A pancake breakfast on June 22 will benefit youth in Lake Tahoe.
Optimist International will put on the event at Tahoe Paradise Park in Meyers from 8-11am.
For $5 people will get pancakes, eggs, sausage, juice, coffee or tee.
Tickets must be bought in advance at Eloise Automotive & Alignment, Lakeside Napa Auto Part or Fritz Wenck Dentistry.
Publisher’s note: This is one of a few stories about construction planned for the Lake Tahoe Basin this summer.
By Kathryn Reed
El Dorado County planners are busy plotting what will be happening in the basin for the next few years. And while improvements to roads and bike trails could happen this year, 2014 will be super busy when at least six projects are expected to go in the ground.
For this building season, which officially starts May 1, things are still a bit up in the air.
The county is nearing completion to acquire the right-of-way on Sawmill Road to be able to finish the bike trail so it connects with the bridge at Highway 50 that takes cyclists into Meyers. All the environmental documents are in place.
The intersection of Sawmill Road and Lake Tahoe Boulevard will be upgraded by the end of 2015. Photos/LTN
If everything comes together as the county wants, it’s possible finishing that segment of trail could begin this summer. Right now the trail meanders close to the northern side of Sawmill from Lake Tahoe Boulevard halfway down the street before it dead ends.
Connecting Sawmill to a future path on Lake Tahoe Boulevard has an outside chance of beginning late in the season. That trail will roughly follow the U.S. Forest Service dirt path that starts at Viking Way and goes into the Upper Truckee neighborhood.
This is part of a larger project to narrow Lake Tahoe Boulevard. Comments on the CEQA documents for the roadwork are being taken until April 24.
“The plans are nearly done for the bike trail portion. The plan is to split that job into two where the road improvements happen separate from the class 1 bike paths,” Brendan Ferry, senior planner with the El Dorado County Department of Transportation, told Lake Tahoe News. “We are focusing on the bike portion. That is the most important piece as we see it.”
The trail will be built to American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO) standards, which means 10-feet wide, plus 2-foot shoulders, meeting American with Disabilities Act requirements and limitations on the grade.
It will connect riders with the class 2 bike trail at the top of Clearview Drive.
The trail sign to the left indicates where one end of the new paved bike trail will go, with the STHS sign to the right.
A crosswalk will be installed at Viking Way-D Street so cyclists can more safely connect with the trail on the other side of the street that leads into the city limits along Lake Tahoe Boulevard.
Lake Tahoe Boulevard was built decades ago with the anticipation of larger subdivisions being developed that would require that much asphalt. Those are off the books and now the roadway is more than what is needed, according to numerous traffic studies.
“There used to be a river running through that corridor. Now it’s a large roadway,” Ferry said.
Downsizing Lake Tahoe Boulevard from Sawmill to about Tahoe Mountain Road from four lanes to two will remove pavement in a stream environmental zone and make travel safer, Ferry said.
“A single lane with a guard rail will be safer,” Ferry said in regards to the sharp curve on the road.
The road will be restriped, pavement removed and improvements made to the intersection at Sawmill and Lake Tahoe Boulevard.
During construction one lane of travel will always be open, Ferry said.
Based on the various funding sources for the project, the work must be done by 2015 or the county would have to forfeit those dollars.
Other projects for 2013:
• One of the first items on the list is to finish the Christmas Valley Erosion control project.
• Boulder Mountain will be paved. This will likely start in July.
• An erosion control project in Montgomery Estates is slated to begin at the end of August.
Toby is most likely part Harrier, which is a relative of the foxhound and beagle.
Toby is a cheerful and sweet-tempered boy, about 6 years old and 60 pounds, and he is quite easy-going and likes children. He likes to play with female dogs, and is happiest with them and people.
As a hound, he likes to go exploring, sniffing, and trailing, so he should be kept on a leash or in a safe enclosed area. Toby’s owner died and he had nowhere else to go.
Toby is neutered, microchipped, and vaccinated. He is at the El Dorado County Animal Services shelter in Meyers, along with many other dogs and cats who are waiting for their new homes.
