EyeC Books is sponsoring Take A Book Home Day at the South Lake Tahoe branch library on Aug. 10 form 10am-2pm.

Each attendee may choose two books to take home for free.

The library is at 1000 Rufus Allen Blvd.

Learn how to keep your family and property safe from the threat of fire.

Representatives from the East Fork Fire and Paramedic District, Nevada Division of Forestry, state Fire Marshal’s Office, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, Citizens Emergency Response Team, Genoa Volunteer Fire Department, and Douglas County Search and Rescue will distribute free information July 28.

Learn about “Living with Fire” and other fire safe programs. Many different types of emergency response vehicles will be on site, including engines, water trucks, brush trucks, jeeps, and more. Meet and talk with local firefighters and other emergency responders. Kids can visit Smokey the Bear and sit in some of the vehicles.

The event is from 10am-2pm at Mormon Station State Historic Park in Genoa.

For more information, contact the park at (775) 782.2590.

UNR in cooperation with the Nevada State Historic Preservation Office is sending a team of archaeologists to excavate the site of one of Nevada’s most important early hospitals. St. Mary Louise Hospital in Virginia City opened in 1876 and served the mining community until the early 20th century.

Sarah Cowie, assistant professor of anthropology in the University’s College of Liberal Arts, will direct the excavation, which is part of a summer field school in archaeology. Cowie’s team consists of 12 undergraduate students, three graduate student field supervisors and volunteers.

The Daughters of Charity opened the hospital as a Catholic facility, although the institution accepted patrons of any faith. They wore a distinctive habit with a starched cornette on the head, made famous in the late-1960s television show, “The Flying Nun.” The order had an active vocation that sought to administer to people in need. Opening an orphanage and school, and then operating a hospital in what was a remote mining community, fit nicely with the mission of the Daughters.

The excavation of the St. Mary Louise Hospital grounds continues a tradition dating back to 1990 of UNR archaeologists working with support from the Historic Preservation Office and the Comstock Historic District Commission to examine resources in Virginia City. Previous excavations included work at Piper’s Opera House, an African American saloon, Chinatown and a residential neighborhood known as Cornish Row. The discoveries of the archaeologists have been made available to the public through tours, exhibits, websites, lectures and publications.

The State Historic Preservation Office and the National Park Service provided funding for the dig at the St. Mary Louise Hospital excavation site, located at the current St. Mary’s Art and Retreat Center, 55 R St., Virginia City. The public is welcome to visit the site while the team is working there, Mondays through Fridays, 9:30am to noon and 1 to 3pm. They expect to conclude their work Aug.15.

Artifacts from the project will be brought back to the University’s Historical Archaeology Lab, where they will be analyzed, cleaned, conserved and entered into a database. Within about a year, they will be curated at the University’s Anthropology Research Museum.

Doug Stoup plans to circumnavigate Lake Tahoe on a standup paddleboard July 31 in less than 24 hours.

He will start at Waterman’s Landing in Carnelian Bay and finish there.

Stoup is paddling to raise money and awareness for High Fives Foundation and the Ice Axe Foundation. The Ice Axe Foundation is an educational 501(3)C set up to educate youth about the planet through live Internet feeds.

There will be a fund raising reception Aug. 1 from 3-7pm at Waterman’s Landing with live music.

Kim Wyatt, local publisher and editor, is giving at talk at the South Lake Tahoe library about “Tahoe Blues: Short Lit on Life at the Lake” and other forthcoming events at Bona Fide Books.

She will have books available for purchase.

The event is Aug. 29 at 6:30pm.

The library is at 1000 Rufus Allen Blvd.

By Dan Walters, Sacramento Bee

The campaign to establish a state lottery nearly 30 years ago adopted “schools win too” as its theme. And it worked.

Voters responded because education is the single most popular category of public spending, even though in reality, the lottery provides schools with little or nothing in extra money.

This year, Gov. Jerry Brown is using the same theme to sell voters on raising sales and income taxes. The opening words of his measure’s official ballot title are “Temporary taxes to fund education …”

Whether schools would actually benefit from the taxes is very uncertain; he has, however, signed a bill that would slash school spending by $5.5 billion should it fail.

It’s a very risky strategy for a measure that, at the moment, has no better than a 50-50 chance of passage.

For one thing, a recent Field Poll found that voters don’t like school funds being on the chopping block. They could conclude that Brown is holding schools hostage and resent the implied extortion.

Read the whole story

By Elisa Tong

In the fight against cancer, new drugs, technologies and ongoing research are essential. But nothing would make a greater impact against the disease than eliminating tobacco use and exposure.

