Placer County and North Lake Tahoe Resort Association extended their contract one month to allow the two entities to continue discussing how their partnership goes forward.

The county this spring proposed a drastically different arrangement than the tourist agency wanted. Continuing its investment in the infrastructure and marketing of eastern Placer County and North Lake Tahoe, 

It’s likely in July the supervisors will be presented with a six-month transitional contract outlining each agency’s responsibilities.

Each year, transient occupancy tax is collected from area guests and is used to fund the marketing of North Lake Tahoe, and transportation and infrastructure projects.

Key next steps in that process will be streamlining the transit planning process, creating a partnership in the approach to recommending infrastructure investment, reviewing implementation of the Tourism Master Plan and developing marketing performance measures.

The board this week also approved three agreements for North Lake Tahoe area projects, each of them among the 14 projects recommended by the resort association and approved by the board in February.

Placer County will invest TOT funds to provide a total of $1,464,879 under an agreement with the Tahoe City Public Utility District to restore the Truckee River Trail between 64-Acres Park in Tahoe City and the entrance to Squaw Valley. The board also approved a $209,152 agreement with Tahoe Public Art to create and install artwork in the two new roundabouts in Kings Beach. Both projects should be completed by Dec. 31, 2018. The third agreement, with the Tahoe Maritime Museum, will provide $60,700 to help renovate and upgrade the museum’s welcome center.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

A couple and their 3-year-old daughter survived a personal watercraft accident Saturday afternoon near Timber Cove Marina.

The man was driving when for unknown reasons the watercraft rolled, tossing all three into Lake Tahoe. They were all wearing life jackets.

The girl and her dad were taken to Barton Memorial Hospital.

It took a combination of people to bring them to shore. Police Officer Scott Crivelli had been notified by a passer-by about what was going on. He jumped on a personal watercraft to reach the three, the police boat assisted as did a paddleboarder.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Aaron Mendelson, KQED-TV

Colorado and Washington saw vehicle searches by police officers fall dramatically after legalizing marijuana — a trend that could have implications in California, where voters legalized recreational pot last November.

Researchers with Stanford University’s Open Policing Project found the trend buried in data on 130 million traffic stops by state patrol officers, including millions by the California Highway Patrol. They reviewed data from 31 states, but the steep fall in searches in Colorado and Washington surprised the researchers.

In Colorado and Washington, the number of drivers found with contraband fell by 40 percent in the year following legalization. Nothing like that happened in other states, according to the report.

Read the whole story

Placer County is on a quest to improve traffic flow in the North Lake Tahoe region with a renewed focus on meeting those needs through improvements to public transit, and pedestrian and cycling paths.

Supervisors this week updated the project list.

Transportation infrastructure improvements throughout the county are partly funded through fees charged to developers, whose projects create a need for those improvements. The approved update also increases traffic mitigation fees for the North Lake Tahoe area by 9.1 percent, from $4,986 per dwelling unit to $5,540, effective Aug. 28.

Concerns were raised by board members as well as the public regarding Caltrans’ desire to widen Highway 267  between Truckee and Tahoe.

“I am not a fan of road widening as it does not address traffic capacity issues,” said Chairwoman and District 5 Supervisor Jennifer Montgomery. “I am looking forward to working with the community and county staff to help identify smart solutions for how North Tahoe moves, preferably by public transit, bicycle or on foot.”

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Anita Chabria, Sacramento Bee
 
Alisa Holleron and her group of political activists were calling Rep. Tom McClintock’s offices every day for months when they started receiving what she describes as a “chilling” greeting from his staff a few weeks ago.

“They started saying that we were impeding … the functioning of a federal office and that we were in violation of a federal law,” said Holleron. “I felt like it was threatening. I felt like they were telling me I was breaking a law and if you break a law you can get in trouble.”

Annie Mascorro, another caller and a McClintock constituent, said she had a similar experience when she dialed in and spoke with a female intern.

The Garden Valley-based Republican represents Truckee and the California side of Lake Tahoe.

Read the whole story

A man climbs up a fire ladder out of the Truckee River on June 30. Photo/NTFPD

Tragedy was averted Friday with the help of North Tahoe firefighters.

A man needed rescuing from the Truckee River near River Ranch on June 30 at about 2:20pm.

“Apparently he was tubing down the Truckee River when he got stuck on one of the pilings of a bridge due to a complication of a rope he had attached to two inner tubes,” Beth Kenna, spokeswoman for the fire department, told Lake Tahoe News.

Assisting North Tahoe Fire were CHP and Squaw Valley Fire personnel.

