U.S. Forest Service fuels management crews will begin prescribed fire operations in two locations on Lake Tahoe’s South Shore beginning March 6.

Operations will take place near the intersection of Pioneer Trail and Al Tahoe Boulevard. Crews expect to burn approximately 9 acres, weather permitting. In addition, operations will begin in the Angora Fire area near Pyramid Circle. Crews expect to burn between 10 and 15 acres, weather permitting.

Operations in both locations will continue through the week as conditions allow.

Residents and visitors can expect to see smoke from these prescribed fire project areas. The Forest Service strives to minimize the impacts of smoke on local communities. Smoke-sensitive residents should consider staying indoors and keeping doors, windows and outside vents closed. T

o directly receive prescribed fire updates, send an email to pa_ltbmu@fs.fed.us.

Forest Service staff will post road signs around areas affected by prescribed fire, and update the local fire information line at (530) 543.2600, No. 6.

By USSA

OSLO, Norway -– David Wise (Reno) and Torin Yater-Wallace (Basalt, Colo.) boosted ahead of the tough competition to win halfpipe gold and silver at the FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships on March 5.

Wise and Yater-Wallace put down solid first runs that couldn’t be topped, landing them on the podium just 0.6 points apart.

David Wise

In women’s halfpipe, Angeli Vanlaanen (Bellingham, Wash.) finished sixth, the top spot for U.S. women. Switzerland’s Virginie Faivre took the gold medal for women.

Maddie Bowman (South Lake Tahoe) did not compete after she sustained a fall in training and didn’t feel up to qualifiers.

Yater-Wallace attempted a double 1080 in his second run, which could have put him in position for gold, but he didn’t land it.

Tuesday was Wise’s first World Champs win after placing fourth in 2009 and 2011 in Japan and Park City.

The win gave Wise the extra 141 points to overtake teammate Yater-Wallace in the AFP halfpipe World Rankings.

As a manager, it is inevitable you may need to conduct a workplace investigation. Where do you start? When shouldn’t you conduct the investigation yourself? What can you say to employees? What is confidential?

Join the discussion with Nicole Harvey of Harvey Law Firm and Cindy Davis, chief people officer of Strategic HR Partners LLC.

How long should you keep documents related to employment? Learn about proper filing, maintenance and disposal to ensure security and privacy and reduce the possibility of exposure with Kathy Chan, vice president of San Francisco-based JMA Ventures LLC.

The talk is at The Chateau at Incline Village, 955 Fairway Blvd., Incline Village on March 8 from 9–11am. Registration is at 8:30am.

It is free for SHRM members, $15 for chamber members, $20 for non-members. Registration is online.

For more information, contact Laura Moriarty at (530) 573.0224.

By Kathryn Reed

When I see a recipe I like in a magazine I rip it out. Then it goes into a pile of “I’ll get to it someday”. Every now and then I flip through them and wonder why I cut out what I did and other times I wonder why I didn’t try something sooner.

The recipe below falls into the latter category. It’s from the March 2010 (yes, it’s really 3-years-old) Cooking Light.

Those that become keepers are put into a binder to easily be found in the future. But they don’t go in the binder until they’ve been tried. This is going in the binder.

When my sister and her boyfriend came up the weekend before last I decided to create three Chinese dishes. This is the one I had not made before. (The other two recipes will show up on Lake Tahoe News one of these days.)

All three dishes are good, though nothing like what Pam and I had when we were actually in China a couple years ago. But with the Chinese New Year being about the time she visited, it seemed like a good reason to create quite a mess in the kitchen and test my timing skills. (We ate a little late; my timing needs some work to make three main courses. It would also help to get off the computer before guests arrive.)

Any way, I used fresh ginger and not bottled, veggie broth instead of chicken, and I cooked the white rice I usually use instead of bagged jasmine. Safeway has chile paste in the produce section. I left out the salt and used salted peanuts.

And while the recipe has Szechuan in it’s title, this is far from true Szechuan spiciness. The emphasis should be on style and not Szechuan.