Tobacco leads the list of causes of preventable death, well ahead of obesity, alcohol consumption and handguns. Tobacco is implicated in 11 types of cancer, including stomach, esophagus, bladder, throat, and, of course, lung. Indeed, if tobacco use and exposure were eliminated, the cancer death rate alone would drop by 30 percent, and almost 90 percent of lung cancer deaths would be prevented altogether.

Now, consider the fine print: more than 3,000 people who die each year from lung cancer have never smoked, but have been exposed to someone else’s smoke. The U.S. Surgeon General, in 2006, concluded that there was no risk-free exposure to second-hand smoke.

How can you reduce your risk of cancer and other diseases brought on by tobacco exposure?

• If you smoke, you can still quit and reduce your risk for lung cancer. About 10 years after quitting, an ex-smoker’s risk of dying from lung cancer is 30 to 50 percent less than for those who continue to smoke.

• If you need help quitting, call the California Smokers’ Helpline at 1-800-NO BUTTS.

• When leasing an apartment or purchasing a condominium, find out if smoking is allowed before you sign the dotted line. In multi-unit complexes, 65 percent of the air is shared among all residents. California landlords have the right to make their rental properties smoke-free.

• Know the loopholes in workplace smoking laws. In private residences licensed as family daycare homes, for example, smoking is permitted after business hours and in areas where children are not present. It is still allowed in owner- and volunteer-operated businesses with no employees, as well as in patient smoking areas of long-term health facilities. And, it’s still allowed in 65 percent of hotel and motel guestrooms and meeting and banquet rooms except during food or beverage service.

• Support efforts by advocates to curb or prohibit smoking in outdoor areas such as public beaches, parks and other outdoor places throughout California. These efforts encourage smokers to quit, protect nonsmokers from exposure, and prevent toxic cigarette butt waste.

Smoke-free environments benefit everyone. When it comes to our health, every effort to reduce your tobacco exposure will reduce your risk for cancer.

Elisa Tong is assistant professor of Internal Medicine at UC Davis and a member of the National Cancer Institute – designated UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center.

By Norimitsu Onishi, New York Times

RENO — Apple? The outdoors? Bowling?

As Reno, that other city in Nevada, seeks to move beyond an economy and a downtown dominated for decades by mammoth casinos, it is grasping at various possibilities that have little to do with the industry that defined it.

Apple announced in late June that it would build a $1 billion data center here, even as Reno was cementing its reputation as one of the country’s bowling meccas by hosting several tournaments at the 78-lane National Bowling Stadium.

Meanwhile, an advertising campaign promoting the area’s outdoor activities is aimed at a diverse array of tourists, including, for the first time, same-sex couples. “What’s your passion?” asks the campaign, which has nearly no mention of gambling.

The arrival of Indian casinos and the spread of state-sanctioned gambling across the nation have cut deeply into the revenues of former monopolies on legalized gambling like Las Vegas and Atlantic City. But none was as devastated as Reno, whose customers came mostly from the Bay Area and other corners of California. Instead of driving a couple hundred miles and crossing the Sierra Nevada, Californians just headed for slot machines at Indian casinos close to home.

In what many here considered a sign of the times, downtown Reno’s showcase gambling establishment, the Silver Legacy Resort Casino — a 35-story, 1,700-room giant whose opening in 1995 was supposed to usher in a new golden age for the city — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in late May. Its owners have said the filing will not affect operations, a pledge seemingly reinforced by announcements of the coming acts, including Cheap Trick on Aug. 3, on a billboard next to its 120-foot replica of a mining rig.

Other fading casinos and some empty buildings loom over a small downtown that has been largely abandoned by residents. Reno, which was also hit particularly hard during the housing crisis, has struggled to reinvent itself precisely because it has been a single-industry city, experts say. Even before gambling, Reno made a name for itself by offering quick divorces, but it also lost that business in the 1960s after other states loosened restrictions on divorce.

“Reno has had it easy until recently because it had a monopoly on things that were illegal in the other states,” said Alicia Barber, a historian at the University of Nevada, Reno, and the author of “Reno’s Big Gamble.” “But now it’s facing tough questions for the first time. It’s like a child star that still wants the world’s attention.”

After peaking in 2000, when Indian casino gambling took off in California, gambling revenues in Reno have fallen by a third. What is more, gambling revenues per square foot of floor space are down nearly a quarter, according to the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

City officials and experts say that gambling will not disappear from Reno, but that its importance to the city, as well as its influence, has been waning.

