To the community,

Another July 4 is history. And on Venice East the kiosks are in and paid parking is a reality. The fee for all-day is $10, but on the Fourth and four other holidays, the fee is doubled to $20.

As of July 9, the city had not striped the street for paid parking. So who knows how many spaces there will be? On the Fourth I rode my bike to the Keys Marina. There were a good many cars parked on Venice East. I guessed perhaps a hundred. I could have counted, but why count when I could guess using the city’s too often used method for creating a project.

Bill Crawford

Using the number 100 x $20, the city will bring in $2,000 on July 4. Projecting that number for five holidays on Venice East the sum will be $10,000 a year. In five years the sum will be $50,000. That’s the gross. After expenses, who knows what the net will be.

Yes, there will be midweek parking revenue. I have lived near the Keyes Marina 41 years and midweek parking is rarely packed, so it won’t be a gold mine.

I don’t know how may paid parking spaces the city will finally have. So projecting revenue created by paid parking is impossible. But I do know having lived here 46 years that locals are shy about paying to park. The best lesson on that is the city’s parking garage. City dwellers’ use it sparse. And the garage is in default.

Enough said.

Bill Crawford, South Lake Tahoe

To the community,

Barton Foundation would like to thank the many volunteers and sponsors that helped to make the 7th annual Camp Sunrise in June, once-again, a huge success.

Camp Sunrise is a free bereavement camp offered to children ages 7 through 14 who have experienced the death of a family member. The three-day camp provides grief education and support in a fun, safe and supportive environment.

“Teens and children are often forgotten mourners. And, because they grieve very differently than adults, their needs are often overlooked,” said Rebecca Phillipsen, licensed clinical social worker. “That is why Camp Sunrise is so important. We assist campers in developing healthy coping skills that will benefit them throughout their lives.”

Under the guidance of professional bereavement staff from Barton Home Health and Hospice and volunteers, 28 young campers had the opportunity to meet with other children who have experienced similar loses and engage in activities involving art, music and recreation. The children also attended daily support groups, enabling them to further explore their grief and work through any unresolved issues.

Thank you to all of the volunteers, without you camp would not be possible. Barton Foundation would also like to thank the local groups, businesses and individuals who contributed financially – Randi Arias-Losado, R.N., Charles Dane, Harrah’s and Harveys resorts, Nel’s Tahoe Hardware and the Optimist Club of South Lake Tahoe.

For more information about Camp Sunrise, contact the Foundation by email at foundation@bartonhealth.org.

Sincerely,

Barton Foundation

By Neil Kreisel and Vanessa L. Patterson, Chronicle of Higher Education

The country’s community colleges are at great risk of becoming “separate but unequal institutions in the higher-education landscape,” according to a report issued recently by the Century Foundation. This is hardly news to those of us in the world of community colleges. And yet we — particularly those of us with fund-raising responsibilities — could be doing so much more than we are to help close the parity gap and help our own institutions thrive.

Nearly one-half of students in higher education attend community colleges, representing a diverse ensemble who will eventually be among the leaders in such critical fields as science, engineering, education, and health care. Historically modeled as a training ground for students to compete for local jobs, these colleges are now gateways to a world of wider opportunity, offering programs to prepare students for career success and lifelong learning, and smoothing pathways to four-year universities.

But this transformation is a struggle that will not be won without an increase in philanthropy for education, now dominated by four-year institutions. For each dollar given to a four-year college, only a cent or two goes to support community colleges. The Century Foundation’s study found that the average benefit from private and group donations, grants, investment returns, endowment income, and the like per full-time student to private research institutions was $46,342, compared with $372 for community colleges.

Those of us in the business of community colleges clearly see that the amount of private support affects how effective a college can be with programs that focus students on career paths and educational preparedness. Successful colleges start programs in collaboration with local high schools, introducing students to a wealth of career fields, to the importance of liberal-arts education, to financial and academic support systems within the community, to internships, and to the processes of applications and interviews.

They also work with other community colleges to improve access to educational programs and to reach agreements with four-year colleges. Those agreements ease the transfer process, long a major obstacle to furthering education at two-year institutions. Here at Santa Barbara City College, establishing such agreements with the California State University system’s 23 campuses is a top priority.

This spring, Santa Barbara and Walla Walla Community College, in Washington State, were awarded the Aspen Institute’s 2013 Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence. As proud as we are of that, we are frustrated by the fact that a lack of private philanthropy continues to stifle program development and expansion at community colleges. And we must do much more to change that.

To begin with, community colleges need to develop relations with alumni, who often identify with the four-year college from which they earned a degree. A recent survey by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education showed that an average of one-half of one percent of alumni contributed to a community college in the 2012 fiscal year. The comparable number for four-year universities nationwide is 13 percent.

But that sad fact goes hand in hand with this one: Fewer than 60 percent of survey respondents said their community college maintained an annual operating budget for alumni relations. Among those institutions that specified an alumni-relations budget, the average annual amount was a paltry $23,611. To develop an alumni giving program — the cornerstone of marketing campaigns — community colleges need a healthy revenue flow for staff, technology, and donor-program development. In turn, increased donor dollars will improve existing academic programs and help support efforts to help students succeed.

