By Kathryn Reed

Welk Resorts, which operates One Village Place and Northstar Lodge in Truckee, this week filed a lawsuit against Reed Hein & Associates, a company that helps people get out of their time share commitment.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California against the company’s subsidiary Timeshare Exit Team.

Court documents say, “Their (Timeshare Exit Team and the co-defendants) unscrupulous, callous and illegal schemes have caused severe consequences to unsuspecting consumers. Their schemes have caused financial and reputational damage to Welk, which has enjoyed more than 50 years of providing high-quality vacation ownership opportunities and stays to millions of people through its resorts.”

Timeshare Exit Team started in 2012. According to its website, “Timeshare Exit Team has developed a unique strategy to help timeshare owners rid themselves of the burdens of their timeshare. We are so confident in our process that we offer our 100 percent money back guarantee. We will get you out of your timeshare, or we will give you a full refund of your fee.”

Welks Resorts is accusing Timeshare Exit Team of racketeering, intentional interference with contractual relations, violating the California unfair competition law, California Vacation Ownership and Time-Share Act, California False Advertising Law and the state Running and Capping Law.

Timeshare Exit Team is standing by its business practices.

“We would like to inform consumers that the meritless lawsuit and inaccurate accusations therein will not dissuade our team from continuing to advocate for consumers,” Brandon Reed, founder and CEO of Timeshare Exit Team, said in a statement provided to Lake Tahoe News. “I’m proud of the service we offer and of the company we have built. Timeshare Exit Team has built an unparalleled in-house team, leveraging effective outside resources as needed, to assess each customer’s unique situation and to provide them with qualified, thorough, and trusted management of their issues.”

By Ken Ritter, AP

Casinos in Nevada won 2.9 percent more from gamblers in the fiscal year that ended in June, compared with the year before, the Nevada Gaming Control Board said Thursday.

For the 12 months from July 2016 to June 2017, so-called “casino win” in Nevada totaled more than $11.4 billion, according to a monthly regulatory report. That was up from $11.1 billion the previous year.

The biggest percentage increases for the fiscal year were in downtown Las Vegas, where casino gambling win was up nearly 11 percent, and at casinos in Stateline, up 7.4 percent.

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By Mike Higdon, Reno Gazette-Journal
 
Gov. Brian Sandoval said as commander-in-chief of the Nevada National Guard, he will do what he can to protect transgender service members even though President Trump proposed banning their service in the U.S. military.

“I support Guardsman (Sam) Hunt and am thankful for his longstanding service to our state and country,” according to a prepared statement from the governor’s office referring to the Guard’s first openly transgender service member.

After learning of the three-part tweet from Trump that said the Department of Defense wants to reinstate a ban on transgender soldiers, Sandoval said he “immediately requested information on what protections the state could put into place.”

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By Richard N. Velotta, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Some Las Vegas-based companies, including the parent company of Harrah’s Lake Tahoe and Harveys, are looking to Brazil even as the gaming industry considers Japan as possibly the next big international casino market.

Las Vegas Sands Corp. and Caesars Entertainment are among the companies keeping an eye on Brazil as a potential gaming market.

“Our company, like all of the companies actively looking at Brazil right now, is going through an exercise in process,” said Jan Jones Blackhurst, executive vice president of public policy and corporate responsibility for Caesars.

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By Linda Lam, Weather Channel

Wildfires can create their own weather and a new study gives more insight to understanding what actually takes place.

This deeper insight is beneficial to firefighters and the communities at risk for wildfires.

A recent study published by Neil Lareau and Craig Clements from San Jose State University explains how they were able to gather data from inside wildfire plumes, and it was determined that wildfires can create their own weather, which influences the behavior of the fire.

This is the first time information was obtained from inside wildfires. Previous data was obtained from computer simulations, according to the National Science Foundation, which funded this research.

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Firefighters made significant progress on the fire burning in rural El Dorado County.

Forward progress has been stopped on the Ranch Fire burning near Mount Aukum on the border of Amador County.

Officials said firefighters are battling steep, difficult terrain and are strengthening containment lines.  

Mandatory evacuations have been lifted, though voluntary ones are still in place. All roads are open.