Wanting to keep gamblers inside their buildings, hotel casinos did not support and sometimes opposed the development of other city attractions, businesspeople say. They had little interest in the University of Nevada, Reno, whose campus lies just a few blocks north of downtown, because students have little money to gamble.

“In the past, we had hotels turn down our business because they didn’t want bowler groups,” said Joe Kelley, the general manager of the National Bowling Stadium.

Until around 2000, Mr. Kelley said, a dozen tour buses would arrive daily at the Silver Legacy or the Eldorado next door. “As the patrons got off the bus,” he said, “somebody would hand them a roll of quarters and a coupon for the buffet. Every morning. And the buses, they don’t come here anymore. So they look to us to fill their property.”

Also completed in 1995, the bowling stadium is scheduled to undergo a $15 million renovation, including the addition of 10 lanes. Last month, the United States Bowling Congress agreed to hold championship tournaments here through 2030.

Read the whole story

By Kathryn Reed

South Lake Tahoe will definitely be down to one pot club by Aug. 20, with one of the owners staying in town to run a different business.

Matt Triglia on Monday withdrew his challenge to being shut down and agreed to a slew of conditions that allow him to operate Patient2Patient medical marijuana collective until Aug. 20 at the latest.

Gino DiMatteo, who was officially evicted last week from his spot on Third Street where he ran City of Angels 2, has told city officials he is buying Push Fitness.

Tim Christenson's name will have to come off the sign when the sale of the business goes through. Photo/LTN

Neither Triglia, nor his wife, Erika, returned a phone call July 23.

City Manager Nancy Kerry on July 11 revoked Patient2Patient’s permit because the dispensary was violating various city codes. Triglia initially appealed that action, but since changed his mind after things began to unravel after last week’s council meeting.

At the July 17 City Council meeting it was revealed that the Triglias had been detained in Missouri in December and had $85,000 in cash taken by authorities. Triglia at the council meeting adamantly denied it was him.

Later last week when confronted with police photos from Missouri, Triglia changed his story, according to city officials, to say he was working for Homeland Security. When that story fell apart, officials said, Triglia agreed to close shop.

Triglia has until Aug. 1 to paint the building – which means covering up the illegal mural as well removing unpermitted signs. He must also post a notice to patients stating he will be closing.

“They have removed the illegal growing operation from the Spot,” Kerry told Lake Tahoe News. The Spot is the business operating in the building closest to Highway 50. Escrow on that building never closed, so ownership will revert to Matt Johnson of Gardnerville, according to Kerry.

The Triglias own the building set back farther where patients enter.

Changing direction

The closure of Patient2Patient and City of Angels 2 means Tahoe Wellness Collective will be the only medical marijuana dispensary in South Lake Tahoe.

While the Triglias’ plans are unknown, DiMatteo is returning to his life in the world of fitness.

The phone number DiMatteo used for the medical marijuana collective has been disconnected. Tim Christenson, who has owned the fitness club for the past several years, did not return multiple phone calls.

In addition to buying the club, DiMatteo is selling his house in the Angora Highlands area – one of two he owns in the area.

But the fitness club comes with outstanding bills.

El Dorado Climbing Walls, based in Colorado, has been trying to collect what it’s owed from Christenson for nearly a year.

John McGowan, president of the climbing wall firm, said the legal expenses exceed the cost of installing the wall. He told Lake Tahoe News that last week a judge ruled that who pays legal fees is still to be negotiated. McGowan said Christenson wanted that off the table.

A settlement hearing is scheduled for next month, but McGowan believes ultimately the case will be decided by an El Dorado County Superior Court judge.

“I believe it will go to court. But will Push Fitness be solvent?” McGowan wonders. “They could do a sale of assets and close Push. Gino could buy the assets and not the liability.”

(Christenson does not own the building, just the business.)

In addition to the climbing wall firm wanting money, Christenson has regularly not paid taxes. And there is no record of a fictitious business license for Push Fitness registered with El Dorado County.

Two applicants came in at the deadline to join the other four who have applied to fill the vacancy on the Lake Tahoe Unified School District board.

Mark Bissonnette (attorney) and Mary Kortge (homemaker) are the latecomers. The other vying for the spot are Barbara Bannar (former board member, homemaker), Kathy Haven (educator/small business owner), Cathy Giardina (business owner/bookkeeper), and Heather Clelan (property manager).

Interviews will be conducted in public at the Aug. 7 board meeting, which starts at 6pm at the district office. The person selected by the current four board members will be seated Aug. 21, with the term expiring December 2013.

The vacancy was created when Judy Cefalu resigned without a reason.