Lake Tahoe Area Sierra Club is bringing back its annual fundraiser to the Stonehenge residence in Echo View Estates on July 16.

The annual evening of wine, food, and entertainment will also feature several local artists. The founder of the Sierra Club, John Muir (impersonated by Don Baldwin) will be making an appearance, celebrating the 100th anniversary of his death.

The winner of our photo contest will also be announced. Information regarding the event and contest can be found online.

The event is from 5-8pm. The $35 tickets are available at Aspen Hollow, Emerald Bay Physical Therapy and Lake of the Sky Outfitters.

By Paul Takahashi, Las Vegas Sun

Nearly a third of Nevada children are considered obese by the time they enter kindergarten, according to a recent UNLV report.

Since 2008, the Nevada Institute for Children’s Research and Policy has issued an annual report listing demographic and health information for some of the state’s youngest residents: incoming kindergartners. This year, more than 7,300 surveys were collected from parents with the help of the Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health and the state’s 17 school districts. About 60 percent of survey respondents were from Clark County.

UNLV’s report found that 30 percent of Nevada’s 4- and 5-year-olds are overweight or obese, a 1.4 percent increase from last year. The Silver State’s share of overweight children has hovered around 30 percent since the survey was first administered five years ago.

Nationally, childhood obesity has more than doubled in young children over the past three decades, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About a third of American children ages 6 to 11 are considered overweight or obese.

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Sarah McLachlan’s talents include singing, song writing, guitar and piano playing. Photos/Kathryn Reed

By Susan Wood

STATELINE – Singer-composer-musician Sarah McLachlan left no mystery about what kind of summer Harveys expects to provide as she led off a blockbuster lineup of artists for this summer’s outdoor concert series.

Diverse, prolific, prominent and up close and personal.

McLachlan didn’t miss a beat in her trademark personable style and self-made emotionally charged ballads the minute she hit the stage to start the concert series Tuesday – now in its 13th season.

“We have a lot more big names,” entertainment director John Packer told Lake Tahoe News before McLachlan took the stage.

The stage was set as a quasi nightclub with circular rings of light bulbs that changed color with the mood of the songs. They rotated between her well-known hits off her “Surfacing” LP and new album “Shine On” released in May for which the tour was named.

“This album for me was about gratitude – recognizing the things I’m grateful for. I’m just so blessed,” McLachlan said.

Beyond her successful career, she was the founder of the now defunct Lilith Fair that was dedicated to providing venues for female artists, has a school of music for inner city children, and is a supporter to the ASPCA to benefit animals.

Sarah McLachlan split her time between piano and guitar.

Dressed in a shimmery silver, sleeveless top, she launched the June 24 concert with her mega hit “Building a Mystery” off “Surfacing.” In 1991, this number was recognized as VH1’s 100 Greatest Songs of the ’90s.

Next, she jumped to “In Your Shoes,” the first track off the new album. The CD is a dual compilation for the lovelorn because break-up songs “have to be discussed.”

Then, there was love found, more specifically written for “her sweetie” on the new song “Brink of Destruction.” She laughed at the notion the title didn’t sound happy. But for the most part, it’s the type of collection of songs to lounge on the sofa with on a rainy day, or a warm summer Tahoe day.

“It’s so gorgeous here. You are so lucky to be living here,” she told the audience. And someone yelled out to make sure she was staying hydrated in the high elevation, something she noticed even with her noted breathy vocal delivery. “Yes, I’m drinking a lot. Thank you.”

She even took pre-submitted questions out of a top hat.

What’s her favorite place to travel? She rattled off New Zealand and Russia. But she further admitted her favorite place is her Vancouver, British Columbia, homeland. More personal, some asked about the most exotic place she’s made love – the bow of a boat.

With that, McLachlan never strayed from showing her personal side. She let the audience in on a secret. She admitted to stealing some “big ass” pine cones from Tahoe.