Go online to see photos and description of all pets at the shelter.
Call (530) 573.7925 for directions, hours, and other information on adopting a pet. For spay-neuter assistance for South Tahoe residents, go online.
— Karen Kuentz
To the community,
It has taken a couple of days for me to compose myself after discovering that Mo’s Place would be the terminal point for a parade on the anniversary Zip’s senseless beating, which resulted in his death. The web, being what it is, everyone is entitled to their opinion, whether they knew Zip or not. (Too bad for those folks who didn’t.)
Mark Cutright is unapologetic for planning to end his May 16 bike ride at the site of a lethal bar fight. Photo/LTN file
I have purposely refrained from making any reactionary public comment, because frankly, my sorrow and grief over our loss of Zip makes any rhetoric meaningless.
I’m curious if Chief Slowroller [Mark Cutright] would be so flippant if the Rollers knew that Zip was one of their own. He was a cruiser, very proud of his latest creation, having recently built a 200 spoker with a 6-inch springer front end to add to his other three rigs. That bike now resides at Zip’s home, above a waterfall, in an area that’s named The Peaceful Place.
Among the crew that were there in Tahoe that night Zip was beaten were the bride and groom, some of the groomsmen and bridesmaids, that all rode their cruisers to the wedding in gowns and tuxes. You should see the pictures of that. The bachelor/bachelorette parties were in Tahoe, wedding in Ripon. Zip and his brother Patch (who was also severely beaten that same night), were both cruising in the wedding party.
I am biased, but if I were the Slowrollers, I’d terminate someplace else, even knowing that ducats will be lost. But saving face, like throwing down, sometimes has a cost.
That weekend our crew is already amassed to have a memorial dive at Rainbow Pool, on the 19th, Zip’s birthday. He would have been 31.
This is something I felt the Slowrollers should know.
I just thought the Rollers should know that Zip was one of their fallen brothers, not simply some flatlander run amok.
Wayne Penaranda, father of Derek “Zippy” Penaranda
The log in the middle of South Lake Tahoe that honors the children from this area who have died is rotting. There is a movement afoot to replace it and make changes to the Children’s Memorial at the corner of Highway 50 and Wildwood Avenue.
Kenny Curtzwiler, whose son died in 2010, would like to turn the site into a memorial park. He is working with a group to get this done by Aug. 9 – the date his son died.
The memorial now honors 240 children. It has existed since 1994. The 1991 car accident that claimed Sue Hrbacek’s son and two of his friends was the inspiration to get the memorial built.
While the city is all for replacing the log, to do more than that requires formal proposals that the Curtzwiler group has not brought to staff or council. The land is public property.
There is a movement to make the Children’s Memorial more of a park. Photo/LTN
A public works contract might be required.
“There is no project proposed other than to replace the log,” City Manager Nancy Kerry told the council this month.
The discussion came up as the council members formally became the board of directors of Great Ideas for Tahoe. GIFT was formed in 2001 by the city’s Parks and Recreation Department as a way to accept money from people who wanted to give money to a specific entity or create a memorial. With changes to that department, it was time to change the leadership.
The GIFT fund may become the vehicle to collect money for the children’s memorial so people would have a means to write a check that would be tax deductible.
More info about memorial park is online.
— Lake Tahoe News staff report
By Naureen S. Malik and Lynn Doan, Bloomberg
California may face the biggest regional power shortages in more than a decade this summer, sending wholesale prices higher, as idled nuclear reactors and low hydroelectric output cut generating capacity.
The California Independent System Operator Corp. said last month that managing the state grid, especially in parts of Southern California, will prove “difficult” because the system will be operating without Edison International’s San Onofre nuclear power plant and two natural gas-fired units, while hydroelectric output will be at a three-year low.
The nuclear plant, California’s single largest source of base-load power, accounts for 3.7 percent of the state’s capacity.