Szechuan-style Tofu with Peanuts

2 (3 ½-ounce) bags boil-in-bag jasmine rice

1 (14-ounce) package water-packed firm tofu, drained and cut into 1-inch pieces

Cooking spray

½ C fat-free, less sodium chicken broth

1 T sambal oelek (ground fresh chile paste)

1 T less-sodium soy sauce

1 tsp cornstarch

2 tsp black bean garlic sauce

1 T canola oil

¼ tsp salt

1 (8-ounce) package presliced mushrooms

½ C matchstick-cut carrots

1 T bottled ground fresh ginger

½ C chopped green onions

¼ C unsalted dry roasted peanuts, chopped

Preheat broiler.

Cook rice according to package directions, omitting salt and fat.

Arrange tofu on single layer on a foil-lined jelly-roll pan coated with cooking spray; broil 14 minutes or until golden.

While tofu cooks, combine broth and next 4 ingredients (through black bean sauce), stirring with a whisk; set aside.

Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add salt and mushrooms; sauté 4 minutes or until mushrooms begin to release liquid, stirring occasionally. Stir in carrots and ginger; cook 1 minute. Add broth mixture; cook 30 seconds or until sauce begins to thicken. Remove from heat; stir in tofu and onions. Sever over rice; sprinkle with peanuts.

By Sam McManis, Sacramento Bee

TAHOE CITY – Flames lick the crisp morning sky, as they’ve done for decades from two cauldrons along Highway 89, midway between Truckee and Tahoe City. They don’t quite reach the Olympic rings looming from the twin-towered entrance to Squaw Valley USA, but their symbolism burns strongly. Once, these flames announce, something extraordinary happened here.

But that’s it, ladies and gentlemen. There is your Squaw Valley 1960 Winter Olympic Games history, in toto.

Move along, now. Go hit the slopes.

Nothing else to see here.

The Olympic flame at the entrance to Squaw Valley. Photo/LTN file

Actually, there is plenty of history to be cataloged and relished about Squaw Valley’s brief and unlikely period on the world stage. But you’d almost have to embark on an archaeological dig to unearth it.

There is no permanent museum documenting Northern California’s lone flickering fortnight of Olympic glory. No repository for keepsakes and mementos. No place to educate youngsters who consider the X Games the pinnacle of snow-sports achievement.

It’s not for a lack of trying. For five years, a group of avid skiers and history buffs has been trying to rectify this gross slight, in a curvy giant slalom of an effort.

The Squaw Valley Ski Museum Foundation has doggedly drawn up plans, redrawn them a few times, chatted up Placer County politicos, elicited public donations of funds and memorabilia, yet it still has not yet reached the finishing chute to actually break ground on a facility.

So, until a permanent museum can be erected – Lake Placid, N.Y., by the way, boasts an Olympic museum that draws 35,000 tourists annually – what we’ll have to settle for is a four-panel display hanging in the Boatworks Mall in Tahoe City.

Yet even on such a small scale, the array of artifacts from the 1960 Games is impressive.

Programs, pins and pennants. Photos from official Olympic photographer Bill Briner. Promotional material, such as an “Olympic Survival Kit” from Harrah’s Club, and a jaunty felt Nordic hat with an “Olympic VIII Winter Games” logo ironed on. Magazine covers, from Time, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated. A red bib number worn by a downhill competitor.

Best of all is a sign posted in the window of a nearby boarded-up bookstore, reading: “Future Site of the North Tahoe 1960 Winter Olympics Museum, coming April 2, 2013.”

So, history will finally get its due?

Sort of.

Consider the future Boatworks Mall site a temporary home, said David Antonucci, the force behind the mall effort. An author and Squaw Valley Olympics historian, Antonucci has teamed with the Baptiste family of Granite Bay, which has an extensive collection of Squaw Valley Games memorabilia, to give the public a taste of what a larger, permanent facility might offer.

“The history is totally underappreciated,” Antonucci says. “In the aftermath of the Olympics, it was like people walked away from their heritage. Now, 50 years later, people are saying, ‘Gee, we should be preserving and honoring our Olympic and skiing heritages.'”

For the past six months, Antonucci has cataloged Stan and Maryann Baptiste’s more than 200 artifacts and sent out the word that they are looking for other items residents may have kept from the Games.

