By Jeff Delong, Reno Gazette-Journal

Lake Tahoe could provide a global example of a sustainable environment and economy if full advantage is taken of its many natural attributes, conservationists, business representatives and others agreed Thursday.

Toward that purpose, members of the Lake Tahoe Stewardship Congress — many arriving at Sand Harbor State Park by boat, bus or other means of alternative transportation — discussed early details of a Tahoe Sustainability Exposition planned for several days next August across the Tahoe Basin.

Jacquie Chandler

Nature hikes, water transit and recycling tours, demonstration gardens and similar activities were discussed as possible events that could help “launch Tahoe as a world stage for sustainable stewardship” through the exposition and related efforts, said Jacquie Chandler, executive director of the nonprofit group Sustainable Tahoe.

Read the whole story

By Kathryn Reed

How many piers and buoys should jut out and bob on Lake Tahoe has been the center of a 22-year fight. With Thursday’s federal court ruling, the fight rages on.

On Sept. 16, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton issued his 65-page ruling in favor of the League to Save Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Club. On the losing end is the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.

The fight over buoys in Lake Tahoe is not over.

The League said it would not comment until Friday. Nothing was on Earthjustice’s or the Sierra Club’s websites Thursday about the ruling.

Earthjustice represented the environmental groups in court pro bono. TRPA officials say they spent at least six-figures worth of taxpayer dollars on in-house and outside legal counsel.

“It remains to be seen what we do next. We need time to regroup,” Julie Regan, external affairs director for TRPA, told Lake Tahoe News shortly after the ruling came out.

The shorezone issue has been contentious for 22 years and became even more so after the Governing Board of the TRPA adopted a shorezone plan in October 2008. That month the League and Sierra Club filed suit in U.S. District Court in Sacramento.

Today there are about 800 piers and 4,000 buoys on Lake Tahoe. TRPA’s plan would have allowed an additional 128 private piers and 1,822 buoys.

Regan said she thought the bi-state regulatory agency had found the middle ground between those who don’t want piers or buoys and those who think all private property owners should have them.

“We did our best to craft that compromise,” Regan said.

The League was part of the process, as were other stakeholders. But officials were never satisfied and believed suing to halt the installation of more piers and buoys was the answer.

Karlton’s decision says the TRPA did not prove the shorezone ordinance meets the thresholds the agency works under.

Regan said the judge had “technical concerns with the environmental analysis.”

Regan said it’s possible TRPA will file motions to allow some of the shorezone ordinance, like the Blue Boating Program, to stay intact while the more contentious buoy-pier issues are worked out.

By Richard N. Velotta, Las Vegas Sun

The Nevada Commission on Tourism, partnering with Google.com, expects to produce more than 8 million page views from its target demographic in an Internet winter tourism ad campaign that begins in November.

The commission began working with Google late last year and will spend $835,000 of its $2.4 million media budget on Internet marketing in the current fiscal year. Google has embraced the Nevada Tourism Commission campaign as a case study to show a cost-effective, high-tech means to reach customers.

Nevada tourism officials want to focus on Tahoe ski resorts with views like Heavenly's. Photo/Kathryn Reed

The commission will use Google In-Stream Video ads targeting winter sports enthusiasts in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Dallas, Chicago, Seattle, Phoenix and Las Vegas.

The commission’s Web presence is geared to steer business to Nevada’s Lake Tahoe resorts and ski areas.

Read the whole story

By Carlos Alcalá, Sacramento Bee

An El Dorado County jury recommended a death sentence for David Charles Zanon for running down and killing California Highway Patrol Officer Scott Russell in 2007.

The jury returned the verdict Wednesday after four days of deliberation. The judge will formally impose sentencing at a later hearing.

“Justice was served. I’m very happy,” said Lynn Russell, the officer’s widow, who spoke briefly in front of the El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office.

After being found asleep in a car filled with stolen items on July 31, 2007, Zanon awoke and led officers on a lengthy chase from Rancho Cordova deep into El Dorado County.