Meanwhile, we are seeing encouraging signs from institutional philanthropies. The Bernard Osher Foundation, among others, has provided significant grants. Federal grant programs, too, are expanding opportunities for the low-income and minority students who attend community colleges, many of whom are the first in their family to go to college, and many of whom enroll at remediation levels.

Fund raisers at all colleges are seeing donations rise, according to a survey released in January by the council. The survey showed that giving increased by 5.5 percent last year, with development officials predicting a 5.8 percent increase in donations in 2013.

Community colleges have some reason for optimism: Fund raisers on those campuses reported a 7 percent gain in giving in 2012 and predicted growth of 6.8 percent this year. But that’s just not enough.

The Foundation for Santa Barbara City College oversees $45-million worth of net assets, which is well above those of most community-college foundations, but still well below the almost-$500-million average endowment of four-year colleges. That figure, of course is skewed by the endowments of Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, and other wealthy institutions, but it nonetheless illustrates the lack of parity when it comes to both alumni and institutional giving.

As champions of our beloved community colleges, fund raisers must stand up for the millions of students depending on us to keep the doors of opportunity open for them. The fund disparity threatens the crucial role that community colleges play in our education system.

It also is in direct conflict with the doctrine that has governed this nation’s education policies for decades. The President’s Commission on Higher Education for Democracy declared in 1947 that “tuition-free education should be available in public institutions to all youth for the traditional freshman and sophomore years or for the traditional two-year junior college course. … Community colleges probably will have to carry a large part of the responsibility for expanding opportunities in higher education.” Indeed, we do.

At California’s community colleges, tuition has nearly doubled over the past two years, from $26 a unit in 2009-10 to $46 a unit in 2013.

We must do so much better than we are to make an affordable, high-quality two-year-college education available to all. With equitable philanthropic support, we will.

Neil Kreisel is president of the Board of Directors of the Foundation for Santa Barbara City College, and Vanessa L. Patterson is executive director of the foundation.

Publisher’s note: This editorial is from the July 7, 2013, Riverside Press-Enterprise.

Another two years of stalling will not ensure a reliable long-term supply of water for California. The state cannot afford to let ideological battles stifle progress once again on addressing the state’s water issues. Legislators should revamp a proposed water bond to pare the cost, scrape out the political pork and concentrate any new spending on the state’s most pressing water needs.

The Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee last week took up the water bond issues, discussing a set of principles for designing a realistic bond measure. Legislators realize that the $11.14 billion water bond proposal from 2009 has little chance of voter approval without significant changes that shrink the cost and excise the frivolous spending.

Lake Tahoe in past versions of the water bond would be a beneficiary. Photo/LTN

The measure is now slated for the 2014 ballot, but legislators have twice postponed putting the bond before voters, fearing that Californians would reject its hefty price tag. And the fact that legislators inflated the measure’s cost with a variety of pork projects only irritated voters. Taxpayers have little interest in footing the bill for self-serving political handouts that some legislators demanded in order to support the bond.

The state, however, has water needs that require prompt attention, and those should be the focus of a slimmer water bond. The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta’s environmental and physical challenges, for example, threaten the state’s primary water system, which ships water from Northern California through the delta to the rest of the state. The state has periodically had to curtail water deliveries to protect endangered delta fish, and the delta depends on more than a thousand miles of aging levees in danger of collapse in an earthquake.

The delta’s ills put at risk the water exports that serve two-thirds of the state’s population and irrigate millions of acres of farmland. Gov. Jerry Brown supports a plan to channel the exports around the delta, thus separating the state’s water from the estuary’s environmental challenges. Water users would pay most of that cost, but the plan also requires money to restore delta habitat and address the ecological issues in return for more reliable water exports.

The state also needs additional capacity to catch and store water for later use, in reservoirs and groundwater basins. Long-term forecasts predict the state will see more winter rain and less snow, so the state will be less able to rely on mountain snowpacks to store water until the hot summer months.

Any feasible long-term approach also requires increased conservation and recycling, pollution cleanup and other steps — all of which cost money. But the Legislature could trim the size of a new water bond by redirecting some existing water bond funds. The legislative analyst reported in February that the state had more than $5 billion in unspent natural resources bond money, mostly from two previous water bonds. Legislators should put those funds toward the most urgent water priorities.

California needs to move past old political battles to ensure a healthy water supply for its future. Legislators will not serve that goal by failing to craft a feasible water bond once again.

To the community,

The Lake Valley Professional Firefighters Association would like to thank the community and Tahoe visitors for the tremendous support during the July 7 “Fill the Boot” drive in Meyers.