Lake of snow in the Sierra this winter, as evidenced during the March snow survey, will impact hydropower in California. Photo/LTN file
Southern California wholesale electricity for July through September already is at the highest price for this season since 2008 on the expectation of a shift to costlier, more volatile fossil fuels. A strain on the grid could lead to power failures reminiscent of the state’s worst energy crisis in 2000 and 2001, when generation shortfalls and market manipulation by traders at companies including Enron Corp. sent prices to record highs and triggered blackouts that affected millions of customers.
“California may see the biggest test since Enron manipulated the market,” said Stephen Schork, president of Schork Group, an energy consulting group in Villanova, Pa.
“If you have a reactor down and you don’t have as much hydro, your fuel for air conditioning is going to have to come from gas.”
Electricity at Southern California’s SP15 hub for July through September rose $1.40, or 2.3 percent, to $61.25 per megawatt-hour this week, a five-year seasonal high.
Electricity at the SP15 hub for next-day delivery has averaged $49.70 per megawatt-hour this year through Thursday on the Intercontinental Exchange, the most for the period in five years. Northern California’s NP15 hub has averaged $41.99 this year, the most since 2010.
The shutdown of the San Onofre reactors boosted prices at the southern hub to an average premium of $7.81 per megawatt-hour over the northern hub, the most in 12 years. The five-year average is 95.6 cents.
Abundant hydroelectric generation made up for the lost nuclear output in the Los Angeles basin last year, said Michael Blaha, the principal analyst of North American power at Wood Mackenzie in Houston.
“There is always a threat of brownouts and blackouts, and I think it’s higher this summer because of San Onofre being out and you’re not putting hydro into the basin,” he said.
Final snowpack measurements, which are used to predict the output at hydropower dams, will be 45 to 50 percent of normal, according to Maurice Roos, chief hydrologist with the state’s Department of Water Resources in Sacramento. Only six years in the past 60 have been that low, he said.
Low water levels in the Pacific Northwest may also cut electricity exports to California this summer, according to the Bonneville Power Administration, a federal agency that manages Columbia River basin power supplies.
Transmission lines across the Oregon-California border have a combined capacity of 7,500 megawatts.
The snow-water equivalent in the region was 89 percent of normal this week, the lowest level for the time of the year since 2010, U.S. Agriculture Department data show.
Unless there is a surge in precipitation in April through June, the amount of water available for hydro in the Pacific Northwest will be lower than it has been in the past two years, said Doug Johnson, a spokesman for the BPA in Portland, Ore. Water levels exceeded historical norms by 30 percent in 2011 and 20 percent last year, he said.
California, with a population of 38 million, struggled with similar hydropower shortages during the electricity crisis of 2000 and 2001.
The state, the world’s ninth-largest economy, was also dealing with unplanned power-plant shutdowns, a natural-gas pipeline rupture, unseasonably high temperatures and price manipulation by Enron and other companies.
The shortages prompted regulators to overhaul state energy policy, which now requires utilities to show they’ve contracted enough power to meet demand.
To the community,
On behalf of the Boys & Girls Club, I just wanted to reach out to all of you who came to the Spaghetti Feed … and to the numerous responses from those who couldn’t attend, but wished us success.
I think you would agree that the pasta, salad and garlic bread prepared and donated by Himmel Haus was a hit.
It was great to see so many of you there … and thank you for bringing your family, friends, business associates and neighbors.
We will be hosting the Spaghetti Feed on the third Thursday of each month, alternating between our Main Site and Bijou Site from 5-6:30pm, so mark your calendars for a monthly event. Each month a different restaurant will be “adopting” us by providing the meal.
Join us on May 16 at the Bijou Site (located at Bijou Elementary, 3501 Spruce Ave.).
Karen Houser, Boys & Girls Club Lake Tahoe
By Kathryn Reed
While a definite solution has not been decided upon, most of the talk at last week’s South Tahoe Public Utility District meeting centered on having an intertie be the solution to the water issue for the T.J. Maxx building.
That building at the Y is owned by the Garfinkles and is serviced by Lukins Brothers Water. But the water pressure is not sufficient to put out a fire so STPUD’s help is needed.
A temporary solution was found last fall, but a permanent one is still being negotiated.