Read the whole story

By Edward Ortiz, Sacramento Bee

A bill that seeks to reduce dropout rates by changing high school graduation requirements statewide has arts education advocates bristling.

Assembly Bill 2446 would allow students to pick from a myriad of arts and career technical education or vocational classes instead of requiring them to take yearlong classes in arts or a foreign language.

“We feel it’s bad educational policy as it sets one education area against another,” said Joe Laddon, policy director of the California Arts Education Alliance.

Approved by the Legislature, the bill is on the desk of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has until Sept. 30 to sign or veto it.

Read the whole story

By Jeff Delong, Reno Gazette-Journal

Faulty brakes were likely responsible for the fiery June crash of a lumber truck that launched off the end of a runaway truck ramp and into a Lake Tahoe home, according to a report by the Nevada Highway Patrol.

While much of the truck’s wreckage was burned beyond the point of effective examination, experts did determine “at least one set of the brakes on the trailer were insufficient” to safely descend the steep Mount Rose Highway, members of the NHP’s Major Accident Investigation Team concluded.

Faulty brakes likely led to a semi plowing into this Incline house in June. Photo/Kathryn Reed

“With the brakes that we could actually examine, there were problems,” said Trooper Eric Gallagher, who investigated the accident that killed 41-year-old Frederick Douglas Matthews and destroyed an Incline Village home.

“That was probably the main cause of it — insufficient braking,” Gallagher said. “A heavy truck like that can get serious momentum going down a hill like that.”

Read the whole story

By Dale Kasler, Sacramento Bee

California’s barely visible economic recovery should crawl along for another year or longer, putting off any meaningful gains until sometime in 2012, according to the latest projections from UCLA.

The quarterly UCLA Anderson Forecast, to be released today, says statewide unemployment won’t fall below 10 percent until the last three months of 2012.

Despite the bleak outlook, UCLA senior economist Jerry Nickelsburg dismissed speculation that the economy is heading into a double-dip recession.

“California’s growing, but it’s growing slowly,” he said in an interview. “It doesn’t follow that slow growth means you turn in a different direction.”

Read the whole story

By Kathryn Reed

“This is a greater danger to us than the Angora Fire.”

Those were South Lake Tahoe City Councilman Bruce Grego’s words as he passionately pleaded for his fellow councilmembers on Tuesday to close down the three medicinal marijuana facilities by the end of October.

Bruce Grego at the Sept. 14 South Tahoe council meeting received zero support. Photo/Kathryn Reed

“How far we going to let this go?” he asked.

His four colleagues looked dumbfounded and essentially sat on their hands. Without two others thinking it would be a good idea to schedule a special meeting to consider invoking emergency powers to shut the pot clubs down, Grego was left spewing hot air.

Grego never explained how the pot clubs are worse than the June 2007 fire that destroyed 254 homes, caused $150 million in damage and cost $23 million to fight. Then there are those 3,100 acres that burned and the ongoing restoration costs. Throw in the lost tourism dollars, the money other entities and businesses lost, and it’s hard to know how Grego could invoke pot clubs and Angora Fire in the same sentence.

Grego mentioned Steve Kubby by name. Kubby is one of 10 people running for three council seats and is a strong advocate for medicinal marijuana. It’s unusual for a sitting councilmember to inject himself so blatantly in a race and take sides.

South Lake Tahoe leaders have said they want a second economy beyond tourism. Clearly, with the number of clients the three collectives in town have, it’s not just locals getting medicine. Kubby wants South Tahoe to be known for world-class pot dispensaries.

Oakland has embraced this type of business and is taxing the heck out of them to generate revenue. Other cities are saying they want nothing to do with pot clubs.

South Lake Tahoe has a habit of issuing a business license and then deciding it doesn’t like that type of business – think Broc’s Puppies. The collectives have business licenses now, so clearly someone in the city said this is allowable.

