Kyle Swanson will talk about shoulder arthritis on Sept. 12 from 6-7pm at Sierra Nevada College, Room 139, Incline Village.
Swanson is a doctor with Tahoe Orthopedics & Sports Medicine.
For more information, call (530) 543.5537.
• Tahoe Douglas Rotary was founded on Sept. 7, 1962, which makes this the 50th anniversary year.
• You are reading Lake Tahoe News and so are your clients and customers. Why not advertise with Lake Tahoe News? Click on the “Advertise” button at the top of the page or send an email to info@LakeTahoeNews.net to request information about advertising with Tahoe’s only daily news source.
• Tahoe City Public Utility District is paying $370,000 to acquire the troubled Lake Forest Water Company.
• American Century Championship had another record year for attendance at the annual celebrity golf tournament — 40,500 people.
• The 11th annual Squaw Valley Oktoberfest will transform the Village at Squaw Valley into a miniature Bavaria on Sept. 29 from 2-6pm.
By Brooks Martin
Traveling is fun, exciting and enriching, but there are risks. While a simple trip to Placerville or Reno doesn’t require a travel medicine consultation, something exotic could. And a three-day-business-trip to Mumbai with a stay in an air conditioned hotel has very different travel risks than a three-week- hiking-trip in northern India.
Travel risks are especially concentrated in less-developed countries. The poorer the place, the less likely it is to have basic sanitation and vector control, which is a method to limit or eradicate the mammals, birds and insects or other arthropods, which transmit disease pathogens.
Brooks Martin
A wise choice is to consult your doctor before you travel. A travel medicine consultation should ideally be completed six to eight-weeks prior to your voyage. Here’s what to bring to your physician visit:
Itinerary. This will help your physician decide on the specific medical risks that might be present.
Contacts. Information from your travel group or local contacts can be invaluable.
Medication list. Maintain a current list of the medications you are taking and the dosage.
Immunization records. Provide as much information as you have.
Your physician will address general immunizations (tetanus, etc.) in addition to vaccines for less common diseases, such as rabies. Federal and state laws restrict yellow fever vaccines to licensed clinics, such as Barton Family Medicine in South Lake Tahoe.
Be sure to consider recommendations and prescriptions for potential problems, such as traveler’s diarrhea. You may not be able to protect against everything. You’ll want to weigh the costs and risk of each vaccine. For example, rabies (the vaccine for which is very expensive) is present around the world, but the risks of contracting it are very different between a vacation to the beaches of Thailand and living there as a Peace Corps volunteer in a rural village. There’s no vaccine for malaria, but depending on where you travel, it can be a big concern. Varying from simple mosquito bite precautions to medications and self-treatment options, the best prevention is education.
Knowledge is key before starting any adventure
Barton Family Medicine provides handouts concerning water, food, insects, sun, high altitude, and heat or cold risks. We can match the information to your itinerary. We also offer basic travel hints and information about travel insurance. Stay educated with up-to-date information by going online. The more you travel, the more you should know about travel health.
Brooks Martin is an active member of the International Society of Travel Medicine and is soon to be certified as an official ISTM physician.
By Peter Schrag, Sacramento Bee
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was only the latest to pile on California this week. The state, he told California GOP delegation at the party’s national convention, had given itself to “the masters of huge spending and huge government.” In electing Jerry Brown, it made “a bad choice with an old retread.”
A couple of weeks ago, Mitt Romney compared us to Italy, Greece and Spain. Sarah Palin, calling California “a cautionary tale” in a Facebook posting, warned that “Obama’s vision for America will make the rest of the country look like California, minus the beautiful scenery and warm weather.”
The Golden State, she said, “once boasted the entrepreneurial innovation of Silicon Valley – the American creative engine,” with the strong implication that it was no more.
And last week, state Sen. Mimi Walters of Irvine issued a handout headed “California Is Not Quite as Bad as Greece.” Her bill of particulars included “Taxes, Taxes, Taxes,” “3rd Highest Unemployment Rate in the Nation” and “Lowest Credit Rating in the Nation.” Translated in this election season: It’s all the Democrats’ fault.
Do any of them really know the place they’re talking about?
None of them seemed to know that the 365,000 jobs California gained in the 12 months ending in July meant that the state had grown jobs twice as fast as the nation – 2.6 percent vs. 1.3 percent. Professional, scientific, technical and information services added 60,000 jobs.