“The water is swift and what you think is a safe situation can turn dangerous in seconds,” Kenna said.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

LTCC class of 2017 graduates throw their mortar boards in celebration June 30. Photo/Kathryn Reed

By Kathryn Reed

While graduations are a time to celebrate accomplishments, they are also the demarcation of new beginnings.

And so today begins a new chapter in the lives of 151 students who on June 30 said farewell to Lake Tahoe Community College.

“Take a piece of Tahoe love and spread it across the planet and the planet will be better for it,” Lake Tahoe Community College President Jeff DeFranco told the graduates Friday night.

Steve Leer says, “I’m very excited about this moment” as LTCC board President Karen Borges hands him his diploma. Photo/Kathryn Reed

Sitting on the soccer field under a setting sun, it was mostly a time to look forward – not back; to think about the future, of pursuing dreams, tackling challenges and being true to themselves.

Family and friends show support with cameras and signs. Photo/Kathryn Reed

“Passion plus purpose equals success,” DeFranco said.

Keynote speaker Jamie Anderson spoke of how it can be difficult to be your best when there is so much chaos going on.

Jamie Anderson, center, enters the stadium flanked by Vice President of Academic Affairs Michelle Risdon and President Jeff DeFranco. Photo/Kathryn Reed

“Don’t be afraid of outside judgment,” the snowboarding Olympic gold medalist said.

Anderson grew up with her eight siblings in Meyers and is still very much part of the community. Her younger sister, Summer, was among the graduates.

Maura Jones and son Ryder accomplished a lot together. Photo/Kathryn Reed

Mark Williams, faculty senate president and music instructor, said he had struggled to find anything new to say that hadn’t been said at some other graduation. So, he broke into song – and at the end it was the students who gave him a standing ovation.

A few hundred people listen to the graduation speakers June 30. Photo/Kathryn Reed

Ten of those receiving associate of arts degrees had a 4.0 gpa. Twenty-six had grade point averages between 3.65 and 3.99. Seventy-eight of these AA degree earners also received a transfer degree, which guarantees them entry as a junior at a California State University this fall.

Jose Martinez approaches board President Karen Borges and college President Jeff DeFranco. Photo/Kathryn Reed

Also honored at the graduation were the 38 students who completed a vocational certificate program.

Diversity was evident with the reading of each student’s name as they crossed the stage to receive their diploma. Not all were of traditional college age. One woman held her young son. Four who could not attend were part of LTCC’s incarceration program. Six flags from countries other than the United States flew in recognition of the international students graduating.

By Matt Stoller, Huffington Post
 
To understand the depth and breadth of Jeff Bezos’ ambitions for the company he built, type www.relentless.com into your browser. The domain Bezos registered in 1994 will redirect to Amazon, the company aptly, and ambitiously, nicknamed The Everything Store. He tells his shareholders that the company will act like an aggressive startup — that at Amazon, it is always Day One.  

Like Google and Facebook, Amazon uses technology and data to sidestep traditional restrictions on monopoly power. Our lives are increasingly organized by the platforms these companies run, platforms which now mediate the way we communicate and engage in commerce with each other. We are living in a world organized by tech monopolists, a change in power relationships that no one voted for but has been imposed upon us nonetheless.

Now, Bezos is attempting to add more power to his empire with the surprise announcement that the company will pay $13.7 billion for Whole Foods Market. Amazon will now have a store footprint in neighborhoods across America.

Read the whole story

By Meghin Delaney, Las Vegas Review-Journal

An ambitious goal to improve Nevada students’ performance on a college readiness test might take a little longer to get moving.

For the third consecutive year, the average ACT score of more than 34,000 students in the state — the majority of them high school juniors — was stagnant at 17.4 out of 36 points on the nationwide college entrance exam.

Only 10 percent scored high enough to be considered “college-ready” by the exam’s standards, according to the state.

Read the whole story

By Dale Kasler, Sacramento Bee

CalPERS lost a big case at the U.S. Supreme Court this week. The decision will cost California government retirees a shot at recovering tens of millions of dollars.

The court voted 5-4 to dismiss a lawsuit CalPERS filed against a slew of investment banks over the notorious collapse of Lehman Brothers, whose 2008 bankruptcy triggered the stock market crash.

CalPERS blamed the banks for duping the big pension fund into buying more than $700 million worth of Lehman stock, bonds and other securities in 2007 and 2008. However, a spokesman for CalPERS later estimated the pension fund’s actual losses at around $300 million.

Read the whole story