To the community,

The Zawadisha Fund would like to thank the following local businesses for their generous donations and participation in She Is Beautiful Lake Tahoe fundraiser: BioSpirit Day Spa, Bliss Skin Care Studio, Elevate Wellness, Gaia-Licious, LauraNidra Yoga, and Mountain Yoga.

Together they raised $1058, which will fund self-defense and HIV/AIDS prevention workshops for girls and micro-loans for women in Kenya.

To learn more or to get involved, contact Julie at jules@zawadisha.org.

Julie Lowe, Zawadisha co-founder

The Tahoe Derby Dames will be hosting the first home bout of the season June 16 at the outdoor flat track at Bijou Community Park.

The home opener will feature a double-header with the Tahoe Derby Dames splitting into two squads. The opening bout pits the Tahoe Derby Dames against the Riverside Roller Belles, followed by the main event with the veteran squad for the Tahoe Derby Dames taking on the Port City Roller Girls from Stockton.

“Meet the Dames” at the after party hosted at Lakeside Inn and Casino.

The Dames have had an exciting 2012 season with many up and coming skaters joining the team. Team training began in January and the Dames have completed their away game travel with the remainder of the scheduled bouts in South Lake Tahoe.

If interested in skating with the Tahoe Derby Dames, all levels of skaters are welcome to attend “Fresh Meat Mondays” at 6pm at Bijou Community Park.

To buy tickets for upcoming bouts contact your favorite derby girl for $10 advanced tickets, or visit the Sea Leagues Skate Co. at 2494 Lake Tahoe Blvd., No. A5 in the Pine Cone Plaza. At the gate tickets are $12.

Gates open at 3pm for the bouts and whistle blows at 4pm for the first bout, main event whistle blows at 6pm.

During the month of June, the Truckee Police Department, in cooperation with other local law enforcement agencies, will be assigning officers to special DUI saturation patrols designed to find and arrest impaired drivers.

This program is geared toward drivers of all ages, but is especially focused on under-age drinking and driving. June is the end of the school year, graduation time, and the start of the summer season.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, “Vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for teens and one out of three of those are alcohol related.” ”

Funding for this program is provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Harriette (Hap) McCallum passed away unexpectedly on June 6, 2012.

Harriette Florence Porter McCallum, born in San Francisco to Bennie and Dorothy Porter on March 30, 1930, was nicknamed “Happy” by her father at birth. “Hap” began a true love for animals and raised and showed Boston Bull Terriers as a young lady in Ojai.

She married Walter McCallum while working at the Presidio in San Francisco, and after a few years in Berkeley, moved to Shasta Avenue in Napa in 1957 with their four children and then to “The Farm” on Hagen Road in 1960.

Farm life transitioned this adventurous city girl into an active 4-H leader, surrounded by vegetable gardens and farm animals. Hap could be found around the barns at fair time every year, prepping kids and animals for show-ring events and the livestock auction.

The family moved to Salem, Ore., in 1969, where Hap began a 30-year career in real estate.

After building a property management business in Santa Rosa, she returned to Napa to be closer to her children. She became involved in breeding and showing Miniature Pinschers, with a number of champions to her credit.

She will be truly missed by her children, Patrick McCallum (deceased) of Napa, David and Dorothy (Glaros Wagner) McCallum of Napa, Susan and Russell Markishtum of Manteca, and Judi McCallum of Camino; grandchildren, Stavros, Jennifer, Kimberly, Kelly, Corey, along with her many devoted cousins and friends.

A celebration of life will be at Tulocay Cemetery Chapel/Reception Room, 411 Coombsville Road, Napa on June 16 at 11am.

Please feel free to sign the online guestbook.

Donations to the Miniature Pincher Club of America, Northern California MPCA Rescue are greatly appreciated. Contact: Patti Williams at patti_cacka@yahoo.com or the Internet Miniature Pincher Services (IMPS).

Bears are coming to the Gatekeeper’s Museum in Tahoe City this summer.

The museum’s new exhibit — Ursus Among Us: The American Black Bear in the Tahoe Basin — is slated to open July 1. The exhibit will consider two main topics regarding Tahoe’s ursine residents: Bears Up Close and Personal: Bear Facts and Observations Bears and People: It’s Complicated.

The exhibit will feature information about bears and bear-human interaction in multiple modes — audio, visual and tactile. The exhibit will feature a taxidermy bear and provide information about bear life cycles. Museum visitors can observe how the Washoe people interacted with bears. An antique bear trap similar to those used by early Euro-American settlers will also be on display. Additionally, there will be replica skulls and claws to examine and craft projects providing experiential fun. Recent “Bear Aware” films produced by regional California Department of Fish and Game staffers will also be featured.

For more information, call (530) 583.1762.

Bongo is a very sweet Australian shepherd mix who is only about 9 months old, but he is already house trained and has great manners.

