Another store is closing at the Y in South Lake Tahoe – Pier 1 Imports.

Everything is expected to be gone by the end of June.

When Pier 1 opened in fall 2005 the company signed a 10-year lease for the 10,795-square-foot building. Pier 1 sought out South Lake. The company at the time was on a quest to expand into small and mid-size markets.

Local employees, of which there were about a dozen at the busiest times, deferred comment to corporate. No one there was available for comment.

This isn’t the first time the store has said it would close. On April 3, 2009, a liquidation banner went up at this store with the expected closure at the end of that following May.

Goodwill Industries, a mega-thrift store, plans to move in. That’s the same group that had designs on the building seven years ago.

The other store closing in June is Staples. Smart & Final will be taking its place.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Chris Kudialis, Las Vegas Sun

A panel of medical marijuana advocates is calling for more research into how the plant works in treating various diseases and conditions.

“Hundreds of thousands of people medicate every day using marijuana,” Brookings Institution scholar John Hudak said Wednesday during a symposium at UNLV’s Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies auditorium.

More than 165 million Americans live in states where medical marijuana is legally available, Hudak said. But with so little research on marijuana’s potential medical benefits, even doctors are “left in the dark” in assessing which strain of marijuana best suits a patient’s needs.

Read the whole story

By Kathryn Reed

Former El Dorado County Superintendent of Schools Jeremy Meyers has been sentenced to 110 days in jail.

Meyers was arrested on driving under the influence charges twice in five months in 2015. He had earlier pleaded no contest to the first offense and last week pleaded guilty to the second.

Jeremy Meyers

Sentencing on May 25 also included four years of formal probation and having to install an alcohol device in his vehicle.

“We have no comment,” Paul Zappettini told Lake Tahoe News. He has been the attorney representing Meyers through his troubles.

Both arrests came in the middle of work days, with his blood alcohol level more than twice the legal limit.

Instead of merely stepping away from the job last fall, he forced the board members’ hands by making them pay him $114,821.55 – the equivalent of his salary through June 30, 2016. The five elected board members agreed to also give him $10,930. This is what the value of his medical, dental and life insurance would be for that same time period.

Meyers held the board hostage is how some people described it. Because Meyers was elected and was not accused of committing a felony the board had little recourse.

Ed Manansala, deputy superintendent of educational services for the district since June 2013, was sworn in Jan. 5 as the superintendent of El Dorado County Office of Education.

Twenty-two stolen vehicles were recovered on the West Slope of El Dorado County on Tuesday.

Officers confiscated cars, trailers, off-road vehicles, motorcycles, travel trailers, construction equipment, weapons and ammunition from the Somerset property.

Thirty-five officers from El Dorado and Sacramento counties along with the California Highway Patrol were involved with the May 25 seizure.

No suspects are in custody and the investigation is on going.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Anjeanette Damon, Reno Gazette-Journal

Because of a little noticed quirk in a decade-old state law, property tax revenue relied upon by local governments can’t grow along with the economy, a leading tax revenue analyst said Wednesday.

The problem means the state’s largest and most stable tax revenue is not recovering along with the economy, putting continued stress on government services already scrambling to meet the needs of a growing population.

School districts are hit particularly hard because 40 percent of property tax revenue funds schools in Nevada.

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By Kathryn Reed

Crews are working to clean up 4 gallons of diesel that spilled into a Tahoe Keys lagoon in South Lake Tahoe.

The state Office of Emergency Services was contacted May 25 at 4:01pm, and by 5:11pm the spill had been contained. The wind kept it in the lagoon and did not take it out to Lake Tahoe.

Tahoe Keys Property Owners Association workers immediately put out booms in the Spinnaker Lagoon, which is between White Sands and Beach drives.

Kirk Wooldridge, general manager of the TKPOA, did not return a phone call. El Dorado County Environmental Management also did not return a call.

Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board employees have been at the site and are working with TKPOA to mop up the mess.

Scott Ferguson with Lahontan told Lake Tahoe News, “We will be in to touch with Tahoe Keys Property Owners Association to get an update from them on what progress they made overnight or if any additional action is planned to get everything cleaned up, and to find out what was the cause.”

According to the OES report, it was TKPOA who made the initial call after someone notified the front office of the homeowners association about the spill.

It is not known who made the initial report, how the exact amount is known or who spilled the fuel.

This was the second spill at Tahoe Keys this spring. CleanHarbor, which was in South Lake Tahoe for multiple days cleaning up the April 11 slick, claimed 30 gallons of oil were skimmed off the surface then. The oil was found on a back channel near the professional buildings on Venice Drive. That investigation is ongoing.

By Associated Press

State officials today said Nevada gambling revenue was down more than 2 percent in April compared with last year.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board said Thursday that the state’s casinos won $876 million in April.

Revenue fell in the areas with the most gambling activity. Las Vegas Strip gambling revenue was down almost 2 percent to $491 million last month, and downtown Las Vegas winnings were down 13 percent to $43 million.

