By Associated Press

State officials say the wild horse population is too large to be sustained by the rangeland on which the horses live.

The Elko Daily Free Press reports that at a public hearing with the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board, state veterinarian JJ Goicoechea said the horse population is in a state of emergency today and headed toward disaster in the future.

Goicoechea says both fertility control and the removal of excess horses is necessary.

The Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board is considering treating some horses with contraceptives in order to shrink the herd southeast of Carson City.

Other supporters of shrinking the herd say the horses are taking too many resources, such as water, from the rangeland to the detriment of ranchers.

By Reno Gazette-Journal

Truckee High School senior Bella Bono has been volunteering for the Humane Society of Truckee-Tahoe since she was 10, but this year she had an idea – fund and install a solar array for the animal shelter.

Bono started planning the solar installation in April, working with her father, Joe Bono, to get donated materials and services, fundraise for what wasn’t donated, and complete a 5.5 kilowatt solar installation at the animal shelter. Bono hopes to have the panels up and running this fall.

The 22 solar panels and other equipment should last about 25 years, saving the Humane Society and town of Truckee an estimated $42,000 over that time, Bono said, using the Truckee Donner Public Utility District’s net metering program.

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Sept. 16 is the deadline for people to apply for the vacancy on the Lake Tahoe Unified School District board that was created when Ginger Nicolay-Davis resigned.

Nicolay-Davis is now an employee of the district’s so she couldn’t be on the board. She left the board last month to be a speech specialist.

Those interested must live in area 2, be 18, and a resident in the school district’s boundaries.  The term ends Dec. 7, 2018.

The remaining board members will interview candidates in public on Sept. 27, with a decision to be made that evening. Here is an application.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Sandra Chereb, Las Vegas Review-Journal

CARSON CITY — Millions of dollars meant to help distressed Nevada homeowners stay in their homes at the height of the recession were squandered by a state contractor on excessive rent, holiday parties, employee gift cards and other lavishness, according to a scathing federal audit released Friday.

The 60-page audit by the Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program said Nevada should reimburse the U.S. Treasury $8.2 million for inappropriate expenses paid out of the state’s Hardest Hit Fund.

“We did not find isolated incidents, or that waste was under certain leadership,” Special Inspector General Goldsmith Romero said in a statement. “We found a pervasive culture of waste and abuse, coupled with a lack of performance.”

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An equipment failure is being blamed for the power outage in the Stateline area this evening.

NV Energy expects the lights to come back on about 9:30pm Sept. 10. The power has been out since 6pm.

More than 2,400 customers are affected. A few customers in the Round Hill-Zephyr Cove areas are also without out power.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Wes Siler, Outside

In Oregon, two elderly men are being billed $37 million for a fire the state says they started with their lawn mowers. In California, a homeowner is being charged $25 million for a fire authorities claim was sparked by a known electrical problem at his house. Could you be stuck with a similar multimillion-dollar tab for accidentally starting a wildfire?

The answer used to be no. “In the United States, we’ve had a very cavalier attitude toward fires,” says J. Curtis Varone, a former firefighter who now practices law and specializes in fire litigation. “We consider fires to be an accident that’s really nobody’s fault.”

But with wildfires exploding across the American West—the number is up 70 percent in California so far in 2016—local and state governments have decided that typical civil penalties for causing a fire are no longer good enough. The two men in Oregon were fined just $550 for a fire that ultimately cost the state at least $37 million to extinguish.

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A suspected drunken driver struck a group of cyclists riding west on Highway 50 near Lodi Avenue in South Lake Tahoe this morning.

The two cyclists who were hit refused medical treatment.

The driver of the small Ford SUV, according to a witness, switched lanes, accelerated and never stopped to see what he had done.

According to law enforcement, Charles English, 27, was located at his house in South Lake Tahoe and arrested on two felony driving under the influence charges, including causing bodily injury. Bail was set at $150,000.

“That was not an accident; he did that on purpose,” a woman who witnessed the incident just before 11am Sept. 10 told Lake Tahoe News. “They were on their side of the bike lane and he purposefully turned into them. He had the front end of his car in their lane.”

She said it looked like six of the cyclists went down; adding that the group was all dressed alike as if they were a team.

Sunday is the annual Tour de Tahoe bike ride around the lake. More cyclists than usual have been on area roads training for the 72-mile event.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

Jeremy Meyers, the ex-superintendent of El Dorado County Office of Education who had two DUIs in a year, has employment at a West Slope school for this entire year.

Jeremy Meyers

At the Sept. 8 board meeting the Black Oak Mine Unified School District board in Georgetown agreed to hire Meyers to be principal of Golden Sierra Junior Senior High School for this school year. In July 6 the board hired him on a 90-day contract.

The plan is to look for someone more permanent to be the superintendent-principal for the 7-12 school starting with the 2017-18 school year.

Meyers pleaded no contest to the first offense and guilty to the second. Both were misdemeanors. Both occurred during the work day.

The county board was not able to fire him because the superintendent is an elected position. Meyers told the board the only way he would leave is if they paid him through June 30, 2016. He was gone in November with two checks — $114,821.55 was essentially his salary, with another $10,930 for the value of his medical, dental and life insurance for that same time period.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By KTVN-TV

The Carson City Sheriff’s Office says they have located two missing runway teen girls. Two others remain missing.

Still missing are 16-year-old Lindsey Hamby and 15-year-old Hailey Hamby, both of Carson City.

The girls were last seen near the Black Jack Inn South Lake Tahoe, and surrounding hotels and motels. Authorities say the girls could be in the company of 18-year-old Andrew Hernandez (who also uses the name Nathaniel Hernandez) in a black 2006 Ford Explorer with Nevada license plate 17E682.

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By Benjamin Spillman, Reno Gazettte-Journal

With time running out on the Congressional session Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., made a pitch for the reauthorization of the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act.

The legislation would renew funding authorization for the original version of the act that expired in 2010.

Heller’s version of reauthorization includes up to $415 million in spending on environmental improvement projects. It would also put a line item in the federal budget for future federal spending on Lake Tahoe.

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