By Gary Martin, Las Vegas Review-Journal
 
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s first detailed budget to Congress will include Medicaid cuts that could impact thousands of Nevadans as well as federal funds to restart the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site.

The budget blueprint being unveiled Tuesday includes big ticket items the president wants, like $54 billion for military weapons and $2.6 billion for border security, including $1.6 billion for the first portion of a southern wall.

It also eliminates many federal programs and cuts $800 billion from Medicaid and $193 billion from the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP, which provides food stamps to low-income people and families.

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By Angela Hart, Sacramento Bee

The grapevines that line rolling hillsides and sweeping valleys in Northern California’s wine country have become iconic – a symbol of the region’s rustic charm that helped California earn its reputation as a world-class wine and food destination.

But winegrapes have new competition: weed.

California’s legalization of recreational marijuana has led to the beginning of a major transformation of wine country. It’s been just seven months, but already investors are snapping up property where wine was once produced. Vineyard operators are developing expertise in cannabis cultivation. New, specialty marijuana businesses are sprouting up in Sonoma and Mendocino counties. And farmers who have long made a good living by growing and harvesting wine grapes are expressing interest in diversifying with marijuana.

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California Highway Patrol officers seized nearly 30 pounds of marijuana and arrested two people near Truckee.

Yi Wang, 39, and Jin Mei, 31, both of Chicago, each face charges of transportation for sale and possession of marijuana for sale.

Officers stopped the two on May 18 at about 4pm on Interstate 80 near Hirschdale Road on a routine traffic stop. A search ensued when false identification was reportedly presented, they didn’t have paperwork for the rental car and the smell of marijuana was strong.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Jamie Biesiada, Travel Weekly

From a projected increase in Americans traveling this Memorial Day weekend to a steady growth in air travel, all signs are pointing to a very healthy industry, one of the most robust that some executives say they have seen.

“If I look at this historically, I think we are currently at one of the healthiest times we have ever been at on the leisure side of the business.” said Scott Koepf, senior vice president of sales at Avoya Travel.

Consumer confidence, an end to uncertainty surrounding the 2016 election and pent-up demand for travel are among the factors contributing to that health.

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By Lake Tahoe News

The El Dorado Hills Community Services District has filed a lawsuit against El Dorado County Auditor Joe Harn because he did not disburse $415,000 in development impact fees.

“Unfortunately, respondent Harn has refused to comply with, and continues to refuse to comply with, the county’s clear mandatory directive,” the suit says.

Joe Harn

Through the Mitigation Fee Act the county collects money from developers and disburses the cash to EDHCSD. The district must document how the money is spent to ensure it was done so in accordance with the law. Parks, trails, sidewalks and other infrastructure are permissible expenditures.

“The county and the CSD shouldn’t be suing each other. We should be working together to make sure there is money available to build the parks that the citizens of El Dorado Hills expect and deserve,” Harn told Lake Tahoe News. “Around $10 million of park construction funding are at stake. This potential park construction funding disaster could have been easily avoided.” 

Harn has not transferred all the money EDHCSD has requested because he believes EDHCSD has not done its due diligence.

“State law requires that the CSD conduct a nexus study every five years in order to justify the continued collection of the fees.  The CSD did not conduct the required study and did not comply with the law,” Harn said.

The county, aka taxpayers, is obligated to pay for Harn’s legal counsel.

“Right now there are two lawsuits before the Superior Court regarding this matter. One lawsuit seeks a court order requiring me to refund the fees to the homeowners.  The other lawsuit seeks a court order requiring me to pay a significant portion of the same fees to the CSD,” Harn said. “This mess could have easily been avoided if the CSD and the county would have followed the law as I have repeatedly asked them to. “ 

By Colton Lochhead, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Two members of Nevada’s congressional delegation signed onto cannabis-related legislation last week in a push to legitimize the emerging marijuana industry at the federal level.

U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Rep. Dina Titus, both Democrats, co-sponsored bills that would remove federal restrictions that the marijuana industry says hamstring participants from operating as normal businesses.

Twenty-eight states have legalized medical marijuana, and eight of those states — including Nevada — have also legalized recreational use. The moves have created an emerging industry that generates billions of dollars in sales and hundreds of millions in tax revenue for states.

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By Richard N. Velotta, Las Vegas Review-Journal
 
The Nevada Commission on Tourism will collaborate with the Governor’s Office of Economic Development’s Nevada Film Office to promote the state through a medium that already has a sizable audience — television and the big screen.

Eric Priess, director of the office, told board members Wednesday that working with the commission should help attract tourists who want to see locations captured in movies filmed in Nevada while the commission’s distribution resources should help promote Nevada locations to filmmakers.

Priess said his office has developed an interactive film tourism map to guide visitors to famous film locations across the state. At the same time, the TravelNevada website can show off the diverse locations that offer picturesque lakes, spooky ghost towns, scenic highways, majestic mountains and glittery neon.

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By Jason Hidalgo, Reno Gazette-Journal

 For many who live outside of Reno, the Biggest Little City’s image typically bounces between being a poor man’s Vegas to that place with the bumbling lieutenant who wore short shorts on TV.

After securing more funding for its marketing efforts, however, the area’s leading convention and visitors’ bureau is gearing up for a big push to sell a more enticing image of the Reno-Tahoe region.

The Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority announced a new marketing effort, backed by what could end up being the biggest infusion of marketing dollars for a campaign in the organization’s history. Supporters of the new brand campaign — which focuses on three key Western markets and includes an online push for the rest of the nation — hope the initiative leads to increased visitor counts while erasing the less-than-flattering perceptions of the region, especially from people who live outside of the area.

BVK, a Milwaukee, Wis.-based marketing agency that was hired to craft the latest marketing initiative, cited several reasons for the problem during the RSCVA’s meeting in March.

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Trout Creek, a South Shore tributary to Lake Tahoe, is flooding back yards; in this location it’s in a front yard. Photo/Kathryn Reed

By Amy Graff, San Francisco Chronicle

After a winter and early spring marked by unrelenting storms, the Sierra Nevada is piled high with snow. Now, as the storms taper off and the temperatures warm up, the snowpack is beginning to melt and runoff into rivers and lakes.

One place that’s seeing a huge impact from all the runoff is Lake Tahoe.

Since April 1, the start of the snow melt season, 219,600 acre feet —that’s 71,556,879,600 gallons — of water have poured into the lake, according to Chief Deputy Federal Water Master Dave Wathen.

As a result the lake is filling up fast, and about a foot away from reaching full capacity. Federal wanter managers say Tahoe will fill this summer for the first time in 11 years, and when it does, the total amount it will have risen across the water-year between Oct. 1 and Sept. 30 will be record-breaking. 

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By Martin Espinoza, Santa Rosa Press Democrat

The bodies of Brenda and Mark Richard, the Santa Rosa couple whose single-engine airplane went missing last month after taking off from Truckee, have been found, Sierra County sheriff’s officials said Friday.

Sheriff Tim Standley said a recreational snowmobiler found a piece of the plane’s tail in the snow on Tuesday. Authorities confirmed the discovery early Wednesday and on Thursday found the bodies in the separated cockpit buried in 6 to 7 feet of snow.

Officials said the couple’s family has been notified of the discovery, in a remote area east of Yuba Pass in Sierra County.

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