The 10th annual South Lake Tahoe Moose Lodge Kids Fishing Derby is Sept. 16 form 7am-2pm.
The event is open to all ages at Tahoe Paradise Park’s Lake Baron.
Donations are gladly accepted and greatly appreciated to assist in providing items such as fish, bait, poles, tackle, prizes, and food for the kids.
For more information call, (530) 541.1632.
By Wendilyn Grasseschi, Mammoth Times
It started with a climbing accident that left local climber and teacher Jim Barnes too injured to climb for a while.
Things did not improve when he stepped on a stingray and his foot got infected.
Not only couldn’t he climb, he couldn’t walk very far.
For a man accustomed to constant physical activity, it was a time of sheer frustration.
He decided to hop on a road bike and that’s when the love affair started.
“I loved the effort of the climb and the thrill of the descent,” he said. “I started climbing every hill in the area, and then I decided I wanted to do the Everest Challenge ride, six weeks out.”
He complete the challenge and came in third for his age group.
“After the race, I set my sites on climbing every hill in the [Eastern Sierra],” he said.
Over the next several years, Barnes rode every paved road in the Eastern Sierra, much of it alongside his friend and climbing partner, Nate Greenberg.
From the crazy climb up Nine Mile Canyon in the far Southern Sierra to Lake Tahoe’s Rim Trail, the duo attacked every road they could over the years.
A few years ago, they decided to write a book, which is now on the shelves of Mammoth’s own, independently owned bookstore, the Booky Joint.
Called “Road Biking California’s Sierra Nevada The Best Rides From Lake Tahoe to Mount Whitney,” the book details 48 different rides that span the breadth and width of the Sierra, with a decent majority of them concentrated in the Eastern Sierra.
El Dorado County students in grades 8-12 are invited to participate in the juvenile justice system through the Teen Court program.
Volunteer training will be Sept. 27 from 5-7pm in El Dorado County Superior Court, at 1354 Johnson Blvd., Department 4, in South Lake Tahoe. Upon completion of the mandatory training, teens will serve as court personnel for real cases where a minor has committed an offense, admitted the offense, and chosen to be judged by his/her peers.
Youth interested in joining Teen Court must attend the volunteer training. Arrive no later than 4:45pm. Students must be El Dorado County residents and enrolled in grades 8-12; private school students and homeschooled students are also welcome.
Teen Court hearings in South Lake Tahoe will begin Oct.18 and continue through May 2013. Hearings will generally be the third Thursday of each month at Superior at 5pm.
For more information about Teen Court in South Lake Tahoe, or the volunteer training, contact Jorge Orozco at (530) 573.7964.
By Hudson Sangree and Phillip Reese, Sacramento Bee
Homebuyers trying to take advantage of the current ultra-low mortgage rates are likely to discover an unpleasant truth: They’re competing with lots of other buyers who can pay all cash.
The cash buyers aren’t just rental investors, who have occupied the lower end of the market for months. They include those seeking midpriced homes for themselves or their grown children.
How do they have that much cash? Some sold higher-priced houses in the Bay Area. Some liquidated stocks. Others pulled it out of savings.
The number of cash buyers means those with loans are at a disadvantage in a market where inventory is extremely tight and decent homes draw multiple offers.
“Cash is king,” said Eric Pine, an agent with Lyon Real Estate in Folsom, who represents both cash buyers and those with traditional financing who have seen their offers repeatedly turned down.
Sellers prefer cash because it creates certainty and speeds up the process. It also eliminates the need for appraisers, who have become more conservative since the housing bubble burst and often deliver low estimates, agents said.
Low appraisals further complicate the process for borrowers, who already face stricter standards from lenders.
Pine’s suggestion to would-be buyers: Ask relatives for cash. “In order to compete,” he said. “You have to get family members to pony up.”
The Tahoe Resource Conservation District will host the 6th annual Autumn Fest at the Lake Tahoe Demonstration Garden, located at Lake Tahoe Community College from 11am-4pm on Sept. 16.
The free festival, run in cooperation with LTCC, includes activities for all ages.
This is a celebration of sustainability, gardening and the seasons in Tahoe.
Autumn Fest will feature live music, a silent auction, a local artisan market and food vendors, crafts and games, pony rides and talks on backyard conservation landscaping and local environmental issues. New this year is the plant swap — donate a plant, swap a plant, or donate for a plant — to highlight native and Tahoe-adapted varieties.