Grego let out his rant during council member comments on Sept. 14. He said he was surprised to learn pot is being grown in the commercial areas of town and that some of the dispensaries are growing pot. But all of this has been said at council meetings he has been at, so he should not have been surprised to learn it at the committee meeting.

Grego and Councilman Bill Crawford are part of a committee working on medicinal marijuana issues. The first meeting was last week. The next is today at 3pm in council chambers and the following is Sept. 23.

The committee meetings are open to the public.

No one on that committee is a doctor, no one is an expert in pain management, no one is an expert in the whole issue of medical marijuana.

At the start of the council meeting during public comment, 12 people spoke, with one letter read into the record. Most said how they are against the clubs, but want people to have the medicinal pot if they really need it. They didn’t propose a way for that to happen, though.

The overwhelming concern is this is not the type of town they want – to be known for a medicinal drug that otherwise is still illegal. (That may change on Nov. 2 depending on how Californians vote.)

They seem to forget it’s hard to legislate morality.

By Kathryn Reed

Skip driving, skip Reno, skip Sacramento. The fastest way to get to Lake Tahoe is via Gary Air.

Trish and Dave Guerrieri are flying clients in their Cessna 182 into Lake Tahoe Airport. The Bay Area couple, who have a second home in South Lake Tahoe, received clearance last week from the FAA for their charter service.

Gary Air charter service is flying into Lake Tahoe Airport. Photo/Provided

The Cessna carries two to three passengers – plus gear – including skis and snowboards.

For years, the South Bay couple has been acting as an air taxi broker. For the last five years they’ve been booking flights to Tahoe for other pilots as the broker.

“If our plane is not the right plane for the mission, we can still act as a broker to find people another operator who suits them best,” Guerrieri said.

It’s not just South Lake where the couple will fly to – it’s any airport. Regionally, that could be Truckee, Minden or Reno.

In the months they’ve been waiting for the FAA clearance, inquiries have been coming in from second homeowners and skiers. The Guerrieris anticipate creating a ride-sharing program for people who want to go to the same place but don’t want to charter the entire plane for themselves.

One thing they have over commercial airlines is no need to book two weeks in advance for the best rate. Their rates start at $250 person. Someone flying back and forth the same day will likely get the best rate.

From the website people can get quotes about fares.

The plane is based at Reid-Hillview Airport in San Jose. Having the plane near the population base is more economical than keeping it at the most popular destination.

Dave Guerrieri, who is the pilot, expects to fly mostly during the day – when it is safest with the optimal flying conditions.

It’s not just people recreating in Tahoe who the Guerrieris anticipate using their service. Their plane, they say, is ideal for shuttling the businessperson between multiple cities in a day. It also gets the Tahoe resident out of the basin and back again.

“I don’t think we will have an office in South Lake Tahoe. With everything so easy on the Internet, we don’t need to man an office (there),” Guerrieri said.

They aren’t worried about the ongoing recession impacting their business, saying they’ve seen the charter industry beginning to rebound in the Bay Area.

The couple brought their plane to the air show at Lake Tahoe Airport in August. They were also a sponsor of the Tour de Tahoe bike ride Sunday.

Details:

Website

Email: info@GaryAir.us

Phone: (408) 729.4359

Prices: Start at $250/person from the South Bay to South Lake Tahoe

By Evan Halper, Marc Lifsher and Patrick McGreevy, Los Angeles Times

SACRAMENTO -— Environmentalists were counting on big gains in Sacramento this summer, with a governor eager to burnish his green credentials in his final months in office. But by the time the legislative session ended at midnight Tuesday, those hopes had fizzled.

Activists had worked for passage of such pioneering measures as a ban on plastic grocery bags and expanded use of the sun, wind and other renewable resources to power California homes and businesses. But the bold proposals they saw as a springboard to nationwide environmental efforts collapsed in the face of aggressive industry opposition that included intensive lobbying, television advertising and even mail to voters.

“We’re in shock,” said Mark Gold, president of the nonprofit Heal the Bay, which had helped lead a large coalition of activists, retailers and unions crusading for the bag ban.

Read the whole story