He said he sees the Boatworks site as an acceptable temporary home until the “world-class museum” the Squaw Valley Ski Museum Foundation plans can be approved. Antonucci said he and the Baptistes had no plans beyond the four-panel display, but added that the mall’s owners offered the empty space rent-free after “they saw what kind of artifacts we had.”

Ideally, Antonucci says, the Baptiste artifacts will be combined with a big collection of non-Olympic but historical ski memorabilia held by the Auburn Ski Club, and housed at the foundation’s proposed permanent site at the entrance to Squaw Valley USA.

What’s the holdup with the “real” museum?

Bill Clark, head of the foundation’s board of directors, said museum consultants they hired in 2009 to do a site selection determined that the best spot for the museum was at the county-owned park at the base of Squaw Valley USA – near those dueling Olympic flames.

“It makes so much sense to put it there it’s mind- boggling,” Clark says. “(But) there were some folks who didn’t think that was the greatest idea, mostly because our consulting architects threw out conceptual plans that showed this enormous building. It originally looked like it was going to overwhelm the park.

“But if it’s properly sized and sited within that park, and if we can work with (Placer County) with the operation, we think it’s a win-win. We’ve done a revised concept and been sharing it with different supervisors in the county. But we have not gotten to the point where we’ve had any formal sort of evaluation.”

In other words, don’t expect a swift, luge-run type of approval any time soon.

But Clark is optimistic. He thinks it’s important to preserve Squaw Valley’s history, and he’s excited about some of the items his group has stumbled upon.

“Every day, we hear of things hiding in people’s closets,” Clark says. “We know where the scoreboard from the Olympic ice arena is hiding. I just got an email from a guy the other day who (said) his brother had purchased the downhill skis from the giant slalom winner. He walked up to (the winner, Roger Staub of Switzerland) in the finish corral and said, ‘I’ll give you $20 for the skis.’ He’s going to donate them. We have the winning hockey puck from when the USA beat the Russians. A guy from Rocklin ran out on the ice and grabbed it.

“There’s some great stuff.”

Until then, if you want history, nod to the flames but head to the mall.

By Anne Knowles, Northern Nevada Business Weekly

The Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority wants to be in motion pictures — and it’s created a studio to help make it happen.

The RSCVA has launched Film Reno Tahoe to market Reno, Lake Tahoe and other Northern Nevada locations for television and film production and to act as a satellite to the Nevada Film Office in Las Vegas, says Chris Baum, RSCVA’s president and CEO.

As part of that effort, the RSCVA has established Reno Tahoe Studios, a 300,000-square-foot facility comprising six stages and office space inside the cavernous and often empty convention center on South Virginia Street in Reno.

“We have a half-million-square-foot building that is not utilized on a regular basis. It’s like having a church for Easter Sunday only,” says Baum. “Halls one and two are the busiest, and three through five are not used as much. If we have the space and it costs us $1.95 to reposition it, why not?”

Baum says the building’s high-ceilings make it easy to hang lights and equipment, and its space can be configured into any number of sets, making it ideal for film and TV production. He and his team have already started showing it off.

“We’ve brought in film and TV producers and toured them through the facility and they told us it’s better than what they use elsewhere,” says Baum. “There’s also catering on site, offices, break-out rooms.”

Baum says Northern Nevada is ideal, too, because of its varied landscapes and city streets that can double for New York City, Washington, D.C., even London. And proximity to Hollywood is a selling point, too, since studio executives can fly in, check on productions and fly home in the same day.

The division announced their first coup last week. The musical group Savvy, which has been featured in a Starz show called “The Wannabes,” is filming the pilot for a new show in northern Nevada locations later this year and plan to continue filming here if the show is picked up.

“They have a good track record, and it is basically a spin off so it will be easier to sell,” says Baum. “We’ve also had a number of film producers in town who are looking at the area for several films, but they’re waiting to see if the incentives pass.”

The “incentives” is Senate Bill 165, now being considered by the Nevada Legislature, a bill with the goal of attracting film and TV production to the state.

A similar bill was floated last session and did not pass, and this legislation, too, has its opponents. But Baum thinks it’s the right mix of inducements and restrictions needed to attract business here to the overall benefit of the state.