Autumn Fest is a zero-waste event. South Tahoe Refuse Co. and Full Circle Compost of Carson City are donating their recycling and compost services to help keep Autumn Fest environmentally sustainable.
By Sean Whaley, Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – The state Board of Examiners on Tuesday will consider settling a dispute with Washoe County over $21.5 million in local property tax revenue taken by the 2009 Legislature to balance the state budget.
The proposed settlement would provide an immediate payment of $1.25 million to the county, with another $6 million being allocated later for major road maintenance projects.
Washoe County submitted the claim to the Board of Examiners in September 2011, citing a Nevada Supreme Court ruling in May 2011 that said the Nevada Legislature improperly took $62 million in 2010 from the Clark County Clean Water Coalition fund to balance the state budget. That ruling forced Gov. Brian Sandoval to reconfigure his proposed 2012-13 state budget by extending a set of taxes that had been scheduled to expire on June 30, 2011.
The county argued the court ruling applied to the funds taken by lawmakers in 2009 as well.
Clark County also submitted a claim, seeking $102.5 million in property taxes also taken by the 2009 Legislature. But the county in June opted to sue rather than continue settlement negotiations with state officials.
Sandoval said in June he was disappointed at the decision of the Clark County Commission to take the matter to court and he questioned whether the amount of the claim was accurate.
“We’ve been trying to work with Clark County, again, for months,” he said in an interview on the Nevada NewsMakers television program. “And I was extremely disappointed that they weren’t willing to come to the table to try and resolve this. And those chose to litigate rather than try to work it out.”
The Legislature in 2009 required the state’s two largest counties, Clark and Washoe, to give up 9 cents per $100 in assessed valuation collected in property taxes to the state. The actions by lawmakers in 2009 occurred before Sandoval became governor.
The Board of Examiners is composed of Sandoval, Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and Secretary of State Ross Miller. The agenda for the meeting indicates that the state and Washoe County want to settle the matter.
The U.S. Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit will resume work on the Pope-Baldwin Bike Path — also known at the Camp Richardson path — the week of Sept. 17.
The Pope-Baldwin Bike Path is located near the south end of Lake Tahoe and runs along Highway 89 for approximately three miles.
The entire bike path will be seal coated beginning on the west end near Spring Creek.
For safety purposes, sections of the bike path will be closed at times to pedestrian/bike traffic. Work is expected to last approximately one week.
For more information, call (530) 543.2694.
In 1970, Marian McQuade began a campaign to establish a day to honor grandparents. But such a day was not formally established until 1978 when President Jimmy Carter signed a federal proclamation, approving the first Sunday after Labor Day as National Grandparents Day.
Since Sept. 9, 1979, it has been celebrated every year in honor of our nation’s grandparents with whom one in 10 of all children in the U.S. live.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 7 million people had grandchildren younger than 18 were living with them in 2010. The number of grandparents responsible for the basic needs of one or more grandchildren under 18 living with them in 2010 was 2.7 million. Of these caregivers, 1.7 million were grandmothers and 1 million were grandfathers.
1960s
Alpine TV (owned by Harry Kean, Ken Lohmeier, and Jack Cropley) built this complex on Lake Tahoe Boulevard in two stages starting in the 1960s.
2012
The two-story second stage (behind the camera) now includes the Tile Outlet, which originally was the enlarged Alpine TV. It was succeeded by Handy Andy.
— Bill Kingman
By Maria Dinzeo, Courthouse News Service
Members of a Judicial Council committee grilled California trial judges over courthouse construction costs in an effort to fund necessary projects while cutting costs by $390 million.
Judges and officials from 23 local trial courts pleaded for funds from the council’s court facilities working group, complaining of perilously unsafe courthouses that are seismically unfit, overcrowded and lacking access for the disabled.
“The security in our courthouse is somewhat appalling and a recipe for potential disaster,” said Presiding Judge Laurie Earl of Sacramento.
El Dorado County courthouse in South Lake Tahoe needs substantial repairs. Photo/LTN file
Presiding Judge Suzanne Kingsbury of El Dorado County showed the committee a 65-pound corbel that had fallen off the roof of her court. “This is a problem we cannot seem to fix,” she said.
“You’re not contending that the falling corbels is a basis for a new building,” said Appellate Justice Jeffrey Johnson, the committee’s co-chair.
“Absolutely not,” Kingsbury replied. “The lack of [Americans with Disability Act] access, the lack of parking, the asbestos, mold and lack of jury assembly rooms – I could go on for days. The corbels are just documentary evidence of the dilapidated state of the building.”
