Washoe Meadows Community is hosting a bird watching event June 29 from 8-10am on the South Shore.
Sheryl Ferguson will lead the birdwatching tour. Ferguson earned her wildlife degree from Humboldt State and worked for the U.S. Forest Service.
Space is very limited. To reserve a sport, RSVP to Lynne at LCPaulson@comcast.net or Krissi at 530.577.4335. They will provide location and details.
By Jeremy B. White, Sacramento Bee
Gov. Jerry Brown, California lawmakers and other elected officials will be getting a 2 percent raise this year.
Pointing to California’s firmer fiscal footing, a panel that sets salaries for elected officials voted 4-1 Friday to enact a pay boost. Starting Dec. 1, the raise will add $1,906 to lawmakers’ annual $95,291 salary, giving them a yearly pay of $97,197. The raise for Brown will be $3,480, taking him to $177,467 a year.
Years of yawning budget deficits have given way to a surplus, allowing California to pass an on-time budget this year with minimal friction. Those sunnier circumstances framed the debate among members of the California Citizens Compensation Commission and guided Friday’s decision to hike pay for the second consecutive year.
“It would be hard to argue, I believe, that the state is not better off financially today than it was a few years ago,” said commissioner Scott Somers, a corporate executive and compensation expert. “If they get tarred when times are tough,” he added in reference to elected officials, “they ought to at least get some credit when things are improving.”
By Christopher Smart, Salt Lake Tribune
It’s more torturous than waiting for the first snow of the ski season.
A defining court ruling last week in the ongoing land-lease dispute between Park City Mountain Resort and Talisker Land Holdings has done nothing to relieve the anxiety in Utah’s premiere ski town.
The ski season may be five months away, but if PCMR were not to open, it would be devastating for Park City businesses, residents and taxpayers.
“It’s crystal clear to everyone with a business. The longer this goes on without a resolution the uncertainty just gets worse and worse for the rest of us,” said City Councilwoman Liza Simpson, who also works at Dolly’s Bookstore.
The municipality calculated it would lose $4.1 million in taxes in the upcoming ski season if the resort were not to open, Simpson said. But that doesn’t take into consideration the impact on restaurants, lodges, ski shops and others, she noted.
There will be more than 150 positions available on various local city councils, school boards, parks, fire, water, and utility districts in Placer County in November.
Placer County Office of Elections will put on five free candidate workshops throughout Placer County to take the mystery out of running for office. The workshops will explain many of the details involved in running for public office, including campaign financial disclosure filing, campaigning techniques and working with the media.
The Tahoe workshop is July 11 at 6pm, Customs House Building, 775 North Lake Blvd., Tahoe City.
For more info, call 530. 886.5650.
By Wesley Juhl, Las Vegas Review-Journal
If Nevada were to legalize same-sex marriages, the state would see significant economic benefits, a report released last week found.
In the first three years that same-sex couples could marry, Nevada’s wedding and tourism industries could see spending rise between $23 million and $52 million, which would raise state and local tax revenues between $1.8 million and $4.2 million, according to the report by the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy, a think tank at the UCLA School of Law.
The institute tracked economic and census data from states that have legalized same-sex marriage and applied those trends to Nevada. If the Silver State follows suit, it could reap millions of dollars of taxable revenue, the report said.
Nevada has 7,140 same-sex couples living in the state, according to census data. If gay and lesbian couples married in Nevada at the same rate as those in Massachusetts a decade ago, half of Nevada’s LGBT couples would marry in the first three years, the report found.
• Don’t be surprised to see South Lake Tahoe police officers on bicycles this summer. They will be joining the motorcycle cops in targeted enforcement to educate the public about pedestrian and bicycle safety laws.
• Philip Hartley will be Lake Tahoe Community College’s interim vice president of Instruction for the 2014-15 school year.
• Soroptimist International of Tahoe Sierra swarmed El Dorado Beach on June 19 wielding litter picker-uppers and trash bags. More than 10 pounds of trash was collected – ranging from a pair of men’s underwear to cigarette butts.
• Jody Jones is retiring as Caltrans District 3 director, which includes Lake Tahoe. She will be a councilmember in Paradise, which is north of Chico.
• Here are the Caltrans El Dorado-Tahoe and Sierra roadwork schedules for the week.
Auditions for the production of “Rapunzel” are July 7 at the South Tahoe Middle School multipurpose room from 10am-noon. Those auditioning should arrive at 10am and plan to stay for the full two hours. Some of the cast members will be asked to stay for a rehearsal immediately following the audition.
All students, entering first grade through grade 12 may audition. Participants must be at least 5.
Auditions are free. If cast, there will be a fee of $50 per child to participate in this weeklong theater program. A limited number of scholarships are available.
The show will be July 11 at 3pm and 6pm at South Tahoe Middle School Admission is $10 for adults and $5 for children and seniors.
For more info, contact Peggy Thompson at 530.542.3632.
By James Gallagher, BBC
Spending time basking in the sun’s warming rays may have addictive properties, claim researchers in the United States.
Their study, published in the journal Cell, showed that sunlight led to the production of endorphins in the skin.
The Harvard Medical School team said their experiments on mice showed repeated UV exposure led to addiction in the animals.
Other scientists said describing it as “addiction” was a step too far.
There have been previous suggestions that people can get addicted to the sun.
A study of university students using tanning salons suggested around one in three met the definition for addiction.