Casinos up north fared better. Reno casino revenue was up almost 19 percent to $50 million.

Stateline revenue fell 12 percent to $13 million in April.

The state collected $44 million in tax money based off the winnings, which is down 18 percent from the same time last year.

South Tahoe High School students talk about how to improve transportation on the South Shore. Photo/Kathryn Reed

By Kathryn Reed

Traffic isn’t a problem on the South Shore – at least not compared to what it was like years ago.

Tim Fajen has been a valet since 1972, working most of the Stateline casinos in the last 40-plus years. In the 1970s there could be 700 cars a day to park at what was the Sahara. On Tuesday there were about 30 at the Hard Rock, he said.

The South Lake Tahoe resident was one of several dozen to attend a transportation meeting May 24 hosted by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency and Tahoe Transportation District at Lake Tahoe Resort Hotel. The agencies had a similar open house on the North Shore last week.

When he saw the placard stating there will be a 20 percent increase in visitors in the next 20 years, he shook his head, questioning where this number came from and why its validity should be believed.

TTD used the numbers supplied by Airsage Analytics and modeling done by TRPA.

Fajen has only seen the number of visitors drop since 1990, so he wonders what in the next 20 years will make more people come to Lake Tahoe. That question was not part of the discussion Tuesday night.

The goal that night was to obtain input from residents about what they want transit and transportation to look like in the basin going forward. TRPA is updating its 20-year Regional Transportation Plan, which it does every four years to keep the document current and relevant. It should be done by the end of the year.

TTD was seeking input about its plans for the various corridors around the lake:

·      Highways 89 and 28 in California

·      Highway 28 in Nevada

·      Highway 50 on the East Shore

·      Highway 50 on the South Shore

·      Meyers/Y in South Lake Tahoe

·      Recreation along Highway 89.

A handful of South Tahoe High School students took the time to attend and give their input. (Plus, it meant extra credit for their environmental science class.) With a map of the lake on the table, they wrote ideas on sticky notes and filled out a survey.

Maia Smith, a junior, wants someone to deal with the congestion at Lake Tahoe Boulevard and Viking Way at the base of STHS.

“The four-way stop is really useless,” she told Lake Tahoe News. She said there have been a lot of car crashes and that inexperienced drivers don’t understand how a four-way stop works.

For senior Kylee Lyons she would like planners to address the backup in Camp Richardson along Highway 89.

“My idea is to put a skywalk in to cross above the traffic,” she said.

The problem, she and her classmates said, is that people jaywalk everywhere, thus bringing traffic to a standstill.

Karen Fink, TRPA transportation expert, told Lake Tahoe News an idea for Camp Rich is to have a bus lane to get tourists in particular to their destination faster. This would mean holding cars back to make this happen.

She said a bigger picture topic is looking at how visitors get to Tahoe and whether transit would be an option for them. She admitted this is only viable if there is a functioning transit system once they get to Tahoe, meaning it would be easier for them to not get in their personal vehicle.

On the North Shore officials are looking at increasing transit frequency, potentially having free bus service by 2020, completing the bike trail network and being a hub for waterborne transit.

The survey people were given in South Lake Tahoe asked:

1.     If it were your responsibility to decide how to invest in our transportation system over the next 20 years, in what order would you prioritize these tools?

·      Bike, pedestrian paths

·      Transit (more frequent and free)

·      Parking (to encourage transit)

·      Ferry (fast North to South shore)

·      Seasonal water taxi (connecting lake communities)

2.     Of the strategies listed below by corridor, which are the top 10 that you would like to see happen on the South Shore?

The answers late in evening revealed the following top 5 responses:

·      Expand bike trails

·      Cross lake ferry

·      Loop road

·      BlueGo enhancements

·      Transit oriented development at the Y.

By Megan Messerly, Las Vegas Sun

A conservative group fighting for a repeal of a tax passed by the Nevada Legislature last session announced Wednesday that it is suspending its efforts.

The move comes just two weeks after the Nevada Supreme Court threw out more than 20,000 signatures to get the repeal on the ballot after determining that some of the summary language included on the group’s petition was inadequate.

The RIP Commerce Tax group determined that after the signatures were thrown out there was no way to gather the signatures needed before the June 21 deadline, said Controller Ron Knecht, who spearheaded the efforts, in an interview May 25.

Read the whole story

By Art Marroquin, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Making room for bicyclists, the potential impact of recreational marijuana and cellphone use while driving are among hot-button transportation topics that could be discussed when the Legislature meets in February, several Nevada lawmakers said Tuesday.

The aim, they said, is to create laws that will bring the 326 fatalities reported last year on Nevada’s roads down to zero.

Lawmakers may consider whether to increase fines for all drivers who hold their phone during calls and texts. For now, scofflaws pay $50 for a first offense, $100 for a second offense and $250 for a third offense, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Marijuana was legalized for medical purposes in 2000, but voters will decide in November whether to legalize it for recreational use.

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