The League to Save Lake Tahoe will host its annual Keep Tahoe Red, White & Blue Beach Cleanups at five locations throughout Lake Tahoe on July 5.

Volunteers of all ages and abilities are invited to join the effort from Tahoe City to Nevada Beach and South Shore.

Last year, the League’s July 5 beach cleanup volunteers removed 370 pounds of trash and 60 pounds of recyclables. The most common items were cigarette butts and beer bottles.

The League will provide reusable bags and buckets. Volunteers are invited to bring reusable water bottles and gloves.

The League is partnering this year with the U.S. Forest Service, Tahoe City Public Utility District, and South Lake Tahoe. Businesses sponsoring beach locations are: Ridge Resort, Lake of the Sky Outfitters, North Face, Grass Roots Natural Foods, SUP Tahoe, and Willard’s Sport Shop.

Locations: Commons Beach, Tahoe City; Taylor Creek, Kiva and Tallac Historic Site, South Shore; Regan Beach, El Dorado Beach and Timber Cove, South Lake Tahoe; Nevada Beach, Zephyr Shoals, East Shore.

RSVP to Cassie@keeptahoeblue.org.

Due to the severe drought conditions, wood and charcoal fires are not allowed in the Eldorado National Forest outside of designated campgrounds.

Gas or propane fires are allowed with a 2014 California campfire permit. These permits are free and can be obtained at any U.S. Forest Service, CalFire, or Bureau of Land Management office.

Visitors can help by educating others about fire danger and reporting abandoned or illegal fires to 911 or to the nearest ranger station.

The Eldorado will be staffing extra patrols and patrolling after dark the July 4 weekend.

More information on recreation opportunities and fire restrictions is available on the Eldorado National Forest website.

By Yesenia Amaro, Las Vegas Review-Journal

There’s a new group in Nevada, and its goal is to establish marriage equality in the state in 2016 or sooner.

Freedom Nevada, a nonprofit coalition, this month formed a statewide 20-member advisory committee that includes lawmakers, attorneys, religious organizations and equal opportunity organizations, among others.

“People have a fundamental right to form families,” said Bishop Dan T. Edwards with the Episcopal Diocese of Nevada, which has taken “heat” for its position of this issue. “This is a matter of civil rights when it comes to state law.”

Those on the committee will lay the groundwork to rally state voters to say “yes” in 2016 to a ballot measure allowing all couples, including same-sex couples, to have the freedom to marry.

The effort is modeled on similar work that has proved successful in states such as Maryland, Maine and Washington, where voters approved same-sex marriage ballot measures, organizers said.

In 2013, the Nevada Legislature approved Senate Joint Resolution 13 to amend the state’s constitution to recognize all marriages, regardless of gender. The legislation would need to be approved by lawmakers again during the 2015 legislative session before going to the voters in 2016.

Read the whole story

On July 4, volunteers participating in the Tahoe Nearshore Dippers program aim to set a world record for Lake Tahoe.

In an effort to raise awareness of changing conditions in Tahoe’s near shore clarity, volunteers will be asking beachgoers around the lake to help take a quick clarity measurement and set a world record for the most measurements taken on one lake in one day.

Friends of the West Shore hope the program will help raise awareness about the importance of protecting Tahoe’s near shore.

Volunteers from FOWS will be coordinating with other communities around the lake to host measurement sites on the same day. FOWS will provide the equipment and training, and post the measurements to the national Secchi program’s website and FOWS’ website.

For more information or to volunteer to take a measurement, go online or email Jennifer Quashnick at jqtahoe@sbcglobal.net.

Placer and Nevada counties are benefiting from the $510 million the California Transportation Commission released this week.

The money will be spent on 83 transportation projects in the state.

Here are some of the significant projects:

· Placer County: $4.9 million to rehabilitate 12.6 miles of Highway 267 from the Nevada County .ine to Brockway Summit.

· Nevada County: $4.4 million to build a pedestrian/bicycle undercrossing at the Donner Creek underpass in Truckee.

· Nevada County: $3.1 million to Truckee to widen the Union Pacific Railroad grade separation at the “Mousehole” on Highway 89.

By Gretchen Reynolds, New York Times

Intense exercise changes the body and muscles at a molecular level in ways that milder physical activity doesn’t match, according to an enlightening study.

Though the study was conducted in mice, the findings add to growing scientific evidence that to realize the greatest benefits from workouts, we probably need to push ourselves.