While many musicians connect with fans, McLachlan did in an unusual way. Names had been drawn to join her on stage in a living room set up for them to get the close-up perspective. It was all a part of what the artist-activist-philanthropist refers to as a way “to create positive social change.”

The participants on the sofas certainly enjoyed the gesture. They danced to the upbeat “Sweet Surrender,” chatted between sets and took selfies to spread the message of goodwill.

One woman told McLachlan that she’d been a fan for almost 20 years, and the song “Possession” changed her life.

Sarah McLachan has redefined front row for fans.

With more than 40 million albums sold worldwide, the Canadian native has made a longstanding career from her compositions, soulful ballads and diverse appearances.

From the song “Angel” featured in the hit movie “City of Angels” starring Meg Ryan and the sweet tune “Ordinary Miracle” for the “Charlotte’s Web” animated film, the artist has used her songwriting talents in a number of ways. Along with “Angel,” she performed in 2011 the other mega hit “I Will Remember You” to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 at the Pennsylvania plane crash site. The place marks where passengers fought back hijackers and brought down the plane.

She also composed the official theme song for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver – “One Dream.”

But for all the grand-scale awards, recognitions and worldwide acclaim, it’s the one-on-one intimacy that McLachlan is best known for. In between weaving in and out of albums with her musical sets, the latest includes a special tribute to her father who died four years ago.

“My dad was really an anchor for me,” she said of “Song For My Father.”

With the launch of that single, McLachlan earlier invited people through social media to submit photos with their fathers to be featured on her video.

McLachlan also gave the attentive crowd a glimpse of her family commitments with the new song “Beautiful Girl,” a tune dedicated to her two girls, ages 7 and 12. The lyrics are both sentimental and nostalgic for anyone who recalls the angst in coming of age.

“We’re gonna push on through, pretty girl

Just like we always do, beautiful girl

I know the world can be cruel, pretty girl

You’re gonna make it ‘cause you’ve got love on your side.”

The artist’s comfort level on stage was often apparent with her free-flowing arm gestures, passionate facial expressions and rocking-out dance movements. It was refreshing to see. And not every singer who writes about “your love is better than ice cream” can be taken seriously – even with a band as serious as hers.

With John Evans on bass, Curt Bisquera on drums, Joel Shearer on guitar and Vincent Jones (of Alanis Morissette fame) on keyboards, the group gripped the precision of a recording studio outdoors. And McLachlan’s signature high-range vocal chords held up better than ever. Her trick – “drinking warm water and honey” before performances.

The other reason the acoustics that night were so great for vocals is the sound engineering was superior, a change from the usual too-hot instruments drowning out the singers found at many outdoor concerts.

Four band members complement Sarah McLachlan’s music and vocals.

As professional as they were on stage, the group seemed to enjoy themselves. McLachlan had a commanding stage presence – whether standing with a guitar or sitting quietly down with her Yamaha grand piano.

“I want to say I’m having so much fun,” McLachlan admitted.

She must have been. After an expected encore of “Angel” – which brought a hush over the night, she broke out the ukulele and played it like she was hanging out at the beach.

“This was my very first instrument. I started playing it at 4 years old,” she said, breaking in the tune “The Sound that Love Makes” off the new album.

“This was better than expected, even as a fan,” Diane Berkovatz of Reno said.

McLachlan keeps up her Shine On tour at UC Berkeley’s Greek Theater on Friday night; the Greek in Los Angeles the following evening; and Humphreys in San Diego on Sunday.

The Harveys Outdoor Summer Concert Series also continues with country music acts Carrie Underwood on July 18; Zac Brown Band two nights later; rock band Train on July 25 and ’80s group Journey with the Steve Miller Band five days later.

With the South Shore noticeably picking up more summer traffic, the concerts “create a buzz” that coincides with a busy season, Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority Executive Director Carol Chaplin told Lake Tahoe News.

Publisher’s note: This editorial is from the June 25, 2014, Mountain Democrat in Placerville.

Multiplication … that’s the name of the game!

And every generation … you know they play the same!

