To the community,

Sponsoring their second Adopt A Day of Nourishment this year, Wyndham Vacation Ownership hosted the Georgia Deb’s Famous Lasagna dinner served at Bread & Broth’s Sept. 15 evening’s meal.

“Wyndham is really proud of their philanthropy and encourages volunteerism by their employees,” said Bill Stoddard while he took a break from serving dinner to the evening’s guests.

Joining Stoddard were fellow Wyndham Vacation Ownership employees Jacob Garcia, Sue Harley and Dee Dee Gooding. It was Harley’s third time over the past two years to volunteer with B&B through Wyndham and she “can’t wait for Bread & Broth’s Adopt A Day calendar to clear so she can come back to volunteer again.”

As many AAD sponsor volunteers discover, helping those in need is a rewarding experience and a great way to give back. As a nonprofit, all volunteer organization, Bread & Broth provides full course dinners every Monday at St. Theresa Church and a pasta/soup meal at Lake Tahoe Community Presbyterian Church every Friday. The Sept. 15 meal was made possible by Wyndham Vacation Ownership generous donation of $250. B&B would like to acknowledge and thank Wyndham and their employees for their community involvement in helping the needy.

To help B&B as a donor or sponsor, contact me at 530.542.2876 or carolsgerard@aol.com.

Carol Gerard, Bread & Broth

By Mike Chrisman

As firefighters continue their valiant efforts battling the King Fire – the latest large fire in the Sierra Nevada – an important new report makes a compelling and sobering case for bold and urgent action.

“The State of the Sierra Nevada’s Forests,” issued by the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, details the dire conditions of many of the region’s forests that are putting them at grave risk of large, damaging fires, such as the King Fire and last year’s Rim Fire. It further points out that the trend of increasing temperatures and drought conditions is literally “adding fuel to the fire.”

Fires in California’s primary watershed – more than 60 percent of the state’s developed water supply originates here – deliver a wide range of severe adverse impacts. These range from dramatic decreases in air quality to setting the stage for massive erosion dirtying our water and decreasing the storage capacity of our reservoirs.

Air quality the past two weeks has been several times worse than some of the most polluted cities in the world due to smoke from the King Fire. Last year’s Rim Fire emitted greenhouse gases equivalent to 2.3 million vehicles for a year.

Also, the lost habitat and recreational opportunities from major fires like these are significant. It is not an exaggeration to say that virtually all Californians are affected when these “megafires” occur.

The report points out that wildfires are getting larger and burning at higher intensity than ever before. The Rim fire burned at nearly 40 percent high intensity – meaning virtually no living vegetation is left – covering almost 100,000 acres. More acres have burned in the first 4½ years of this decade than in seven decades of the last century.

What can we do about it?

It starts by understanding the situation. Conflict over forest management and the lack of necessary resources have led many of the forests managed by the federal government in the region to become badly overgrown and at risk of large, damaging fires. The U.S. Forest Service indicates that between 6 million and 9 million acres of the land they manage in California are in need of restoration; much of that land is in the Sierra Nevada.

The solution, significantly increasing the pace and scale of science-based ecological restoration of these forests, seems simple enough. Thinning the forest and, where feasible, using controlled fire as a tool will dramatically improve forest health and reduce the risk of these types of uncontrolled wildfires.

We know that the cost of restoring these forests is much cheaper than the cost of fighting the fires and restoring the burned areas. However, making that happen is complicated and will require increased financial investment and a serious review of the policies and processes impeding progress. Digging out of the hole we are in won’t be easy.

Perhaps we can learn from an effort that has been under way for more than a decade to save an important Sierra Nevada icon, Lake Tahoe. Realizing that the deteriorating quality of Lake Tahoe needed the same bold and urgent action, state, federal and local officials came together to create the Lake Tahoe Environmental Improvement Program.

The program clearly identifies the objectives and actions needed to “keep Tahoe blue” and comes with a commitment on the part of all parties to work together to achieve these goals. California, Nevada and the federal government have invested more than $1.69 billion since its inception, and significant progress is being made.