The fire has consumed 140 acres and is 40 percent contained. It started just before 2pm July 26. No cause has been reported.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Kathryn Reed

Bringing harmony to divergent interests involving the shore line of Lake Tahoe is the goal. Time will tell if the next document will have the same outcome as the last – being shelved because of litigation.

Competing parties have been working on a bi-state plan for more than year. The 26 meetings amounted to hundreds of hours of negotiations.

Now the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency is figuring out what exactly will be analyzed in the environmental impact study. On July 26, the bi-state agency’s Governing Board got a brief overview of what is being recommended.

The last time the TRPA board approved a shoreline plan was in 2008. Legal action ended its viability. It’s taken until now to come up with another attempt. The 1987 Regional Plan is what governs the shore zone today.

The latest plan calls for 10 new public piers and 128 private piers. They will have to be spread out to meet scenic regulations. The goal is to have people share the private piers. This number will mean some lakefront property owners will not have a private dock. To do so would have meant allowing about 700 new piers.

Another 1,430 buoys would be granted.

Today there are about 760 piers and 4,000 buoys on Lake Tahoe.

One of the eight speakers at Wednesday’s meeting in Kings Beach said it would be great if the illegal buoys were removed before any new ones were permitted.

Much consideration was given to drought conditions. Moveable docks will be preferred. This will allow them to be used in all conditions instead of standing over dry land as was the case for a few years until this past winter.

Being able to move a buoy to deeper water will also be permissible.

The environmental analysis will study water quality, scenic resources, the recreation experience, noise, air quality, soil conservation, vegetation and fisheries. Alternatives will also be studied.

There was talk of how to eliminate the conflict between users because motorized watercraft have a habit of violating the 600-foot rule – as in, they are supposed to be that far from shore. Education and enforcement were talked about, as well as the need to clearly define who should be doing what.

The 2008 plan didn’t even consider recreation.

This 2017 plan covers: boating/lake access structures, marinas, motorized boating, non-motorized boating, streamlined permitting, low lake level adaptation, green infrastructure, enforcement, tolerance districts and permissible uses, concessions operations, dredging, and environmental improvement.

The EIS should be released in the winter.

—–

Notes:

·      The TRPA Advisory Planning Commission will discuss the scoping document on Aug. 9 at 9:30am at the agency’s Stateline office.

·      The comment period ends at 5pm, Aug. 16. Send comments to rcremeen@trpa.org.

By Mike Higdon, Reno Gazette-Journal

Sam Hunt

About a month ago, the Nevada Army National Guard published an article exploring the life of Sgt. Sam Hunt, who began his military career in 2009 as a woman and started to transition to a man in 2015.

Once the Department of Defense lifted the ban stopping openly transgender people from serving in the military last summer, Hunt began working toward officially changing his gender.

“People referred to me as a man before my military career and throughout much of my early service before the transgender ban was lifted,” Hunt wrote in a provided statement on Wednesday. “When President Obama removed the ban last year, I felt I could openly serve as a man.”

That plan was put into question on Wednesday when President Trump wrote on Twitter that he wants to ban transgender people from serving in the military in any way — affecting the lives of an estimated 6,000 service members like Hunt.

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While there were several hiccups in the process, the development and redevelopment in the area of the corner of Highway 50 and Ski Run Boulevard in South Lake Tahoe is under way.

Escrow has closed on the property. Halferty Development of Southern California has full control over the site.

The company owns the undeveloped corner parcel and where the now closed Knights Inn is.

Abatement has begun. Demolition of the old hotel should begin the first week of August. A ribbon cutting-celebration of sorts will take place next month, too.

The plan is for a Whole Foods 365 to be built there along with other commercial entities. The grocery store is projected to open next year. Stream restoration and other environmental improvements are also part of the overall project.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Colton Lochhead, Las Vegas Review-Journal
 
Nearly 420,000 Nevadans could skip next year’s midterm elections, and Democrats and Republicans alike are prepping for what such a decrease in voters could mean in 2018.

Democrats want to avoid a repeat of 2014, when a weak ballot and low turnout saw the GOP take control of state politics for the first time in decades. Republicans see a potential drop nearly equal to Nevada’s second-most populous county as an opportunity to pounce once again.

The projected dip in turnout comes from a report from the Voter Participation Center, a nonprofit that advocates for more voting access and easier registration.

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