He loves to play with other dogs, and is very friendly with people. Bongo is ready to go to training classes to learn about walking on a leash instead of running, and would do best in a household where he would get lots of exercise.

Bongo is neutered, microchipped, and vaccinated. He 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 online to see photos and description 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

Grass Roots, the natural food store in South Lake Tahoe, is hoping to open the doors to the larger facility in a week.

The tentative date is June 18 — about three months later than originally planned.

Jon McElroy, who owns the store with his wife Sandra, said it was a much bigger project than he expected to convert the old Blockbuster into a grocery store.

No big grand opening is planned at the get-go. McElroy told Lake Tahoe News he wants the opening to be quiet, work out the kinks, and then possibly do something big.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Beth Hoffman, NPR

It’s hard to go a day without hearing people brag about how they eat local. In-the-know consumers wax poetic about their local farmers’ markets, and some even make pilgrimages to meet their rancher, visit cows grazing and see pigs playing happily in the mud.

But the dirty little secret is, while that steak those “locavores” just bought at the farmers’ market may have come from a cow that grazed in nearby pastures, it probably wasn’t processed anywhere nearby. In fact, many local meat products are sent to slaughterhouses hundreds of miles away, across state lines.

So some small-scale cattle producers are taking matters into their own hands in an effort to keep money, jobs and something “local” on dinner plates.

In Washington state for example, most grass-fed beef raised on the eastern plains journeys some 400 to 600 miles to Oregon or Idaho for processing before arriving back in Seattle. That means not only a larger carbon footprint for each hamburger served, but processing animals out of state also sucks money out of the state’s rural communities and makes locally produced beef more expensive.

So the Cattle Producers of Washington (CpoW), like several other innovative groups around the country, are breaking ground this summer on a new slaughterhouse in Odessa (Lincoln County) that will cater exclusively to small eastern Washington ranches.

“We don’t want to be the next Tyson or Cargill, processing large numbers of animals for national distribution,” says Willard Wolf, President of CPoW. “We are not interested in competing on that level. The whole idea is to have quality control and humane processing for local cattle, hogs, sheep and goats that provides consumers in the state with [the] locally produced products they are demanding. Having a producer-owned plan will help keep dollars, ranchers and farmers in our communities.”

Forty years ago, when Wolf started working as a rancher in Eastern Oregon, there were seven slaughterhouses in the region able to process and package meat from small scale producers. Today there are none.

Read the whole story

By Carlos Alcalá, Sacramento Bee

El Dorado County Supervisor Ray Nutting is hoping his county can wield the word “coordination” like David wielded his slingshot.

Nutting has been frustrated with decisions from the big guys – the state and federal government.

The state has curbed dredge mining in the creeks of his county – the very name of which suggests gold – and imposed fire protection fees that he has likened to illegal taxes.

The federal government has closed popular off-road vehicle routes and limited grazing on federal lands, decisions he feels hurt the economy.

By invoking a concept known as “coordination,” Nutting expects the county can get higher authorities to come to the table as equals before they make decisions that affect El Dorado County.

He is asking his fellow supervisors Tuesday to approve an advisory committee to help “coordinate activity to assure consistency with our local plans and policies as required by congressional mandate.”

Advocates – including an Idaho group called Trademark America – say “coordination” is covered under federal rules and requires authorities to coordinate their plans with agencies on a local level.

“This is not fighting the federal government,” Nutting said. “We’re not forcing it, it’s the law.”

There are disagreements, though, on what that law requires.

Read the whole story

By Jon Ralston, Las Vegas Sun

During his Carson City heyday, Harvey Whittemore was the King of the Overreach.

Mostly on behalf of the gaming industry, superlobbyist Whittemore tried to get jury verdicts against casinos retroactively annulled, pushed for a special art tax break for Steve Wynn and even persuaded a Senate committee chairman to hear a special amendment to help Whittemore build a pier at Lake Tahoe.

Now, in a twist worthy of O. Henry, Whittemore has been indicted in what might eventually be seen as the Great Government Overreach. He is essentially charged with bundling $150,000 to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (this is legal) but then reimbursing those who contributed (this is not legal). I’m not saying Whittemore is not guilty — he may be. But the law is an anachronism of a bygone, pre-Citizens United campaign financing world, and the potential punishment of years in prison not only does not fit the crime, but is disproportionate to similar offenses that have occurred in this state.

Whittemore’s criminal indictment comes after a lengthy and still unresolved civil squabble between the lobbyist turned developer and his partners after the recession turned his dream of Coyote Springs into a financial sinkhole, sparking recriminations and lawsuits. And now comes the Department of Justice making a federal case out of Whittemore allegedly inducing employees and family members to pony up to funnel money to Reid.

A brief moral equivalency digression: This comes in the same week that the DOJ agreed to a plea deal with the maliciously prosecuted Doug Hampton, the man whose life was destroyed by Sen. John Ensign, who has been left alone, presumably while the Justice Department reads Federal Election Commission reports.

Read the whole story