some being one time, the net revenue for 2012-13 was $180,783.

The city is projecting net revenue of more than $1.37 million in five years beginning with the fiscal year that started Oct. 1.

Still, Lakeside Beach area people have been fired up and angry about the parking and remain so.

Andy Engelhardt of Lakeside told the council, “You have created disgruntled, not delighted customers.”

He keeps saying Lakeside lost money ever since the kiosks went in. But what he doesn’t publicly say is that the fee to access his beach went up and Lake Tahoe Resort Hotel no longer buys beach tickets for its guests. The former Embassy Suites was Lakeside’s best customer in years past. There has also been a change to who is operating the restaurant on the beach and that contract is now being negotiated.

Most of the other beach areas on the South Shore that the city has nothing to do with have paid parking during the summer season – such as U.S. Forest Service beaches, Ski Run and Camp Richardson.

Kings Beach is following South Lake Tahoe’s lead with year-round parking. The North Tahoe Public Utility District voted this fall to charge at Kings Beach State Recreation Area and North Tahoe Regional Park. The park alone has more than $1 million in deferred maintenance.

Councilman Hal Cole in his support of the program said the city needs to create cash to pay for the operation and maintenance of places like Lakeview Commons, as well improvements to other areas like Lakeside.

The council agreed to have the parking program come back after the first of the year to further look at the entire program, whether kiosks would be removed from Paradise Avenue, how to improve Venice Drive – including possibly adding a trail for pedestrians and cyclists and bringing trailer parking back, hours of operation, lighting on kiosks, signage and a season pass.

Already the paid parking on Venice Drive has been suspended until May 1.

To the community,

No one wants to wind up in an emergency room to begin with, let alone face the idea of being transported away from your support base of home. Once you get through your situation, it’s then that you begin to think about the costs involved; it’s only natural.

I have to tell you about one cost that we had control over and that was with the transportation needed to go from Barton to St. Mary’s Hospital in Reno.

The hubby had a scary situation (he’s just dandy now) and needed transport. We have belonged to CalStar for as long as they’ve provided membership and are we glad of it. I know that our $45 investment on an annual basis has been the best money ever spent. Had we not had that coverage, I would be expecting a bill to exceed $30,000.

I continue to be amazed at the many folks that have lived here for a number of years and they still do not have membership to this service.

With the holidays coming, why not consider getting your family members or your friends coverage as their gift. CalStar covers multiple service areas that include Concord, Gilroy, Auburn, Ukiah, Salinas, South Lake Tahoe, Santa Maria, Vacaville, and McClellan. It’s the gift that you hope is never used but when it’s needed, the amazing crew of CalStar will get you to your destination safely and with great care.

I want to thank the amazing crew that morning who got my husband where he needed to be. Your talents and compassion helped to keep me calm and Paul knew he was in good hands. Thank you Jen Drennan, Stephen Poehis and pilot Kris Hunt. I am forever grateful.

Lisa Huard, South Lake Tahoe

Craig Thomas of the Sierra Forest Legacy will give a presentation on conservation strategies for national forests on Nov. 13.

He will speak about fire ecology, sustainable forest practices and future plans for the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit. Thomas has been intimately involved in the protection and restoration of the forests of the Sierra Nevada for more than 25 years and continues working to find solutions to the threats facing Sierra Nevada forests and communities today.

This Tahoe Areas Sierra Club meeting is at Unity at the Lake, 1195 Rufus Allen Blvd., South Lake Tahoe at 7pm.

The Sierra Nevada College Sustainability Resource Center presents the 2nd annual Sustainability Film Festival beginning Nov. 7 with a screening of the film “Chasing Ice”.

The Festival continues on Friday and Saturday with food and drink starting at 5:30pm in Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences lobby on the campus of Sierra Nevada College.

The 2013 Festival lineup will feature “Chasing Ice”, the story of one man’s mission to change the tide of history by gathering undeniable evidence of climate change. Some of the featured films include “The Garden”, “Bidder 70”, and “Pipe Dreams”.

Go online for the festival schedule and more details.