The Bay Area – meaning Silicon Valley, in case Palin doesn’t know – led the state in job gains. In the past year, the San Francisco metro area added nearly 41,000 jobs; the San Jose area gained more than 30,000; the East Bay gained nearly 20,000. Southern California and Sacramento also picked up jobs.
In the second quarter of 2012, more venture capital was invested in California-based companies than in the other 49 states combined. The state economy, said Steve Levy of the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy, “has its mojo back.”
By Kathryn Reed
While both sides in the Fallen Leaf Lake wrongful termination case have agreed to the settlement agreement, the document remains unsigned by the community services district even though the plaintiff has the check.
In issues like this it’s not just about the money. There are other issues that have been agreed to in the document. For those stipulations to be binding, the document must be signed.
Beyond that, as a government agency, the Fallen Leaf Lake board has violated the Brown Act by issuing the check, saying the settlement agreement is a done deal and having never voted on it.
It was expected the agreement would be on today’s agenda, but it’s not – not in open or closed session.
“We have expressed concerns to the CSD’s legal counsel that there appears to be a Brown Act violation relative to this settlement. It is our hope that the settlement agreement will be finalized and executed by the CSD with expedition so that Mr. [Tom] Barnes may move forward with his life, secure medical insurance, and continue his fight with cancer,” attorney Jacqueline Mittelstadt told Lake Tahoe News. “We will take necessary action to secure the finalized agreement.”
She is representing Barnes, the general manager of Fallen Leaf Lake who was fired when he sought a leave of absence to seek cancer treatments.
Even the settlement agreement says the board is supposed to sign off on this: “Payment of said sum shall be made on the eighth day after both the company and employee have executed this agreement and after approval of the settlement by the board of the Fallen Leaf Lake Community Services District.”
However, board President Tom Bacchetti told Lake Tahoe News, “The board did not need to approve the settlement since it was the insurance company’s decision to settle. There is no Brown Act issue here.”
The Sept. 1 board meeting is at 10am at the Fallen Leaf Like fire station. Closed session starts 30 minutes earlier. Here is the agenda.
By Kathryn Reed
Lake Tahoe Unified School District is mirroring the state when it comes to having an achievement gap among Latino, English learner, and low-income students compared to the rest of the student body.
But the good news from Friday’s announcement of the 2012 Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) test results is this is the ninth consecutive year California students improved in language arts and math.
Statewide, 57 percent of students in grades 2-11 were proficient or advanced in English language arts, while 57.5 percent of LTUSD students were at those levels.
While the state superintendent of education in a press release boasted how wonderful it is students are increasingly testing better, the reality is a huge segment of California’s students are not doing grade-level work.
One thing that continues to bother LTUSD Superintendent Jim Tarwater about all the tests associated with No Child Left Behind is test score comparisons don’t reflect the actual improvement or decline as students go from one grade level to the next. Instead, today’s third-graders are compared to last year’s third-graders instead of to their test scores as second-graders.
In LTUSD, officials take the data provided by the state and then calculate how students do as they get older.
“I’m proud. We’re continually making gains,” Tarwater told Lake Tahoe News.
Bijou Community School remains the trouble spot in the district. This school also has a population of 84 percent low income, 75 percent Latino and 66 percent English learners.
The state and feds, while they separate the numbers into subcategories, the finger pointing or accolades are based on cumulative scores. Extenuating factors such as 62.5 percent LTUSD students receiving a free or reduced lunch are not considerations. This, despite the fact that study after study proves low income students often don’t have the academic help at home that their more affluent peers do and many may only be getting a hot meal at school.
Comparing Bijou to the magnet school proves this point. The magnet school has 20 percent low income, 8.2 percent Latino and 2 percent English learners.
(These are the percentages of students who are at proficient or advanced on the STAR test.)
2011-12 Bijou 2011-12 Magnet
Second Grade LA 22 94
Second Grade Math 41 93
Third Grade LA 22 77
Third Grade Math 50 94
Fourth Grade LA 47 95
Fourth Grade Math 45 95
Fifth Grade LA 29 91
Fifth Grade Math 51 84
Fifth Grade Science 9 85
(Complete results of the 2012 STAR tests are on the state Department of Education’s website.)
While all teachers are using the same pacing guide and curriculum in LTUSD, not all students learn the same.
Tarwater is a strong proponent of technology helping students learn, adding that improvement is evident in the schools and classrooms where teachers consistently have kids working on their netbooks.