— Bobby Darin, from the 1960 Movie “Come September”

The 2013-14 El Dorado County Grand Jury must have been watching Turner Classic Movies when they wrote in their report about the “proliferation of elected officials in El Dorado County.”

There are seven persons elected countywide for their special expertise to run county departments: the sheriff, district attorney, assessor, auditor-controller, recorder-clerk, surveyor and treasurer-tax collector. Despite criticizing the “proliferation of elected officials” three times in its report, there is no evidence that any new elected positions have been created. More’s the pity.

Terri Daly

All offices but the recorder-clerk have specific qualifications outlined in state law. The grand jury didn’t inquire about this, only noting the “specialized and sometimes esoteric duties of these offices.” Esoteric? None of these officials has esoteric duties. The duties are all contained in California Codes, embellished by county ordinances.

Besides “proliferation” what is the grand jury’s beef? It seems to be the chief administrative officer’s beef. The CAO doesn’t like democracy, doesn’t like independent analysis, doesn’t want any officials who are not under the CAO’s fickle finger of fate (Urban Dictionary: “An unseen and unforeseeable force that controls the direction of all living things”).

We should note here that the grand jury also criticized members of the Board of Supervisors for interfering with the CAO’s running of the county.

But the real aim is to eliminate as many elected department heads as possible. Here is the CAO’s gripe as expressed by the grand jury: “When a department head, elected or appointed tells the board it should ignore the budget and augment that department’s programs, the board is being told that its policies are meaningless and its role as policy maker is meaningless.”

In other words, the CAO wants the Board of Supervisors to rubber-stamp her budget and dispense with any budget hearings. This is providing the board a tunnel vision.

The grand jury continues the orchestrated attacks on the auditor-controller. Admitting that the grand jury did not look even at the Workplace Climate Assessment Survey, it joins the Sacramento Bee, which in its May 25 editorial made clear that it did not read the survey, but relied on the hearsay of CAO Terri Daly and board Chairman Norma Santiago, who visited the Bee’s editorial board.

After all but calling El Dorado County voters a bunch of hicks, the Bee said El Dorado County “government is still stuck in Hangtown.” To prove their point the Bee ran a photo of the hanging dummy from the old Hangman’s Tree Bar in Placerville.

Anybody who has read the survey as released to the board and the public can see: 1) Auditor-Controller Joe Harn received a 92 percent positive rating from his employees. 2) This doesn’t qualify as a survey, because it interviewed past employees as well as current employees, but doesn’t distinguish between them. 3) The quotes, such as the one the Bee used, are taken out of context and are meaningless. 4) The consequences of this hack survey are to turn over management of the departments to the minority of whiners.

What happens if, as the Bee suggested, the surveyor and recorder-clerk are eliminated as elected positions? A board member can pressure an appointed surveyor to pass through a developer’s subdivision map or a friend’s four-by-four split without proper review. An appointed recorder could be pressured to backdate a recording or worse. When the clerk was combined with the recorder three elected officials ago, the clerk no longer ran the court staff and provided a check on the administration of the judges. Now two appointed administrators are paid much more than the County Clerk Billie Mitchel ever earned, and she ran elections also.

What happens if the treasurer-tax collector is eliminated as an elected position? Experience has shown individual supervisors will want county treasury money invested in banks they favor and financial planners that are friends of theirs. One supervisor pressed to sell the delinquent tax roll to a lawyer that could lead to the county running short of cash and making payroll. The grand jury complained the current treasurer-tax collector, a certified public accountant, has been in office since 1985. In that time the incumbent has won four contested elections. The voters have chosen.

Eliminate the auditor-controller and there will be no one to stop the CAO from breaking the rules, sneaking raises through and ignoring the charter.

The grand jury may be confused, but the CAO isn’t. She has attacked elected officials in a four-pronged assault: 1) Cut their pay and deny them the 15 percent raise the CAO kept for herself. 2) Sic the grand jury on them. 3) Hustle up a Charter Commission to eliminate the elected positions. 4) Attack the voters as too ignorant to decide who is qualified to be “esoteric.”