The bill offers what Baum calls middle-of-the-pack incentives — perks not as generous as some other states offer but substantial enough that, when coupled with the state’s other advantages, will attract movie makers. The bill, for example, requires 60 percent of a film or TV show be shot in Nevada and stipulates a 23-to-27 percent rebate tax incentive. Productions outside Las Vegas, for example, get an additional 2 percent in order to encourage production outside the Strip.

“The way you structure these things make all the difference in the world,” says Baum. “You need to make them revenue neutral like this is.” The bill was drafted with the help of Jeffrey Spilman, a consultant and film and TV producer Baum knows from his days with the Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Baum, who joined the RSCVA last year, created the Detroit Film division and helped grow Michigan’s movie and TV production revenues from $6 million to $320 million in two years.

By Lisa O’Daly

Far West 14 and under athletes gathered at Alpine Meadows for the North/South Series last weekend to compete in super G. While Sunday’s race was canceled, the teams had the opportunity for a Friday training run and an exciting Saturday one-run race on a long course from the top of Summit down the Wolverine bowl and over Waterfall to the bottom of Alpine Meadows, a distance of three-quarters mile.

Icy conditions turned slushy as the day wore on, challenging the racers, along with the already difficult course. A mid-course jump and an unnerving athlete injury requiring evacuation during the training day had the racers exercising caution and on race day, included a 45-minute course hold to dig out a rock.

Diamond Peak’s Casey Delaney still led the pack of 92 competitors for the men, finishing first.

Madison Idso, who often leads the Diamond Peak women, took a hard crash and was not able to finish.

“Casey Delaney is dominating the U14 races this season, at every resort and in every snow condition,” commented Diamond Peak Ski Foundation Coach Mark Norton.

The Diamond Peak men once again rocked the competition with not only Delaney’s top-of-the-podium finish, but also with Payton Norton’s fifth place (1:13.67), followed by Winston Pretti in eighth (1:14.56) and Noah Cleary in ninth just 0.06 seconds later (1:15.02). Teammates Corey Huber (22nd, 1:16.36), Tommy Corcoran (48th, 1:19.75), Nick Fischer (57th, 1:21.85), Trent Funke (60th, 1:22.35), Jeff Miller (67th, 1:23.98) also finished the challenging race.

“The course was tough; the conditions were tough. Fortunately, Diamond Peak’s U14 athletes — men and ladies — are also tough and faced the challenges head-on,” said DPSF Coach Raquel Norton.

The Diamond Peak women skied the super steep, technical course extremely well and were led by Emily Donahue in 19th (1:18.67), with Sophia Holm following at 21st (1:19.13) and Bridgette Johnson 28th (1:21.43). Laurel Taylor finished 35th (1:22.48) after making a critical error on the face and had to dump all her speed. Emily White (44th, 1:23.93) and Katie Fisher (70th, 1:44.61) can join their teammates in proudly saying they completed their toughest race.

Six of the Diamond Peak athletes — Casey Delaney, Noah Clearly, Corey Huber, Payton Norton, Winston Pretti, and Madison Idso — qualified to attend the U14 performance camp, an invitation-only event at Sugar Bowl on March 15-17. Twelve men and 12 women are selected from the North Series to compete based on 2013 series races conducted by Feb. 17, while Idso and Huber were selected separately due to their seasons’ performances. Athletes will race SL, GS, SG events against the other top athletes of their age class. The entire team next competes at the U14 championships where the North meets the South and Central divisions to compete in all four events (SL, GS, SG, and PL) on April 4-7, also at Sugar Bowl.

And don’t forget that next weekend is the Diamond Cup at Diamond Peak, where everyone can be a ski racer. The entry fee of $15 per racer includes two runs on a course set up for a duel. The race categories include: Individuals (age/sex groups), Family, Husband/Wife, Father/Son, Father/Daughter, Mother/Son, and Mother/Daughter.

Lisa O’Daly is a parent volunteer with the Diamond Peak team.

Clouds and wind will be increasing by late in the day.

Eight to 14 inches of snow are predicted to fall above 7,000 feet tonight, which means tomorrow could be a powder day.