Other trials showed withdrawal symptoms could appear, including nausea, jitteriness and shaking, when enthusiastic tanners were given a drug used to treat addiction.
Penelope
Penelope is one of several little dogs at the shelter right now. She stands out because she’s a Maltese-terrier mix, and she’s quite the little dancer. She is showing off in the photo for a cookie.
Penelope is 3 years old, is great with other pets and small children, and she weighs just 11 pounds.
Penelope is spayed, microchipped, tested for heart worm, and vaccinated. She 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 to the Tahoe animal shelter’s Facebook page to see photos and descriptions 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
By Kathryn Reed
Who will be the voice for Meyers once the area plan process is through?
That answer remains to be seen.
At recent meetings regarding the Meyers Area Plan residents have said they want more say in what happens to their enclave that sits at the base of Echo Summit to the west of the city limits of South Lake Tahoe. Being in the unincorporated area of El Dorado County residents are governed by the Board of Supervisors who are based in Placerville, as well as the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.
The Meyers Area Plan mostly deals with the highlighted area. Photo/LTN
Forming a community services district has been talked about as a way to take what is the current Meyers Advisory Council and formalize it more. (The MAC evolved out of the Meyers Roundtable.)
Brendan Ferry, chief planner for El Dorado County, told Lake Tahoe News, “(The Meyers Area Plan) still formalizes the MAC as an official body of the county. It is just expanded to include the possibility of forming a CSD in the future. In that case the CSD board would essentially be the MAC.”
Here is the exact language in what is now the third draft of the Meyers Area Plan:
“Policy 1.2: El Dorado County shall establish and maintain a Meyers Advisory Council (MAC), with regularly scheduled and publically noticed meetings, to provide recommendations to the Planning Commission, County Board of Supervisors, and/or TRPA on the implementation of this Plan. The MAC shall include seven residents or property owners in the Lake Tahoe Region of unincorporated El Dorado County. The MAC shall include community members representing business, environmental, recreation, and other appropriate interests necessary to carry out the vision of the Meyers Area Plan. The MAC shall be comprised of elected board members of a Community Services District or other appropriate special district, or if no appropriate entity exists, the MAC members may be appointed by the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors.”
There is another meeting about the plan on June 26; at which time it’s possible the CSD will be discussed.
David Reichel, who is on the MAC, said at no time did that body make a formal recommendation to the community as a whole or to county staff about what it would like the MAC to be in the future.
“I’m aware people are looking at other options to make the body more formal,” Reichel told Lake Tahoe News.
A CSD is also a taxing entity and has elected board members. CSDs usually get a portion of property taxes or assess the area an additional tax that would be used just for that particular CSD’s business. But it can be an uphill battle to tap into the existing property tax allotment because it would mean some other entity would then be given less money.
LAFCo (Local Area Formation Commission) is the only governing body authorized to form districts. The three ways to get LAFCo’s attention is through voter petition, the landowner and petition by another agency.
The Legislature treats a CSD like it’s a junior city. But land use is not something a CSD has jurisdiction over. And land use is the overriding issue Meyers area residents want to control based on comments at public meetings for the past two years.
“If you want to have some kind of role in development issues, it would best to petition the Board of Supervisors to create some kind of advisory board that will give them input on what kind of development is going through,” Jose Enriquez, El Dorado County LAFCo executive director, told Lake Tahoe News.
He said Pollock Pines and other West Slope communities have these types of advisory boards. The Board of Supervisors appoints those members.
Enriquez said CSDs are usually formed for municipal services like fire, parks, and lighting-landscaping.
“If you want to be a land use regulating agency and not deal with the Board of Supervisors, then you form your own city,” Enriquez said. “That is a much larger discussion.”
Even though LAFCo doesn’t see a CSD being the correct route for Meyers, in the cover letter released earlier this month about the current draft Meyers Area Plan, it says, “Many community members have expressed a desire for a locally elected body to review project proposals in Meyers and to maintain and update the plan in the future. In response, the county is evaluating the establishment of a Community Services District, which would review proposed projects in Meyers, initiate future revisions to the plan, and direct some funding for local improvement projects. If established, this Community Services District would be comprised of a board directly elected by Meyers residents, and it would fulfill the role of the Meyers Advisory Council described in the plan.”
Neither El Doardo County Chief Administrator Terri Daly nor Supervisor Norma Santiago is responding to inquiries from Lake Tahoe News. The outside flack hired by Daly to deal with the media told LTN to attend this week’s meeting to have questions answered.
If Meyers went through with a CSD, it would also have to define what Meyers is in terms of geographic boundaries. Only property owners in that CSD would be taxed and have a say in who is on the CSD board.
Meyers could also form a business improvement district like the property owners along Ski Run Boulevard in South Lake Tahoe did. Or they could do like the South Lake Tahoe lodging establishments and form a tourism improvement district. These, though, are both taxing entities that would require those affected to vote on creating the districts and vote to tax themselves.
——
Notes:
• The next meeting is June 26, 6pm at the CCC building in Meyers.
• The draft plan is available online.
• Here are the proposed Meyers Area Plan revisions.
• Comments may be submitted to MeyersAreaPlan@edcgov.us.
• Future meetings: El Dorado County Planning Commission – Aug. 28, Placerville; El Dorado County Board of Supervisors – Sept. 9, Placerville; Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Advisory Planning Commission – Sept. 10, Stateline; Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Governing Board – Oct. 22, Stateline.