Grand jurors generally have more ego than expertise, which allowed the CAO to play them in her reach for total, absolute power.

By Kathryn Reed

The Tahoe Douglas Visitors Authority is now the lead agency behind the fireworks that are shot off twice a year on the South Shore.

For several years the pyrotechnic display has come under the Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority purview.

“The LTVA board received legal counsel advising that the best course of action would be to seek another sponsor, thus the TDVA. It makes sense, since the TDVA is a Nevada entity and the fireworks displays are being executed in Nevada and the oversight is being performed by a Nevada authority, the [Tahoe Douglas Fire Protection District],” Carol Chaplin, who is executive director of the LTVA and TDVA, told Lake Tahoe News.

The Nevada Legislature formed the TDVA in 1999. It is guaranteed funding through the transient occupancy tax collected by Douglas County. TDVA had been giving the LTVA money for the fireworks, so funding is not an issue.

A lawsuit filed last year by a Marla Bay couple cited the federal Clean Water Act. The suit was filed in Sacramento and settled this spring. The settlement calls for better cleanup of beaches, which is already taking place by volunteers. Changes are also being made to some of the shells and the immediate cleanup procedures.

“Yes, like any other organization, the TDVA could be sued,” Chaplin said.

What will change is that it will be harder for anyone to gain traction with a lawsuit in Nevada compared to California.

The Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board, a California agency, is tasked with regulating water issues in this area. But it has no power across the state line.

Nevada does not have a similar governing body. This means any future lawsuit regarding the South Shore fireworks would have to be filed in federal court in Reno, with the Environmental Protection Agency being the overseer.

Paddleboard competitors will be taking over El Dorado Beach this weekend for the annual Race the Lake of the Sky.

The two-day event (June 28-29) includes a variety of races for varying abilities. All include starting and finishing at the South Lake Tahoe beach and maneuvering around buoys. The distance course has standup paddlers going into Emerald Bay.

Kona Brewing Company is getting in on the action as one of the sponsors. While the Hawaiian beer has been available on the main land for a while, it wasn’t until this spring that its Castaway IPA was brought ashore. LTN has sampled it and believes it would pair nicely with spectating the SUP races this weekend.

But for those who want to participate, onsite registration is available both days starting at 6am. For more info about the event, go online.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Kathryn Reed

The just released Amador County Grand Jury report rips Terri Daly for her ineptness when it comes to finances.

Daly is the current chief administrative officer for El Dorado County. She was CAO of Amador County from March 2007-10. The incident in the report occurred during her tenure in Amador.

Terri Daly

The report says, “Assuming $7.14 million in future indebtedness for $400,000 cash in hand is a very bad deal.”

The Amador report comes on the heels of the El Dorado County Grand Jury that called the county dysfunctional.

The Amador County issue involves the lease of the Health and Human Services buildings. There had been an agreement in place in 2006, but Daly renegotiated it in 2008.

“In the course of its investigation, the grand jury found flaws with literally every aspect of the lease negotiation process. The end result is a commitment to continue the current lease for five extra years at a cost of over $7 million, when a less expensive lease could have been obtained. Simple math would have identified the excessive costs associated with the lease,” the report says.

“The Amador Grand Jury Report is critical of the county’s handling of the Health and Human Services building lease for the entire project, not just during the time while I was CAO,” Daly told Lake Tahoe News. “As noted in the report, the project started in 2003, while I became CAO in March 2007. Neither the findings section nor the recommendations section cites the CAO specifically. The findings refer to systematic failures. While I was CAO, I worked to put in place practices and procedures, but clearly was unable to change the course of this project.

“I fully cooperated with the Amador Grand Jury in its investigation of this issue and agree with its findings.”

One of the findings by the grand jury is that “no county official, auditor, or controller has the official assignment to review fiscal commitments of the county prior to adoption and/or approval by the [Board of Supervisors].”