For some time, scientists and exercise experts have debated the merits of intensity in exercise. Everyone agrees, of course, that any exercise is more healthful than none. But beyond that baseline, is strenuous exercise somehow better, from a physiological standpoint, than a relative stroll?

There have been hints that it may be. Epidemiological studies of walkers, for instance, have found that those whose usual pace is brisk tend to live longer than those who move at a more leisurely rate, even if their overall energy expenditure is similar.

But how intense exercise might uniquely affect the body, especially below the surface at the cellular level, had remained unclear. That’s where scientists at the Scripps Research Institute in Florida stepped in.

Read the whole story

By Karen Kaplan, Los Angeles Times

Books are like medicine, and pediatricians should prescribe their daily use to build up the brains of their youngest patients, according to a policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Parents should read aloud to their infants every day and continue to do so at least until their children enter kindergarten, the academy’s Council on Early Childhood advised on Tuesday. Pediatricians should emphasize the importance of daily reading during routine health checkups and dispense books to their patients, especially those from low-income families, the experts said.

Asking pediatricians to act a little more like librarians may sound strange, but many studies have documented that literacy has lifelong benefits for health. For instance, adults who have trouble with reading are less likely to get preventive healthcare, are not as good at managing chronic diseases, are more likely to wind up in the hospital and are more likely to die prematurely, the policy statement noted.

Read the whole story

Athletes from the 1968 U.S. Olympic track team stand on part of the track they trained on at Echo Summit. Photos/Kathryn Reed

By Kathryn Reed

1968 was not all about free love and feeling groovy. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated within two months of each other. Vietnam was raging. The country was polarized.

Even though the Civil Rights Act was signed 50 years ago this summer, it did not mean equality was immediate – and certainly not four years later.

Echo Summit played a role in that tumultuous summer.

John Carlos and Tommie Smith remember training at Echo Summit with fondness.

Laurence Crabtree, Eldorado National Forest supervisor, said it was human rights history that began at Echo Summit in the summer of 1968. This is where the U.S. Track and Field trained for the Mexico City Olympics. The elevation of the two locations is about the same – with Echo Summit being 28 feet higher at 7,377 feet.

Tommie Smith won gold in the 200 meters and John Carlos bronze. While on the podium listening to the national anthem they bowed their heads and raised a fist with a black glove – a salute to black power and a stand against racial inequality.

Smith and Carlos, along with nine other members of that historic team, returned to Echo Summit on June 27 to be honored as well as acknowledge the site is now a California Historical Landmark.

“This track and field team is regarded as the best in history. And they have never gotten their due,” Jill Geer with USA Track & Field said. “They were heroic in so many ways – on and off the field.”

The Olympic flag flies proudly June 27 at Echo Summit.

They brought home 20 medals, including 12 gold. Smith’s world record of 19.83 seconds stood for 11 years. They won more gold and set more records (six world) than any previous team had. Twenty of them are in the National Track and Field Hall of Fame.

“This is where the love and bonding started amongst all of the individuals,” Carlos said. “I hear many people talk about how great this team was. The greatness came from this location.”

Walt Little, with the city of South Lake Tahoe, recommended the location. The U.S. Olympic Committee approved it.

In addition to the men’s track team, the men and women’s volleyball teams and women’s gymnastic teams also trained in South Lake Tahoe.

At the track and field trials on the 400-meter oval at Echo Summit, four world records were set in September 1968. The Games were a month later.

This is the state’s fifth sports site landmark and first civil rights.

Hundreds of trees remained in the middle of the track. Boulders were part of the landscape. It made for some interesting perspectives.

Smith remembers watching Bob Seagren, who went on to win gold in pole vault, train. “I thought he had fallen out of a tree,” Smith said as Seagren tumbled 11-plus feet after clearing the bar.

For most of the athletes, this chilly Friday morning was the first time they had been back to Tahoe.

Triple jumper Norm Tate was overheard saying, “This brings back memories of coming out here in the morning and freezing.”

One of the conditions of the U.S. Forest Service allowing the track to be built was for it to have little impact on the environment and that it would be removed quickly. That track went to South Tahoe Middle School. It was in 1992 that the last high school track meet was run at that track. It had outlived its lifespan. In 2007, it was replaced.

Each athlete has a piece of the track.

