By Jim Krajewski, Reno Gazette-Journal
David Slaughter was arrested earlier this week in the death of former Truckee football coach Bob Shaffer.
Slaughter, 54, from Sacramento, was charged with vehicular manslaughter.
Shaffer was killed April 1 when he was driving northbound on Interstate 89 just south of Cold Creek Campground in Sierra County. Slaughter was driving his 1989 Ford F250 southbound on the state route.
By John Potter, KNTV
The worry many parents feel when putting their children on school buses won’t be experienced in the future. After much debate, Gov. Brian Sandoval signed legislation that requires new school buses bought after June 2019 to be equipped with seat belts.
But for school buses on the road right now, Nevada is still a “let ’em fly” state, where kids and all are loose cargo going every which way in the event of a crash, like test rollover video shows. All you have to do is see those to understand the importance of seat belts in school buses.
The Nevada Legislature did, requiring lap-shoulder belts for new school buses in two years.
That may be a long time to wait, but putting your children on a school bus is much safer than driving them to school.
Sierra Nevada College is cutting positions in order to be fiscally solvent.
The 2017-18 budget includes the elimination of 4.75 full time equivalent positions (this affects six people); reduction in hours equivalent to affect the equivalent of 1.5 FTE positions (six individuals) being reduced from full to three-quarter time (still benefit eligible), and 4.5 FTE positions (seven individuals) currently vacant that will remain unfilled.
According to a press release, “The goal is to build the long-term sustainability of the college by optimizing enrollment at the main campus in Incline Village and through growth strategies that include adding new partnerships, focusing on high-demand fields of study, and expanding online programs. The college’s highest priority is always to preserve the student-centered, high-value, unique educational experience for which SNC Tahoe has become well-known.”
Lake Tahoe News reported last month how full time faculty was put on notice.
The satellite campus at Lake Tahoe Community College will not be adversely impacted.
— Lake Tahoe News staff report
By Sarah D. Wire, Los Angeles Times
Some of California’s decisions about how to use its water would be relegated to the federal government under a bill passed by the House on Wednesday.
Republicans say the bill will bring more water to the parched Central Valley. California’s Democratic senators have promised to fight the bill in the Senate because it weakens California’s ability to manage its own resources.
The Gaining Responsibility on Water Act, sponsored by Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford, was approved in the House by a 230-190 vote largely along party lines.
By Sam Stanton, Sacramento Bee
A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected efforts by Sierra Pacific Industries to back out of a $100 million settlement over the massive Moonlight Fire that it claims was based on fraud and deception by government prosecutors in Sacramento.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that claims by Sierra Pacific that it was the victim of a “trail of fraud” by government prosecutors seeking a huge payday from a deep-pocketed defendant did “not constitute fraud on the court” as the company had claimed.
The decision comes after years of intensely bitter fighting by Sierra Pacific, the state’s largest private landowner, over a settlement agreement the timber giant entered into in 2012.
Homicide investigators with the El Dorado County Cold Case Task Force are trying to solve the nearly 4-year-old murder of Manpreet Singh at the USA gas station on Highway 50 and Lodi Avenue in South Lake Tahoe.
Singh, 27, was gunned down Aug. 6, 2013, while working at the station.
Video surveillance taken at 10:40pm showed a lone gunman walking from Palmira Avenue behind the business.
The District Attorney’s Office has released this video.
Anyone with information is asked to call 530.621.4590.
By Kathryn Reed
El Dorado County Superior Court is about to be down three judges.
Steve Bailey this week made it known he would be resigning effective Aug. 31. Jim Wagoner is retiring effective Sept. 1. Nelson Brooks left earlier this year.
Steve Bailey
The biggest surprise is the departure of Bailey, whose six-year term doesn’t expire until 2020.
He has made it well known that he plans to run for attorney general in 2018, and has even filed the requisite paperwork. He had also filed paperwork with the state to retain his current job just in case he were to lose the AG post.
Conventional wisdom is that it is easier to win an elected position while holding one – not being out of office for a year and having resigned midterm.
Bailey has had his share of controversies since first being elected to the bench in 2008. In this time he has been working out of the South Lake Tahoe courthouse.
His in-laws are well entrenched in the state’s Republican Party, and he brought some of that political fervor to the job – a job that is not supposed to be partisan. His wife, Kathleen, is executive director of the El Dorado County Bar Association. Bailey’s brother-in-law is Ron Briggs, the former county supervisor who sued the county for back pay after being termed out and who is running for recorder-clerk in 2018. His father in-law is John Briggs, the former state senator who is famous for the 1978 proposition called the Briggs Initiative that had it passed, would have meant all employees in California’s education system who are gay or lesbian and their supporters would have been fired.