The challenges facing the Sierra Nevada obviously exist at a much greater scale across an area that makes up one-quarter of the state. However, the time is right for just such an integrated effort between our state and federal governments, as well as those benefiting from these forested watersheds.

The Sierra Nevada Conservancy, as a state agency uniquely focused on this region, has been at the center of bringing interests as diverse as the environmental community, the wood products industry and local government together to build a consensus for the need to act and to do so urgently. That foundation can be used to launch a bold effort to restore this magnificent landscape, an “Environmental Improvement Program” for the Sierra Nevada. The alternative, and consequences, of remaining on the path we are traveling should be unacceptable to all of us.

Mike Chrisman was secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency from 2003-10.

To the community,

Not sure if you’re already aware of this, but (Oct. 1) Squaw Valley Resort had a glitch in their online season pass system that allowed ~500+ patrons to purchase gold level season passes for $1. Normally, this pass costs $809, however it was significantly discounted to a low, low price of a single dollar.

Like any other incredible opportunity that comes my way, I purchased two gold passes for a total of $2. It’s been brought to my attention that Squaw will likely not honor the advertised price and is in the process of refunding the 500+ passes purchased. However there seems to be some conflicting issues that has arisen that I feel needs to be brought into the light of the media/news:

1. A few people have already successfully received their gold passes and confirmed they only paid $1. They went to the pass office (Oct. 1), took their photo, and received their passes — with no hassle or questions asked.

2. One person has received a rejection email stating that Squaw will immediately reject and refund the $1 pass purchase for their order, however no one else who purchased their tickets (that day) has received this email. Since no one else has been notified, the rest of the consumers, like myself — who purchased these passes are under false pretenses that they have in fact, a real season pass.

3. If they honored the pass price for the select few people who received their season passes yesterday — isn’t there some sort of consumer protection law that justifies Squaw to honor all season passes that were purchased for $1?

My concern is that Squaw will quickly brush their mistake under the rug with little to no negative impact on their brand loyalty from other customers – simply because no one is aware of this situation.

Although I might have spent only $1 on this pass, if Squaw honored it — I would likely spend close to $500 throughout the season on food, merchandise, cocktails, etc. I don’t believe that granting the ~500+ passes will significantly impact their bottom line revenue considering most of these folks will spend money when they’re at the resort since they can justify their spending with, “I only paid $1 for this pass.”

I’ve never snowboarded at Squaw nor visited it simply because it was always out of my budget to get a season pass. I purchased this $1 pass because it was a phenomenal deal and I intend to visit Squaw often this season. I live in Incline Village and have many friends that come up to visit during the winter specifically to snowboard and ski. Normally we go to Northstar, however with this Squaw pass I have incentive to take my friends to Squaw instead. My friends of course would have to purchase a daily pass for themselves, and rental gear, and food, and drinks – so if Squaw just honored my $1 pass – they would still make money off this error since I’m bringing in new revenue from customers who usually go elsewhere to snowboard.

This isn’t the first time a glitch in the system has occurred for a major company. Take for instance United Airlines back in 2013, they had a system glitch for two hours where flight prices were advertised and purchased at $0! With the help of the news/media outlets bringing this mistake to light and potentially damaging their brand, United inevitably honored those prices and acknowledged that they made an error on their part, but to keep customer satisfaction high and to keep their brand in tact — they granted those folks who purchased flights at the advertised $0 price.

Please help us to demand Squaw to do what is right, and honor the $1 season passes before it is too late and they simply decline all of our passes today!

Sincerely,

Jessica Perez, Incline Village

By Larry Weitzman

With winter coming, it was a good thing that Supervisor Ron Mikulaco and Auditor Joe Harn came up with a plan to pay for the second snowplow and saved the county $50,000 interest instead of following the Community Development Agency’s plan to lease it, which is usually the most expensive way to acquire anything.