But Anthony Davis, who runs community events at the STMS track, has pieces of the track. He had some cut up to give to each of the athletes. Part of lane No. 3 was front and center during the festivities. Davis told Lake Tahoe News one day he would like to secure the funds to have it framed and placed in a public place.

A plaque on a granite boulder commemorates the site. It is located just off Highway 50 where Adventure Mountain is located.

Athletes were also honored Friday night at Sacramento State during the USA Track & Field Championships.

Publisher’s note: This editorial is from the June 27, 2014, Mountain Democrat in Placerville.

Neutering the board

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

— Lord Acton

The El Dorado County 2013-14 Grand Jury’s attack on elected officials contains a multi-page effort to turn the members of the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors into factotums for the chief administrative officer, the Mountain Democrat learned this week.

This detailed rewriting of the El Dorado County Charter is not the work of this grand jury, as evidenced by its superficial “investigation” of the so-called “proliferation” of elected officials. This rewriting is so detailed it would not have been done by any grand jury present or past. It is clearly the work of the current chief administrative officer. Its aim is clear — to neuter the Board of Supervisors and arrogate all power to herself.

In a series of cross-outs and additions, the duties of the Board of Supervisors, as detailed in the County Charter, are whittled down until the supervisors are turned into mere figureheads. And this is being rushed through the Charter Commission by “staff” before three new supervisors are elected — one in September and two in November.

Under Section 204 of the charter, the Board of Supervisors can “review, and accept, reject or modify all performance evaluations performed by the chief administrative officer.” That is crossed out.

“Except as otherwise provided for herein, non-elected department heads shall serve at the pleasure of the Board of Supervisors. (The board shall) appoint, suspend or remove all department heads except those for whose selection or appointment this charter makes other provision. Appointments shall be made on the basis of executive and administrative qualifications as determined by screening and selection procedures comparable to those used for classified management personnel.” All that is crossed out. No appointment power for the supervisors. No screening and selection of department heads. Let the CAO appoint friends and sycophants without normal recruitment procedures.

The previous cross-outs were all under the heading of “The board shall.”

Under the heading of “The board may,” is the total elimination of the board’s ability to “Create, abolish, consolidate, segregate, assign or transfer the powers and duties of any appointive office, department, division, board or commission to the extent not in conflict with this charter.” All that is crossed out. The power of the board to reorganize county government is totally eliminated. In its place the CAO can dump an out-of-favor department head simply by eliminating that person’s department or transferring it to someone else.

In pursuit of “information, advice and assistance” the board can “require the attendance of any officer or employee of the county to attend any meeting of the board.” In place of “any officer” the CAO inserts herself or anyone the CAO assigns to attend. Again, a usurpation of board powers.

Section 211 is a single paragraph about “communication” that simply calls to the board to communicate with department heads or officers by “formal board action,” though individual board members may seek out information. This paragraph is changed to eliminate board direction to “department heads” and substitutes “elected officials.” This is merely bizarre.

Under Section 401 that outlines the powers and duties of department heads, boards and commissions, the CAO inserted a whole new paragraph that gives the CAO sole power to “appoint, suspend or remove all department heads.” That is reinforced by Section 404 about appointed department heads. Here “they serve at the pleasure of their appointing authority, the Board of Supervisors” is crossed out and their appointing authority becomes — you guessed it — the CAO.

The coup de grace, of course, is the proposal to wipe out elected department heads from the County Charter and take away the voters’ right to ever elect anyone except those that can’t be eliminated because they are prescribed in the state Constitution — sheriff, district attorney and assessor.

For the nine people running for the three seats open on the Board of Supervisors, be forewarned: If the CAO has her way, you will be spending a lot of money running for something that is simply an honorific with no power. For the four still sitting on the board, you are sitting ducks, who will be turned into rubber decoys.

• Tahoe Windjammers are out on Lake Tahoe racing. For more info, go online.

• Dorinda’s Chocolates is opening a location at the Village at Squaw Valley on July 4.

• The American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors Laboratory Accreditation Board awarded the International Certificate of Accreditation to the Washoe County Sheriff’s Forensic Science Division.

• Improv comedy will be at the Grand Hall at Valhalla on July 8 and July 22, and at the Boathouse Theater on Aug. 5 and Aug. 12. Cost is $10. Shows start at 7:30pm. For tickets and more info, go online.

• Lake Tahoe South Shore Chamber of Commerce’s Tech Tuesday on July 1 is Advanced Social Business Practices & Tools. It is from 5-7pm in the conference room in Stateline.