This is unlike El Dorado County where the elected auditor-controller does review financial documents and has a track record of not rubber-stamping what the CAO or supervisors want.

• Boogie Nights at Blu inside MontBleu at Stateline is coming back with a grand opening July 18-19.

• Natives and Adapted Natives: Why? What? Where? is the July 21, 5:30pm UCCE Master Gardener Green Thumb Series class at Lake Tahoe Community College’s demonstration garden.

• Barton opened a urology office this month at 2169 South Ave., South Lake Tahoe.

• TAMBA is having a trail day in Tahoe City on July 29. Meet at 9am at the Tahoe City PUD parking lot at 221 Fairway Drive (across from the fire station). There will be a 4-wheel drive carpool or volunteers may ride to the project off the Fibreboard Freeway.

• “Lawn Removal – Lawn Be Gone” is episode two in a series of instructional videos on what people can do to change how stormwater leaves their landscapes and how they can be stewards of their watersheds. Click here to see the state Water Board’s video.

Possession of fireworks of any kind, including firecrackers and sparklers, is illegal in the Lake Tahoe Basin.

Campfires are not permitted on National Forest beaches or in the general forest. For those planning to barbecue on the beach, bring gas barbecues instead of charcoal.

The annual alcohol ban will be in effect at Nevada Beach, Zephyr Cove Resort, and Zephyr Shoals (the former Dreyfus Estate) from 6am to midnight on July 4. Additionally, county and state laws ban the possession or consumption of alcohol on the Truckee River from Tahoe City to Alpine Meadows and Chamber’s Landing Beach on the West Shore, from July 1-6.

These areas will be patrolled by law enforcement personnel from the Forest Service, Douglas and Placer counties, the Carson City sheriff’s Departments, and private security staff.

Traffic is expected to be heavy July 4 weekend. The Nifty Fifty Trolley stops at National Forest beaches along the South and West shores. At developed recreation sites, such as Kiva, Tallac and the Taylor Creek Visitor Center, parking is allowed only in designated parking spaces inside the parking lots, not along the roadway.

Day-use fees for the Fourth of July at Pope, Baldwin, and Nevada beaches will be $20 and at Zephyr Cove Beach $25 to cover increased security and facility maintenance costs of the holiday.

Pets are not allowed at National Forest designated swim beaches, including Nevada, Pope, Baldwin, Meeks and William Kent. Leashed pets are welcome at Kiva Picnic Area from Valhalla Boathouse/Pier to Tallac Point in South Lake Tahoe, Echo Lakes on Echo Summit, Zephyr Shoals and Hidden and Chimney beaches on the East Shore, Coon Street Beach (at the boat launch) in King’s Beach, and Kaspian and 64 Acres beaches in Tahoe City.

Trash cans may become full, so plan ahead and pack out all garbage.

By Lisa Krieger, San Jose Mercury News

When a single snowflake falls peacefully atop a Sierra peak, it begins a turbulent journey to help quench the thirst of a drought-stricken state.

In most years, Sierra snow provides a third of California’s water supply. But it is by far the least reliable portion — and now, after three years of historically low snowfall, tensions are soaring over how we share the shrinking bounty of this great frozen reservoir.

Lake of snow in the Sierra this winter, as evidenced by the March snow survey. Photo/LTN file

Today, on the cusp of a long, dry summer, we follow the melting snow — and meet its dependents — along one of its many routes from remote peaks to thriving communities around the Golden State.

As our snowmelt travels the 300-mile path from Yosemite’s Mount Dana to the sea, it meanders through the Tuolumne River watershed, past hydropower plants and nurseries, wildlife refuges and chemical plants, vineyards and the San Francisco Bay Area, where it provides water for millions of people.

Each of these water users, linked by a reliance on this fragile resource, has a legal right to some of the flow — and a growing need to insist on those claims.

The trouble is, in an average year, five times more water is committed than flows through all the state’s rivers and streams combined, according to new research by University of California scientists. The state’s population growth will further boost this demand. And climate change predictions suggest our water supply will only continue to diminish.

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