• Tahoe Regional Planning Agency is accepting nominations for its Best in the Basin awards through March 30. The program recognizes projects that demonstrate exceptional planning and design, and compatibility with the environment and TRPA guidelines. Forms are online.

• Here are theEl Dorado-Tahoe and Sierra roadwork schedules for the week from Caltrans.

• Lake of the Sky Outfitters (1023 Emerald Bay Road, South Lake Tahoe) is showing “Eiger Solo” the story of Eric Jones’ 1981 solo attempt of the notorious north face of the Eiger on March 20 at 7pm. Admission is free. Limited seating. RSVP to 530.541.1027.

• Somebody purchased a winning Powerball ticket at the 7-Eleven on Pioneer Trail in South Lake Tahoe on March 11. The ticket has the five correct numbers, just not the Powerball number. The ticket is worth about $700,000.

• KNPB is hosting a PBS KIDS Writers Contest workshop at the Discovery Museum in Reno on March 21 from 10-11am. The contest encourages children in grades K-3 to submit original pieces. For more info, go online.

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association’s is encouraging people to file protests regarding the fire fee in order to be part of the class-action lawsuit that is under way.

CalFire is in the process of sending bills to homeowners, including those in the Lake Valley Fire Protection District and other parts of the Lake Tahoe Basin.

The next hearing on the lawsuit is scheduled for June 12 at 11am in Sacramento Superior Court.

To file a protest, go online.

The building in the middle of the parking lot in 2000 in its final days. Photos/Bill Kingman

This booth stood alone in the Crescent V Center parking lot near Stateline for more than 30 years.

Its peculiarity made it a bit of a local identifying landmark such as, “Oh, it’s by that funny little A-frame.” Standing until about 2000, it had housed numerous businesses including banking, travel agency, tourist maps and coupons, and time-share sales among others. Here, in its final days, behind is seen the new Heavenly gondola.

No building means more parking spaces and a better view to Heavenly’s gondola in the distance.

Redevelopment and renaming as the Village Center provided parking spaces today where the A-frame had stood. The gondola is still visible above the Heavenly Village Cinema and the Wyland Gallery.

— Bill Kingman

The U.S. Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit is accepting public comment for the Off-Highway Vehicle Cooperative Funds grant application submitted to the state of California Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Division.

The OHMVR grant provides staffing for OHV education and information, law enforcement patrols, resource and use monitoring, protection of natural and cultural resources and maintenance of OHV trails and trailheads on the LTBMU.

Comments are due April 6. For more information about the grant and how to comment, go online or email Jacob Quinn at jmquinn@fs.fed.us.

Animal Coalition of Tahoe is putting on a Yappy Hour for people and their four-legged family members.

The April 8 fundraiser is from 5-8pm on the patio at Base Camp Pizza in the Heavenly Village in South Lake Tahoe.

A percentage of the food and drink sales go to ACT. ACT raises funds for a spay-neuter program and the animal shelter.

A mama and her cub play in the Tahoe Keys this week. Photo/John Adamski/Copyright

• Tahoe’s bears are out and about. They are playing and wandering the neighborhoods.

• Tahoe is on FlipKey’s list of top winter destinations.

• As part of North Lake Tahoe’s SnowFest, the 11th annual I-Did-A-Run at Tahoe Donner Downhill Ski Area raised $2,775 for the Humane Society of Truckee-Tahoe.

• Tahoe City Public Utility District is seeking bids to replace two tennis courts at Kilner Park. Estimated cost is $240,000.

The Nevada Division of Forestry is seeking applications for the state fire assistance grant program. An estimated $500,000 from the National Fire Plan and the U.S. Forest Service-Cooperative Forest Fire Program may be available for projects statewide.

The purpose of this funding is to mitigate the risk and damage that wildfires can cause in wildland urban interface areas.

Funds can be used for costs associated with implementing on-the-ground hazardous wildfire fuel reduction projects, information and education relating to wildland urban interface issues, and homeowner and community action projects. Private citizens, homeowner associations, local governments, state agencies and nonprofits are all eligible for grants. Projects must be implemented on state and/or private lands located in Nevada. Projects on federal lands are not eligible.

Applications must be submitted online. The site also contains a detailed description of the criteria and instructions for eligibility and the scoring criteria that will be used to rank applications for competitive funding. The deadline to apply is 5pm April 30.

Jennifer Montgomery

• Placer County Supervisor Jennifer Montgomery is one of 24 women elected officials nationwide in the inaugural class of a Women in Government Leadership Program created by the Governing Institute to focus on improving the performance of state and local governments and strengthening public-sector innovation, leadership and citizen engagement. She is one of two elected officials from California and one of three county supervisors from throughout the U.S.

• Reno Earth Day is being celebrated April 26 at Idlewild Park from 10am-6pm.

• Tahoe Paradise Resort Improvement District board is meeting March 13 at 10am at Lake Valley Fire Protection District. Here is the agenda.

• Truckee police officers will present the annual crime report to the Town Council on March 26 at 6pm at council chambers.

• The High Fives Foundation gave Tahoe City’s Eric Zerrenner $2,390 for personal training, acupuncture, massage and private bar effect classes. On Jan. 8 he was skiing at Alpine Meadows, went to jump off of a roller, which dropped down to a flat landing, fell and burst fractured his L1 vertebrae causing paralysis from his waist down.

Liberty Utilities is offering academic scholarships to eligible high school and college students within its service territory. The seven schools participating in the third annual scholarship program are South Tahoe High School, Loyalton High School, Douglas High School (students residing in Alpine County only), Coleville High School, North Tahoe High School and Portola High School, and Lake Tahoe Community College.

The six high school scholarships are $500 each. High school seniors must have a minimum unweighted gpa of 2.5 and be accepted to an accredited four-year or two-year university or college or an accredited vocational school. They also must have some community service experience in the community which they reside.

The Lake Tahoe Community College scholarship is $750. Those students are eligible for the scholarship if they have a 2.5 gpa or higher, and have completed at least 18 quarter units at LTCC. They must be enrolled in LTCC’s upcoming fall quarter, and have demonstrated leadership through school and/or community service experiences within the community they reside.

Interested students should contact their school’s financial aid office or counselor to find out more about the scholarship and to obtain an application. The individual schools have different deadlines, but all scholarships will be awarded starting mid-May.

The Math Club at Lake Tahoe Community College is celebrating Pi Day on March 14 at 9am at the giant clock near the Heavenly Village gondola.

Club members will demonstrate and share facts about pi. There will be a countdown to the big event ending at precisely 9:26:53am.

Pi Day is an annual celebration commemorating the mathematical constant π (pi), or 3.1415926535897 and on into infinity. Pi is used in mathematics to represent a constant – the ratio between a circle’s circumference and its diameter. No matter what size the circle, the ratio between its circumference and diameter remains constant.

Pi Day is always March 14 as a tribute to pi’s first three significant digits: 3 and 14. This year’s Pi Day is particularly special because the next digits in pi after 3 and 14 is 15. That number lineup won’t happen again in our lifetimes.

LTCC’s Math Club will officially celebrate Pi Day at 9:26:53 a.m. because those are the next digits following 3, 14 and 15 in pi’s infinitely long string of random numbers.