It was an item that dated from June 2013, that the chief administrative officer and the CDA handled more like the Three Stooges with no insult to the Stooges intended. There will be an investigation to find the mistakes made, by whom and why. Even our CAO, who signed the purchase order, made a $30,000 mistake on the purchase price (she doubled the sales tax), which did get corrected during the Sept. 23 Board of Supervisor meeting. At the same meeting, unfortunately the overall El Dorado County budget was approved on a 3-2 vote with a huge deficit with Mikulaco and Shiva Frentzen voting no.

Larry Weitzman

But the fiscal future of El Dorado County may be beyond help. While Terri Daly’s CAO’s office has grown from 16 employees in the 2011-12 fiscal year to 72.5 employees for the 2014-15 fiscal year, which included half dozen or more new highly paid “analysts” with titles like CAO administrative analyst, department or principal administrative analyst, overall county hiring in the last three years by CAO Daly amounted to 170 new employees. But none of those hires was in the most important county departments such as the sheriff’s or the DA’s offices. In other words, county services have not improved and if you consider the snowplow debacle, services have gone in the other direction.

These new county employees have added about $14 million to county expenses. If you add in the cost of the 15 percent raises recommended by Daly, you can add another $7 million to budget expenses or about $20 million to $21 million annually.

Here is the problem Daly has created. While the CAO claims the budget will be in balance for fiscal year 2014-15, it isn’t. Revenues (which are mostly property taxes and sales tax with the division being about 60/40) are projected at $222 million. But expenses are $254 million. That’s not balanced, but a negative $32 million. The way the CAO figures it is that as of the end of the last fiscal year (June 30) the county had $45 million on hand (down from $54 million at the end F/Y 2013) and EDC will plug the gap with the county savings. In the following year (15-16) spending will outstrip revenues according to county forecasts by $27.5 million. Known bank reserves will only be $13 million. The county will be out of cash.

In the three following years the combined forecasted deficits will be another $89 million. El Dorado County will be upside down by $103 million. Perhaps there will be a higher sales tax proposed for El Dorado County, possibly a 25 percent rise and that will still not totally solve the problem while damaging local business.

And why? Because our CAO, Terri Daly, hired 170 new employees over the last three years, claiming we are still not back to pre-recession levels of staffing (and implying that the recession is over). Being a county employee making over $200,000 a year plus benefits (about $250,000-$260,000 a year total), Daly never felt the recession. We are still in a severe recession, with real unemployment well over 10 percent and housing prices significantly depressed.

With respect to those employees who were hired within the CAO’s office, salaries have grown by about $4.5 million since June 30, 2012, with a total of about 56 new employees. That equates to an average salary of $80,000 per employee. And you wonder why we have a budget problem. Using that same salary cost for the 170 employees hired by Daly during the last three years and the total reaches $13,600,000.

But wait there’s more.

Within that hiring of 56.5 employees 18 were classified as some sort of analyst, fiscal tech or administrator; 18, all hired in the last two years. Is Daly that bad an administrator that she needs that much help? If they are analysts or administrators, they are not doing their jobs as can be seen by the terrible fiscal shape the county is in. The total cost for those 18 employees is $112,700 a month or about $1.35 million a year plus benefits (about $1.7 million a year total). Those seven newly hired (within the last two years) CAO employees with the actual title of analyst had total monthly salaries of totaling $43,000 or about $645,000 a year with benefits. And you wonder why we are looking at huge deficits.

On top of all this spending, Daly recommended that the county give all employees a 15 percent raise over three years starting in 2014. Total cost of that will be about $7 million annually. Without the hiring and without the 15 percent raise, there would be no budget deficit.

If you study Chief Financial Officer Laura Schwartz’s budgets projections, the total deficits through F/Y 2018-19 are only $51 million. CAO Daly claims there will be savings of $32 million from the multimillion dollar Fenix accounting system of which she has yet to produce one work paper demonstrating these savings and other county budget saving of about $20 million that will materialize out of totally unproven savings devices. Please CAO, show us the data.

Daly’s solution is an across the board 3 percent salary savings in all departments. First, why should longer-term employees pay for Daly’s excesses? Second, about 35 percent of the new hires were under the CAO’s office, she gains, every other department suffers. And finally, a 3 percent salary savings does nothing. It’s a gimmick. It would only save about $5 million a year, still leaving EDC about $80 million upside down. The solution is laying off the new hires, especially those in Daly’s office. Looking at the budget deficits, they and Daly are responsible.