The family has been embroiled in the Placerville courthouse saga.
Bailey was the supervising judge for the 2012-13 civil grand jury. That body had to be disbanded before a report was written; a first in county history. While he claimed it was because of lack of volunteers, the truth is jurors wanted to investigate people who Bailey and his family had ties to.
If Bailey were under investigation now for conduct involving his job, it may not be a public record. A deal could be worked out for him to step down from the bench and the matter could go away. This would allow him to campaign without another public ding on his record, but might also keep him out of the lucrative visiting judges’ pool.
Don’t expect to see Bailey much in the next six weeks. He has vacation time he can use.
Bailey chose not to talk to Lake Tahoe News.
Bailey faces stiff competition next year from current Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who was appointed to the position in December by Gov. Jerry Brown to fill the seat vacated by Kamala Harris when she was elected to the Senate.
As for the other judges:
· Brooks was first appointed to the bench by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2009, and was elected a year later to a six-year term. He was re-elected in a bitter battle in June 2016. However, he never worked after suffering a cardiovascular event in August 2016. He was officially off the bench in March. The term expires in 2022.
· Wagoner was first elected in 2002. His term expires in 2020.
· The remaining judges are Suzanne Kingsbury, Kenneth Melikian, Vicki Ashworth, Dylan Sullivan and Curt Stracener.
It will be up to Gov. Jerry Brown to fill the vacancies. If that doesn’t happen, then when the term expires it will be anyone’s race. Brown’s office did not respond to an inquiry from LTN.
For now, the court will continue to use the Assigned Judges Program through the Judicial Council. These are visiting retired judges.
The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency is ready to come up with another shoreline plan for the basin.
The bi-state regulatory agency will take comments until Aug. 16 on the scoping document for the draft environmental impact statement.
The plan that was adopted in 2008 got sidetracked by litigation from the League to Save Lake Tahoe.
A group of stakeholders has been meeting for the last 20 months to come up with a framework that includes updated goals, policies, and regulations focused on shoreline structures such as marinas, piers, buoys, ramps, and boat slips to support water-dependent recreation and effective resource management. The plan includes five policy areas focusing on boating, access, marinas, piers, and low lake level adaptation.
The plan is available online.
Public scoping meetings are also scheduled for the TRPA Governing Board meeting at 9:30am July 26 at the North Tahoe Event Center in Kings Beach, and for the TRPA Advisory Planning Commission meeting at 9:30am Aug. 9 at the TRPA offices in Stateline.
By Anjeanette Damon, Reno Gazette-Journal
Lying under a bridge on a freezing night in February, Bill George had an idea of how close to death he might be even if he didn’t want to admit it to himself.
By the time Lisa Lee, a case manager for Northern Nevada HOPES, found George, he was likely hours from death. Frostbite had eaten away at his feet so badly that they hung from exposed tendons.
Although George, 52, is homeless, he has health insurance through the state Medicaid program for severely low-income individuals. His Medicaid insurance, paid for by state and federal tax dollars, is through Health Plan of Nevada.
But George never received his insurance card, despite listing the downtown homeless shelter as his address. Nor did he receive the welcome phone call for new enrollees, nor the packet of information explaining how his managed care organization works.
Signs at the Fresh Ketch on July 12 say the restaurant is closed. Photo/LTN
By Kathryn Reed
The Fresh Ketch restaurant in South Lake Tahoe has been closed by the county health department because it doesn’t have any running water.
A red sign from the county is on the front door saying why the restaurant is closed. Below it is a sign from the restaurant apologizing for the inconvenience.
“They will have to have their water turned back on and we will verify they have hot and cold water running and we will lift the suspension,” Carla Hass, spokeswoman for El Dorado County, told Lake Tahoe News as to when the restaurant might reopen.
No one answers the restaurant phone. A voice message talks about the Fourth of July weekend.
No other businesses in the center are affected, according to Hass. She did not know why the water was shut off.
Donna and Robert Krilich and their son Robert Krilich Jr. own the restaurant and Tahoe Keys Marina. They have been in a constant battle with the Tahoe Keys Property Owners Association. TKPOA operates the Tahoe Keys Water District, which supplies water to all of the homeowners as well as commercial entities in this South Shore enclave.
The water department deferred comment to TKPOA General Manager Kirk Wooldridge. Wooldridge, as usual, was not available for comment.
Those close to the situation have told Lake Tahoe News the water was shut off because the Fresh Ketch did not pay its water bill.