By Kathryn Reed

Vail Resorts is undergoing an upper management shuffle that is sending Heavenly’s Blaise Carrig to Colorado.

Carrig was brought in to be chief operating officer of the South Shore resort when Vail bought the ski area in 2002.

Blaise Carrig

He and John Garnsey are co-presidents of the Mountain Division. Neither will have every day responsibilities at any resort. Carrig will work in Broomfield with oversight still of Heavenly, Keystone and Breckenridge. Garnsey will oversee Beaver Creek and Vail from his office in Avon.

Carrig is on vacation and was not available for comment Friday.

CEO Robert Katz made the announcement Thursday.

“As we continue to look toward our future, I am announcing some changes to our organizational structure that will better position our company for future growth, both within our existing resorts and as we pursue new opportunities,” Katz said in an email to employees. “These changes will allow some of our key leaders to have greater capacity to participate in our strategic efforts, and will give opportunities for other individuals to take on new and larger roles within the company.”

A general manager will be hired to run Heavenly and one to run Beaver Creek. To begin with those jobs are only open to current Vail Resorts staff. Heavenly has eight people on its senior management team.

Russ Pecoraro, spokesman for Heavenly, said a time line has not been established to hire the general manager. He said the plan is to replace whoever is promoted from within.

No jobs are being lost or layoffs incurred from the change in structure, Pecoraro said.

Other changes will occur in the human resources and finance departments, but none directly impacting staff at the Lake Tahoe resort.

Heavenly Mountain Resort wraps up its season Sunday, days after the corporate office reported skier visits are up 2.3 percent and lift-ticket revenue up 4.6 percent for the 2009-10 compared to last season.

The Placer County Department of Public Works’ Tahoe Engineering Division is moving its staff from Truckee to north Lake Tahoe this weekend. The move will put the Tahoe staff closer to constituents and customers.

The move, to a commercial office building in Tahoe Vista, means the office won’t be open until Tuesday.

The office is located at 7717 North Lake Blvd., Tahoe Vista. It formerly housed the California State Automobile Association. CSAA built the building in 1990. It includes parking and has easy access to highways 28 and 267.

Placer County acquired the 3,344-square-foot building in March for $860,000. Prior to occupying, the county upgraded the building’s energy management system and data networks, and will also be upgrading stormwater best management practices.

The Tahoe Engineering Division has 11 staff members.

By Mark Grossi, Fresno Bee

Farmers and water officials throughout California wait anxiously each year for forecasts about snowmelt roaring down the Sierra’s granite canyons – precious water for the long summer.

But the forecasts are only estimates, based on averages of past seasons, snow-sensor readings and monthly measurements from key mountain meadows above big rivers. The forecast sometimes is wrong, leaving farmers with too much or too little water later in the growing season.

One big reason: Nobody measures snow around jagged ridges, plunging ravines and deep forests in the 400-mile-long Sierra. That’s a huge swath of the high country where the size of the snowpack is unknown. As the climate warms and snowfall dwindles this century, officials will need to measure more of the Sierra to improve runoff forecasts for farmers and the growing population, say scientists at the University of California at Merced.

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By Kathryn Reed

Maria Barrows-Crist was planning a victory party for Friday afternoon. The judge denied anyone a party. Instead, he asked both sides in the South Lake Tahoe day care battle to file more briefs.

June is the soonest a decision will be rendered, unless El Dorado County Superior Court Judge Steve Bailey works over Memorial Day weekend.

Maria Barrows-Crist with attorney Mike McLaughlin after court April 23.

The state Department of Social Services has been trying to put Barrows-Crist’s Kindertown out of business since last summer.

Mike McLaughlin, who is representing Barrows-Crist, said after the 90-minute hearing on Friday that he doesn’t believe the court will shutter Kindertown for one violation.

Although multiple allegations have brought against Barrows-Crist, the three that dominated the discussion April 23 were whether any employee was under the influence of alcohol or drugs while supervising children; the nickel-size burn on a child from spilled soup; and a peanut product given to a child with a known allergy to the nut.

Everyone agrees the child was given the peanut product even though the necessary precautions and warnings were in place. McLaughlin does not believe that incident alone is reason enough to close the center.