Daly loves the words “strategic investments” and uses them liberally in everything she writes and says. The term should be as demonstrated above – “useless and wasteful spending.” One more thing, with all these new employees, there has been no improvement in county services. More is coming.

Larry Weitzman is a resident of Rescue.

To the community,

How do you know when someone has crossed a line of ethical standards? It’s a tough topic because it is a subjective concept and many people will have a different point of view. What if it’s even bigger than that? What if it’s an entity that receives taxpayer funding that crosses that line? Would you request that its funding be revoked until it cleans up its act and makes changes in its political practices?

I’m sitting here at a Board of Supervisors meeting waiting to ask the board to stop funding El Dorado County Chamber of Commerce programs until the chamber makes changes so that there is a clear distinction between its political activities and regular chamber activities.

Why? Because the county chamber has shown a consistent pattern of mixing its political activities with its regular activities, and it has recently crossed the line of what most people would consider ethical practices. The most recent infraction was the Town Hall Phone Meeting hosted by El Dorado County Chamber of Commerce board member Mike Kobus, owner of Koby Pest Control, on the evening of Sept. 24, 2014. Mr. Kobus stated misinformation about the measures and its proponents. I’m going to stop sugarcoating it here, Mr. Kobus flat out lied about the measures and their proponents.

According to California Election Code Section 20501. (b):

“A person who is a sponsor of a sponsored committee, as defined by Section 82048.7 of the Government Code, is liable for any slander or libel committed by the sponsored committee if the sponsor willfully and knowingly directs or permits the libel or slander.”

The sponsor of the phone meeting was the El Dorado County Chamber of Commerce, a 501c6 organization, of which Mr. Kobus is a board member. The Chamber also has a Political Action Committee, which has previously spent over $70,000 against all grassroots efforts to put land use measures on the November ballot. A request will be made to the Fair Political Practices Commission to investigate whether the chamber has overstepped the boundaries of what is allowed in its campaign against the measures by using lies to scare voters.

The amount of lies in Mr. Kobus’ phone meeting was astonishing. He reached out into people’s homes over the phone to intentionally spread misinformation and cause confusion. An uninformed listener would be led to believe that Mr. Kobus is an expert about these measures, when in fact he lumped all of the measures together and mixed up and distorted the facts. For example, Measure O is the green petition that was part of the 1-2-3 initiatives. Measure O simply removes urban boundary lines that make existing rural communities a target for high density development. Mr. Kobus debated with one caller that Measure O has a kill clause in it that will wipe out all of the other measures if it got the most votes. That is an absolutely erroneous statement because Sacramento-based Region Builders’ Measure N has the kill clause in it, which is one of many reasons I am opposed to Measure N.

Sue Taylor, a Measure O proponent, agreed with a caller that said, “Follow the Money.” Taylor went on to say, “Mike Kobus should have explained that it is with the Chamber’s Board members and directors where the money lays… such as Sierra Pacific Industries, PG&E, AT&T, The Mountain Democrat, and Kirk Bone of Parker Development who developed Serrano and is proposing the Marble Valley development project. There is a lot riding on this election for these people.”

Further updates will be published online as the inquiry progresses.

Lori Parlin, proponent of Measure O

To the community,

On Nov. 4, I will vote yes on Measure F to provide much-needed funding to maintain and modernize Lake Tahoe Community College. I am asking you to join me in supporting our local college — a key institution in our town whose future is so closely tied to the entire South Shore community’s hopes for the future.

I have been a part of the South Lake Tahoe community since 1989, and am now a permanent, full-time resident. I’ve served on the Lake Tahoe Community College Foundation for two years, raising money to help hundreds of local college students reach their potential and meet their academic goals. I’ve seen firsthand the clear connection that exists between providing local access to a quality, modern college education, and the health and growth of our community.