Some lifts at Squaw are starting on wind hold.

Here is the Feb. 5 ski report.

— Curtis Fong

Daron Rahlves

• Olympian and Truckee resident Daron Rahlves will be chatting with guests March 7 as part of a mixer hosted by the Truckee Chamber of Commerce at the Bank of the West branch office in Truckee. The mixer is from 4:30-6pm at 11202 Donner Pass Road.

• The Nevada Land Bank has funds available to purchase land coverage in all five hydrozones on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe.

• Squaw Valley’s 22-foot super pipe is open on Mainline.

• Truckee Donner Chamber of Commerce has hired Patricia Barrett as the membership manager.

• Dominic Tanzi of Minden received the 2012 Antonin Careme medal from the Chef’s Association of the Pacific Coast. For years he worked at Harveys casino in Stateline when it was family-owned and operated.

Publisher’s note: This is first of a few articles about the Drug Store Project. This marks the 10-year anniversary of the program. This year’s event will be April 2 at Lake Tahoe Community College. For more info about volunteering, donating or if you have questions, email Lisa Huard at lhuard@ymail.com.

By Lisa Huard

The Drug Store Project is a reality-based depiction produced each year for the sixth-graders in the South Lake Tahoe area. We strive to show our youth the possible consequences one can experience with drug and alcohol use.

The research out there is mind-boggling even for those of us who regularly use it. There are endless studies and just as many interpretations of the data, but one thing continues to stand out amongst all the information; the sooner we can deter a youth from experimenting with drugs and alcohol, the better the chance they will not use drugs as an adult.

It’s not real in this scene from Drug Store Project — but the consequences of drug use and abuse could result in death. Photo/LTN file

Going from childhood to adolescence is the tightrope our kids walk every day and learning “who they are” and “what they believe to be true about themselves” is their individual challenge.

Yes we can teach them the information, providing we’ve taken the time to understand it ourselves. But when the rubber hits the road it will be the individual themselves who makes the final decision.

“Choices, what are yours” is a reminder to our kids that they are truly the one making decisions about their health and future.

This day-long event isn’t the answer, but it is an opportunity for all involved to learn factual information and to step out of the “me zone” and learn about how our behaviors affect all of those who love and care for us. Tobacco, alcohol, marijuana and other drug use/abuse has an enormous negative ripple effect on family members, friends, communities, and our nation. It costs us in lives and it’s financially costing our nation more and more.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse conducts a yearly survey that focuses on the nation’s eighth-, 10th-, and 12th-grade students from 395 public and private schools accounting for approximately 50,000 students. Students are surveyed as teenagers and followed subsequently for many years on an individual basis. The 2012 Monitoring the Future survey is comprehensive and one conclusion drawn shows a continued high use of marijuana by our kids.

Our local California Healthy Kids Survey mirrors that concern. The survey also showed that teens’ perception of marijuana’s harmfulness is on the decline; they believe that it’s not such a big deal. This in itself could be the reason of increased experimentation/use of marijuana use amongst our youth.

NIDA sites a 38-year funded study which was published this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences which showed a significant drop in IQ (8-points) between the ages of 13 and 38 of people who were cannabis dependent. Those using cannabis heavily before age 18 showed impaired mental abilities even after they stopped using. Their findings, as many others, show a link between prolonged marijuana use and cognitive impairment.

I’d love to say that our educational system provided for drug prevention and violence prevention education beginning in grade K and throughout a child’s learning career, but it doesn’t. If it did, if the money and time were spent, I do believe our children would do better as students, be more successful meandering through adolescence, and would be happier and more thriving adults. I also venture to say that with consistent and accurate information in school and at home, we’d have less of a demand for drugs therefore we’d see less deaths, less health issues, less health costs, and more productive citizens.

As I indicated earlier, the Drug Store Project isn’t a cure, but it does provide all involved with information to consider and a platform to begin the discussion. We can all do our part by becoming more knowledgeable, more aware, and more approachable in speaking and supporting our youth.

If you’d like to see a bit more about our program, go online.

Lisa Huard is a safe schools consultant who lives in South Lake Tahoe.