For decades there has been a link between two the water companies so water can flow back and forth as needed. But that valve must be manually turned. This has been done less than a half dozen times in the last 30 years, according to Lukins.
Water pressure issues have yet to be resolved at the T.J. Maxx building in South Lake Tahoe. Photo/LTN file
What is being proposed is an automatic valve or pressure trip device. This would allow water to flow into Lukins’ 8-inch pipe if the pressure got to a predesignated point.
Danny and Jennifer Lukins, the father-daughter duo who run the company, said they are waiting to hear from the state Public Utilities Commission as to the cost of the connection fee that could be passed on to ratepayers. STPUD would require a fee of about $150,000.
Before South Tahoe PUD says yes to the pressure valve, they want confirmation from the city fire chief about what is required. When the store opened it was Lake Valley’s chief who signed off on the paperwork.
While it’s state regulations that dictate fire flow, fire chiefs and marshals interpret things differently. South Tahoe PUD therefore likes things in writing because its jurisdiction involves more than one fire agency.
Another issue brought up at the April 18 meeting was whether the Gardner Mountain tank could keep enough pressure to service STPUD customers in the event Lukins needs water.
Another piece of the puzzle is now that the Chateau project near state line is likely to go forward, at least in small phases starting this summer, water is an issue there. STPUD had an agreement with Lakeside Water Company, but that needs to be reworked. The water intended for that area from STPUD has been flowing down Highway 50 and used near the Y.
The other thing STPUD needs to figure out is what type of contract to come up with because nothing like what Lukins is asking for — just emergency supply water services — exists.
More talking is planned, with no date for a resolution.
Another factor in all of this is that the Garfinkles have people interested in leasing the building next to T.J. Maxx, but no contracts can be signed because the building doesn’t have an adequate supply of water to fight a fire.
To the community,
A special thank you to MontBleu, Harveys-Harrah’s,Hyatt Regency, Sorensen’s, Embassy Suites, Tahoe Seasons Resort, Nourish Life & Business Coach Alexis Robin, Yoga Teacher Audrey Villanueva, Lake Tahoe Golf Course, Ernie’s Coffee Shop, Scusa Italian Ristorante, Side Street Boutique, Apricot Lane, Kahle Community Center, Hollywood Theaters, Elements Spa, Primo’s Italian Bistro, Tot Spot, Chevys Fresh Mex, Paradise Beauty Supply/Salon, Sushi Pier, Rude Brothers Bagel, Safeway, Round Table, Sierra-at-Tahoe, Homewood, Eloise Automotive & Alignment, Lakeshore, Blue Dog Pizza, Sierra Athletic Club, Costco Wholesale, and Thran’s Flower Shop for their generous donation supporting the early care and education field who met on April 20 at Lake Tahoe Golf Course.
Nadine T-Davis, resource coordinator for Choices for Children
• The 21st Valhalla Renaissance Faire is June 1-2 and June 8-9 at Camp Richardson Resort on the South Shore.
• Carolyn Meiers of the South Lake Tahoe Garden Club will present “Plan Your Garden Early and Prepare for a Growing Summer Season” on May 7 at 6:30pm at the South Lake Tahoe Library, 1000 Rufus Allen Blvd. For questions, contact Tahoe.Programs@gmail.com or (530) 573.3185. The event is free.
• Here is the El Dorado-Tahoe roadwork schedule for Caltrans for this week.
• The Tahoe Maritime Museum and Tahoe City Public Utility District are offering a youth standup paddleboard program starting June 1. For more info, call (530) 583.3440.
• Placer County Board of Supervisors will meet April 22-23 at the Granlibakken Conference Center in Tahoe City. Monday’s meeting will start at 2pm with presentations from the North Tahoe Business Association and Tahoe City Downtown Association. The supes will also hear a presentation on the Community House in Kings Beach, which is part of the Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation that offers services to the community. Tuesday’s meeting begins at 9am and will include a hearing on solid waste handling services in eastern Placer County, a status report on the Tahoe Basin Community Plan Update and an update on the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency’s Regional Plan.