For 40 years now, Lake Tahoe Community College has been a valuable community resource, providing generations of residents access to a low-cost, high-quality college education to prepare for transfer to four-year universities, and to train for better careers. As the cultural and educational hub of our community for four decades now, LTCC’s buildings and infrastructure have seen constant and heavy use. By voting yes on Measure F, we can better prepare our local students for jobs and transfer by modernizing the college’s classrooms, science labs, technology, and facilities. The campus will become more energy efficient while also providing students with the technology they require to succeed in tomorrow’s workplace. It will also expand access to university courses by creating a university center, and will bring a public safety training center to campus that will expand the college’s educational offerings and provide the South Shore with a crisis center during emergencies.

The benefits of passing Measure F are numerous for the larger community as well. Local construction and technology jobs will be generated from the college’s 10-year, $107 million facilities and technology construction plan. There is the potential for $52 million in funding to come from outside the community, through state grants and opportunities, to match the up to $55 million generated locally from the bond. This 10-year plan will generate local construction jobs for the long term, and as the college’s facilities are improved, our local economy will get a boost in the form of jobs and economic investment into local businesses that support the community’s growing workforce.

Measure F will also help to attract a larger student population at LTCC. This growth will have a spillover effect for local businesses, landlords, and other service providers. In other California communities, college bond measures have improved local home valuations. On top of that, the modern classrooms, labs and technology Measure F will deliver can lead to more highly qualified job seekers in more industries right in our community. Measure F is a small price to pay that offers a huge return on investment: the bond’s cost for a $300,000 home valuation is just $75 per year.

I hope you’ll join me on Nov. 4 in voting yes on Measure F, for our college and our community’s future. When our local college succeeds, our entire community succeeds.

Sincerely,

Leon Malmed, South Lake Tahoe

To the community,

In the past two weeks I have had 10 campaigns stolen from various locations around town. The latest was last (Sunday) between 6 and 11:30pm.

Austin Sass

Some were located on individuals front yards and six of the 10 off of locations on Highway 50. At some of these locations, there were signs from other candidates that were not disturbed.

Four on Highway 50 were large signs (3 feet by 3 feet) and were zip tied to metal stakes. It took considerable effort to cut these signs off and whomever did it was very bold to be doing such right on the main thoroughfare in town. I believe this is a targeted effort.

I have filed police reports.

I am providing a $500 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whomever did this. Any reports can come to me or the police department.

Thank you,

Austin Sass, South Lake Tahoe City Council candidate

To the community,

The race for Douglas County sheriff is a clear choice. I have been a Douglas County resident since 1998 and Sheriff Ron Pierini has done a great job for all 16 years. Prior to living in Douglas County, I lived in large cities with high crime rates. It is so refreshing to live in an area that has one of the lowest crime rates in Nevada. You simply cannot put a value on what it means to feel safe in your home and neighborhood.

If the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department is not broken, there is no need to fix it. Dave Brady’s campaign states that he has the education, training, and law enforcement experience to do a better job than Ron Pierini. There is something wrong with their math. How does eight years in the Redondo Police Department, two years with the Nevada Gaming Control Board and 15 years as a Douglas County reserve surpass Sheriff Pierini’s 41 continuous years of law enforcement experience? Nevada Gov. Sandoval appointed Sheriff Pierini as the chairman of the Peace Officers Standards and Trainings Commission (POST). Mr. Brady is not even POST certified and would need to complete 16 weeks of training in order to serve as sheriff. The law enforcement experience of the candidates is not even close.

Mr. Brady continually states that the sheriff’s department has the same six patrol cars as 1986 when the truth is there are nine patrol cars each on day and swing shifts and eight deputies patrolling graveyard shift. Since only 20 percent of the deputies’ time is used to respond to calls, additional patrol cars are simply not needed. Earlier this year, my girlfriend called the sheriff’s department and the deputy arrived in less than 15 minutes. The Douglas County Sheriff’s Department has always provided excellent service and quick response times under the leadership of Ron Pierini.

Sheriff Pierini’s steady management style earned him the endorsement from the Douglas County Sheriff’s Protection Association that represents all DCSO Deputies, Investigators and Sergeants. His friendly nature inspires over 200 volunteers to assist the department every year.