Presiding Judge Brian Hill of Santa Barbara told the committee that several times a week prisoners are paraded across the street to another courtroom housed at its historic courthouse, just as tourists are unloading from buses out front.
“It’s not unusual to have to bring out additional deputies to protect tourists from intermingling with the inmates,” he said. “It’s almost a feeling of chaos as they cross the street.”
Kern County Executive Officer Terry McNally said two regional courthouses serving very large Central Valley prisons are “ripe for a major security incident.”
The facilities working group was tasked last year with re-assessing the state’s planned courthouse projects after intense scrutiny of the construction program and the outrageous cost of building courthouses in California. With additional cuts this year from the state Legislature, the committee still needs to find $390 million to cut from court construction.
At Wednesday’s meeting, judges on the working group were highly critical of presenting courts and questioned each seemingly unnecessary expenditure.
“What really concerns me is the cost of construction,” Judge Samuel Feng of San Francisco said to Presiding Judge Alan Pineschi of Placer County. “The original construction cost is outrageous. When the public looks at this, it’s going to be absolutely – just bad. At some point, the number is going to come out and I don’t think the cost justifies the number of courtrooms,” he added, referring to the $27 million price tag of a new one-room courthouse in Lake Tahoe.
Pineschi said the cost estimate was unusually high because of the area’s environmental requirements. Because of its alpine location, the new Lake Tahoe courthouse would require a special roof to ward off snow and ice. However, Pineschi said he agreed that the original cost estimate provided by the Administrative Office of the Courts, the bureaucracy in charge of all courthouse building projects, was obscenely high.
“Our goal is to have something that substitutes for this extremely inadequate facility,” he said. “We’re willing to consider anything.”
Committee-member Judge David Power of Solano questioned Kern County’s need for two new three-room courthouses at a cost of $30 million.
“Three courtrooms for $30 million. That’s a lot of money. That’s a lot of investment for just three courtrooms,” he said.
McNally explained that it was the estimate given by the AOC’s Office of Court Construction and Management, but he would be willing to negotiate on price.
“My judges share your concern about the cost of these facilities,” he said. “We’re ready willing and able to sit down with the OCCM to economize.”
Judge David Lampe of Kern County said modifying existing facilities “is likely the most economical.”
“The problem here for us is that the money is a moving target,” he said. “What you’re undertaking seems to be a balance between need and available resources. A husband and wife may have six kids and want a six-bedroom home, but if the income is only $1,000, they’re going to have to balance the revenue with the need.”
“To rephrase the Rolling Stones, you get what you need,” Johnson said.
Lampe replied, “What we’re worried about is if we start looking only at need, then the front-loaded projects are going to absorb a greater share of the cost, and delayed projects will be delayed that much further because the resources may not be there. We’re worried with these non-metropolitan, somewhat rural areas that we’re going to end up with a disparity of facilities.”
“Branch courts are always more expensive,” Power added.
“It’s a very large, diverse community,” McNally said. “It’s not unreasonable to have a decentralized environment.”
The frustrations brought on by meager funding quickly became a point of contention between the committee and the courts. Assistant Presiding Judge Ira Kaufman of Plumas County said his historic 1921 court has no security, and one judge has to share a restroom with the public.
“I think it would be hard to justify to the taxpayers of California to build a new courthouse so a judge doesn’t have to use a public bathroom,” Johnson countered. He added that the bulk of the county’s problems seem to be “personnel” matters, including its rancorous relationship with the county, which owns the courthouse but refuses to put any money into it.
The discussion became heated, with Kaufman saying the committee “wasn’t helping.”
When one committee member said the courthouse was “functional,” Kaufman snapped, “Where did you get that from? Have you been to the courthouse?”
He noted that the county has pledged the courthouse as collateral against a loan, so the state could make no renovations on it.
“We’ve had discussions with the county for many years,” Kaufman said. “All the county buildings have been pledged. The point is, the building doesn’t function. The county isn’t going to fix it. Whether it’s a new courthouse or refurbishing this one, everyone deserves the same access to justice.”
“I’d like a new courthouse for my court also,” Feng chuckled.
Justice Brad Hill, chair of the construction committee, apologized throughout the day for asking the courts to justify their needs.
“I want to apologize for putting the courts through this again,” he said. “You would not be here but for the fact that the Legislature had cut an additional $50 million a year ongoing. That is the unfortunate circumstance we are faced with. This is just one more thing on top of trying to keep your courts open.”