Brenda Ray, deputy attorney general with the state Department of Justice, kept up her mantra that she’s been preaching that if Kindertown stays open, there is the strong likelihood a child will be seriously injured or die.

Despite the 8-month-long court fight, Kindertown’s enrollment is increasing. She has 93 children, whereas in February she had 83. However, in September she was at 120.

Tears filled Barrows-Crist’s eyes as the judge said to file the briefs by May 21, with rebuttals to him by May 28.

“I thought there would be a celebration today,” she said.

By Jeff Delong, Reno Gazette-Journal

Continuing April storms have helped maintain the mountain snowpack and bolstered the region’s water supplies for summer.

On April 1, which federal hydrologists typically consider the end of the snow season, the Tahoe-Truckee snowpack was about 90 percent of average, the fourth straight subpar winter.

But subsequent storms boosted the snowpack to normal or above normal levels for the first time since the 2005-06 winter.

“All year, we were lagging. Then we had that jump,” said Gary Barbato, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Reno. “The snowpack is average.”

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By Kathryn Reed

The South Lake Tahoe Planning Commission met Friday morning to discuss revising the proposed redevelopment area known as Project Area 2.

There was little discussion. The feeling was that if the area from Al Tahoe Boulevard to Harrison Avenue were not included, the businesses along there would be shortchanged.

The council at a meeting earlier this month had voted to leapfrog the redevelopment area. Policy required the matter go back to the commissioners.

The planning commissioners voted 5-0 against the council’s idea. Included in the motion was to exclude the five parcels El Dorado County believes belong to them and not the city.

Redevelopment Director Gene Palazzo gave the presentation.

No one from the public spoke.

The issue goes back to the City Council on May 4. It will be on the agenda for 10am.

By Kathryn Reed

How the South Lake Tahoe city attorney’s office will function in the future is expected to be discussed at the April 27 special City Council meeting.

The goal when two attorneys were hired nearly a year ago was to cut down on the use of outside counsel.

“And it is still a goal of the council to alleviate outside counsel,” Mayor Kathay Lovell said.

Jacqueline Mittelstadt resigned from her position effective this month. This leaves Patrick Enright and the support staff to handle legal matters for the city.

Enright has said the workload warrants two full-time attorneys in the city. Outside legal counsel is still going to be needed for specialties the in-house attorneys are not familiar with.

The other department head position still empty in the city – police chief – is expected to remain that way until a new city manager is hired. The police chief reports to the city manager.

To reap the desired savings by having the position filled by Capt. Martin Hewlett, he must continue to be interim chief into the fall.

Preliminary work is being done to recruit a police chief. Lovell said the next city manager will do the actual hiring. The process to find a city manager is in the initial stages, with a headhunter being hired earlier this month.

The April 27 meeting is at 10am at Lake Tahoe Airport

By Dale Kasler, Sacramento Bee

CalPERS’ largest investment partner made dramatic concessions to the pension fund Monday, agreeing to stop hiring placement agents and to cut its management fees by $125 million.

The deal with Wall Street powerhouse Apollo Global Management underscores CalPERS’ clout in the financial world – and cuts to the heart of its efforts to cope with a scandal over the marketing middlemen known as placement agents.

Apollo has been the largest client of controversial placement agent Alfred Villalobos, a former CalPERS board member who earned at least $40 million representing Apollo in deals with the California pension fund after leaving the board in the 1990s.

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By Gus Thomson, Auburn Journal

Placer County is moving ahead with a new, $3.5 million building purchase in Tahoe City.

The Board of Supervisors approved an option to purchase the 11,400-square-foot Customs House building most famously formerly occupied by Starbucks.

Approval came on a 5-0 vote at a recent meeting with District 5 Supervisor Jennifer Montgomery describing the price — at under $300 per square foot — as “unbelievable” and a prudent investment.

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By Denver Post

Vail Resorts reported Tuesday that skier visits rose 2.3 percent and lift-ticket revenue was up 4.6 percent for the 2009-10 winter season compared with the prior year.

Vail Resorts operates Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Keystone in Colorado and Heavenly at Lake Tahoe on the California-Nevada border.

Skier visits up at Vail owned ski resorts -- including Heavenly, which is still open. Photo/Kathryn Reed

Ski-school revenue at the five resorts increased 8.3 percent, rental and retail sales were up 8.1 percent and dining rose 2.5 percent.

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