Ron Pierini is also a great citizen and leader for our community. He has volunteered for many worthy causes in Douglas County. He is a long time member of the Tahoe Douglas Rotary Club. Ron also served on the original Board of Directors for Austin’s House and helped bring the project to completion.

I will be casting my vote on Nov. 4 for Sheriff Ron Pierini to provide his excellent leadership for another four years.

Conrad Buedel, Minden

To the community,

The following are the emails that were between the Tahoe Chamber and Kenny Curtzwiler. Please note the dates these occurred as they are prior to the statement put out by the chamber explaining the selection process. Call it what you want as to what the reason was for excluding one candidate from District Five on their original statement of transparency, but I was not scored in their process.

How could the CEC possibly “miss” the scoring on a selection process they initiated? The chamber has since posted our scores, but they do not hold any validity on what was a flawed process to begin with.

Kenny Curtzwiler

I am asking the chamber and have asked them to not correct this as noted in the emails. I urge the community to call B Gorman and Craig Woodward to explain their reasoning behind this and not rely on one sided false press statements.

I chose not to answer the questions as several others have done as well, but I fully expected to be contacted by the CEC as put out by their statement stating that we would be contacted regardless of answering the questions or not. If they had contacted, me they might have been surprised by my answers as I have stated in other questioners that are public record.

Email exchange:

From: K&K Services
Sent: Friday, September 19, 2014 6:43 PM

To: B Gorman
Subject: RE: message

B, any reason why District V was not included on the pdf? Thanks, Kenny.

—-

From: B Gorman
Sent: Saturday, September 20, 2014 3:11 PM
To: K&K Services
Subject: RE: message

Hi Kenny

Just got home from a great motorcycle ride and checked the website. I think it just got missed when the committee gave info to staff this week as they did district 5 stuff at their last meeting.

I will ask staff to check in with committee on Monday to get the numbers and load onto site. I am speaking at a meeting Monday so won’t get to office until late in day so likely won’t go up till Tuesday. Thanks for letting me know. Enjoy the rest of the weekend, b

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note™, an AT&T LTE smartphone

—-

From: B Gorman
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2014 10:00 PM
To: K&K Services
Subject: RE: message

Hi Kenny

My apologies for not getting back with you today. I ended up in a half-day session this morning with elected officials from Sac and then a half day planning session with a new business all afternoon and thus I am still trying to catch up tonight. I did speak with Craig today and I was wrong when I responded to you the other day. The CEC apparently did not score you when they scored Sue. So at this juncture we can leave things as they are or I can ask them each to submit a score sheet for you and then do the same formula as for the others and post both of your scores. I am happy to oblige whichever way you prefer.

Take care, “B”

—-

From: K&K Services
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2014 10:13 PM
To: ‘B Gorman’
Subject: RE: message

It would be better for you correct the information that was put out in the press release where the chamber stated that each candidate was scored. Thanks, Kenny.

Kenny Curtzwiler, El Dorado County supervisor candidate

Publisher’s note: This letter was given to the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors last week.

Board of Supervisors,

Joe Harn

Please consider this communication my formal warning that the Budget that your Board directed be finalized on September 23rd by a 3 to 2 vote will lead to a severe drop in the financial position of the County. The General Fund Contingency Appropriation based on your Board’s actions during the Budget Hearings has dropped to just below $3.9 Million. At the end of the Budget Hearings one year ago, our General Fund Contingency Appropriation sat at $10.2 million. $3.9 million is the lowest Contingency number in 10 years.This is a dramatic drop. This will result in a much lower general fund carry-forward at June 30, 2015, and will result in the necessity of draconian spending cuts next summer.

Further, because of the King Fire, if there was ever a year when we needed a large contingency, this is it. Further, the Forced Salaries Savings budget balancing gimmick will also lead to a much lower general fund carry-forward at June 30, 2015.

I must conclude that the spending plan adopted by your Board on September 23rd is irresponsible.

Joe Harn, El Dorado County auditor-controller