By Daniel Borenstein, Bay Area News Group Lodi City Manager Steve Schwabauer worries about his town’s fiscal solvency — and estimates roughly a third of California’s municipalities are in the same position because of rising pension costs. Nancy Kerry, city manager of South Lake Tahoe, says her community will avoid bankruptcy but will have to make […]
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By Paul Singer, USA Today ELKRIDGE, Md. — If you are recycling at home, you are probably doing it wrong. That is why a worker lunged to grab a garden hose off the conveyor belt at a Waste Management recycling facility here Wednesday before it got caught in a giant sorting machine. Such tangles frequently require the plant […]
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By Joann Eisenbrandt The anti-Dollar General store advocates in El Dorado County won in court. El Dorado County Superior Court Judge Warren Curt Stracener on April 14 ruled in favor of the Georgetown Preservation Society to stop construction of a 9,100-square-foot Dollar General store on Main Street in the historic mining town of Georgetown. Stracener’s […]
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By Kathryn Reed Lake Tahoe Humane Society’s fired executive director is accused of stealing thousands of dollars from the organization and spending the bulk of the money at a Stateline casino. Niki Congero was suspended by the three-member board of directors on March 14, with termination coming on March 31. The board has gone to […]
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By Paul Rogers, San Jose Mercury News California’s historic five-year drought is officially over, washed away with the relentlessly drenching rains, floods and snowstorms of this winter. But just as tougher building codes and better emergency planning follow major earthquakes, the brutally dry years from 2012 to 2016 are already leaving a legacy, experts say, changing […]
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By Benjamin Spillman, Reno Gazette-Journal The end of ski season is always a bummer. But it stings even more when the season ends while there’s still tons of snow on your favorite ski area. The West Coast winter of 2016-17 delivered historic levels of snow throughout the Lake Tahoe area and the Sierra Nevada. And […]
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By Benjamin Spillman, Reno Gazette-Journal The mountain snowpack is fat but funding to unravel what it means for western communities and the environment is thin. That’s the dynamic facing scientists who study climate, snow and water in California and Nevada. They gathered this month for the fifth Great Basin Climate Forum at the Desert Research […]
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By Peter Hecht, Sacramento Bee The recent gathering at the Sheraton Grand hotel in Sacramento would have been improbable just a few years ago. Marijuana farmers – clad in plaid shirts and jeans, and looking like, well, farmers – openly assembled for a meeting of the California Growers Association. But the trade group’s agenda topic […]
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By Kathryn Reed Catering to the international tourist means understanding their culture in order to show respect and to ensure they are not unintentionally insulted; it means being able to communicate with them via translation apps on phones or having an employee who speaks the language or material printed in their language; it means going […]
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By Patricia Sussman South Lake Tahoe on Tuesday became the 26th city in the United States and the first city in the Sierra Nevada to commit to transition to 100 percent renewable electricity, citywide. The City Council unanimously passed the resolution to achieve 100 percent renewable energy by 2032 in chambers overflowing with community supporters […]
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