In grades 3-12, each student has a netbook, in all the second-grade classrooms there is a full set, and in first grade there is one computer for every two kids.
Instead of students tuning out, they are engaged. They have work to do when the teacher is helping others. They download and upload data to their teachers. Books are downloaded like adults use Kindles and iPads.
Tarwater likes to embrace the quote by John Dewey: “If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.”
At the end of the month the Academic Performance Index scores will be released. This is how the schools and districts are judged on a federal level. These results also indicate if a school or district is listed as “performance improvement”. All but the magnet school is PI.
With Bijou dropping by 17 points a year ago, all eyes will be on this year’s results to see which direction the school is going. Tarwater would not comment on whether a change in leadership at the school is necessary.
With Tahoe Valley and Sierra House elementary schools making substantial gains a year ago, another year of being over 800 (1,000 is the maximum) could take them out of the PI category.
Award-winning production company Backcountry Pictures’ latest project, “California Forever”, will air nationally on PBS stations throughout the fall, beginning in California in September.
“California Forever” is a two-part television special that tells the story of California’s state parks from 1864 until present day. Episode one of “California Forever” highlights the discovery and creation of California’s state parks system, taking viewers on a scenic, cultural and historical tour of California’s state parks. The second episode presents the very real challenges that the state parks are currently facing, including habitat destruction by overuse; protection of native species at the expense of recreation; reclaiming industrial brown fields to create new parks in dense urban areas; and park closures.
“California Forever” was produced over two years, and comprised 70-plus days of shooting at more than 45 state parks, including complex indoor settings such as Hearst Castle and the California Railroad Museum, as well as vast outdoor spaces like Yosemite and the California Coast. From the majesty of Lake Tahoe to the arid inspiration of the Anza Borrego Desert, the filmmakers bring the vibrant California State Parks to life.
By Devon O’Neil, ESPN
Two of the longest-running competitions in X Games history, winter’s Snowboarder X and Skier X, will not be part of the show when the X Games return to Aspen in January 2013. ESPN decided to cut the events, as well as Mono Skier X, and will not build the X Course for the first time in history.
Snowboarder X was one of three events that had taken place every year since the Winter X Games debuted in 1997, along with Snowboard Superpipe and Slopestyle. Skier X had been staged 15 of those 16 years, starting in 1998. Mono Skier X was added to the docket five years ago.
“These decisions are never easy, obviously,” said Tim Reed, senior director of content strategy for ESPN X Games. “We understand the ramifications these things bring. We come up with what we believe are the best events to showcase to our fans on-site and obviously the networks, too.
“There wasn’t one single factor that led to this decision. It just comes down to filling the schedule with how much we believe we need to make the event enjoyable to the fans and deliver on what we need from a product standpoint.”
Meanwhile, two events that were dropped last year, Snowmobile SnoCross and Speed and Style, are returning to the 2013 Aspen schedule. SnoCross had been featured for 14 straight years before it was omitted from X Games Aspen 2012.
One-time South Lake Tahoe pot club owner and current Push Fitness owner Gino DiMatteo was arrested Aug. 31 on charges of bribing a public official and possession of drugs for sale.
DiMatteo was arrested at the Bank of America branch in South Lake Tahoe. As of 5:25pm he was still being processed at the jail in Placerville. Bail information was not available.
Gino DiMatteo
Search warrants were executed just before noon on Friday at Push Fitness, DiMatteo’s South Lake Tahoe home and at his bank.
El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office is the lead agency. They sent a press release after 5pm today – the Friday of a three-day weekend — alerting the media to the arrest. The person to contact – District Attorney Vern Pierson’s secretary – had left for the day.
South Lake Tahoe Police Chief Brian Uhler and City Manager Nancy Kerry deferred comments to the DA’s Office – even though those people don’t answer their phones after hours.
It is not known what public official DiMatteo is accused of bribing, what the alleged bribe was for, what he was allegedly trying to sell, and what if anything was confiscated from the places the cops searched.
— Kathryn Reed
With the mountains as the backdrop and the creek nearby, join PlumpJack Café and two local farmers for a memorable farm-to-table outdoor dining experience.
Executive chef Ben “Wyatt” Dufrensne teams up with Gary Romano of Sierra Valley Farms to hand-select and prepare the freshest ingredients for a multi-course meal paired PlumpJack’s favorite summer wines.
The Sept. 13 7pm dinners are $85 per person. Space is limited and reservations must be made seven days in advance — (530) 583.1578.