The entire $12,004.13 that was collected by firefighters from the agencies and organizations listed below will be given to the families of the Granite Mountain Hot Shots from Prescott Fire Department in Arizona. In addition, we wish to thank the businesses listed for their generous donations:

• Lake Valley Professional Firefighters Association

• Lake Valley Volunteer Firefighters Association

• Lake Valley Fire Protection District

• South Lake Tahoe Firemans Association

• South Lake Tahoe Fire Department

• Tahoe Douglas Fire Protection District

• Fallen Leaf Fire Department

• CalFire – Amador, El Dorado, Sacramento Unit

• Lake Tahoe Basin Fire Academy

• Steve’s Transmission

• Angie’s Signs

• South Tahoe CrossFit.

Individuals still wishing to donate to the 19 firefighters killed while battling the Yarnell Fire in Arizona can do so using the following organizations (both have been confirmed as valid donation sites):

United Phoenix Firefighter’s Association

Prescott Firefighters Charities (501(c)3 – Chase Bank), Account #987218757, 61 East Columbus Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85012 or National Fallen Firefighter’s Foundation, www.regonline.com/yarnellhill.

Leona Allen, Lake Valley Fire

Publisher’s note: This editorial is from the July 5, 2013, Sacramento Bee.

It’s common sense that kids who start classes when they are reasonably fed are better able to learn.

But despite the resources available to provide breakfasts in schools, not enough is being done to provide proper morning meals for the students who need it most.

According to California Food Policy Advocates, only 27 percent of low-income students in Sacramento County participated in their school’s breakfast program in the 2010-11 academic year. Involvement was similarly mediocre in Yolo and Placer counties, which posted rates of 24 percent and 31 percent, respectively.

Read the whole story

To the community,

Members of Heavenly Mountain Resort’s information technology department volunteered to crew the June 24 Bread & Broth Adopt A Day dinner. It was sponsored by Heavenly through the Vail Echo Foundation.

“We appreciate the opportunity to help our community!” stated Tyler Morris, IT manager.

Joining Morris were Dave Erickson, IT analyst; Kevin Franzen, PC tech and Aaron Uretsky, IT lead.

In addition to volunteering three hours of their time at the dinner, the Heavenly volunteer crew members brought boxes of macaroni and cheese and top ramen to supplement the produce, bakery and dairy donations from local stores for the “take home” bags distributed to the evening’s dinner guests.

They also donated Tupperware containers for leftover packaging

Bread & Broth would like to thank Heavenly Mountain Resort and the Vail Echo Foundation for providing the funding for sponsoring 12 Adopt A Day of Nourishment throughout the year. Their generous donation supports the hot, nutritious and tasty meals that B&B volunteers prepare and serve to over 90 needy members of our community every Monday at St. Theresa Church parish hall. B&B also applauds Heavenly employees for their community spirit and concern for the less fortunate of South Lake Tahoe.

If you would like to support Bread & Broth’s program, please contact me at (530) 542.2876 or carolsgerard@aol.com.

Carol Gerard, Bread & Broth

To the community,

“Actions speak louder than Beliefs.” While I was out running I noticed in my head that the statement had the first two letters of the alphabet.

After my run I decided to to see if I could use the alphabet to come up with some kind of statement. This is what I came up with.

Actions speak louder than

Beliefs and define

Character.

Deciding what you do

Everyday will determine

Fulfillment.

Good thoughts

Help

Individuals

Join together in

Kinsman

Like

Movements.

Narrow

Opinions

Punish everyone

Quietly.

Respect everyone who deserves it and

Sedate the bad

Thoughts.

Understand

Victory is not just found in

Winning but also enlightenment. Feel free to

Xerox this and pass it on if you wish.

You must be comfortable in yourself.

Zooweemama!

John Spinola, South Lake Tahoe

To the community,

I’m holding citation No. LT10000849, a parking ticket issued on June 29, 2013, in the Venice East paid parking area. The parking meters are up and ticking. Chaos has started in the good old summertime in America’s year-round playground. Have fun.

It appears that the ticket was thrown away by a motorist, no doubt an unhappy camper. The tariff for the violation is $55 mailed to a processing center in Newport Beach. An appeal can be sent to the center, online of course.

Bill Crawford

The latter operation is a divorce created by the city between citizens and city government. Bureaucracy at its best. Also, there is no signage informing the public that there is paid parking on Venice East. One vehicle had paid. Attached to the vehicle was a boat trailer. Apparently, the boat trailer was covered by the parking fee paid for the vehicle. So, the question is, can boat trailers be parked on Venice East? Also, the street isn’t stripped for paid parking. What about RVs?

The city in haste to pick the pocket of visitors and locals lives up to its knack for creating chaos and mistrust.

Bill Crawford, South Lake Tahoe

PS: On July 1, the city painted black paint over the parallel white lines on Venice East, lines that are there for the safety of walkers, joggers, and cyclists. The lines were “erased” to mark space for paid parking. Priorities do change.

To the community,

For a second time during the month of June, Harrah’s/Harveys casinos sponsored an Adopt a Day dinner at St. Theresa Church’s parish hall. Bread & Broth is very grateful to Harrah’s/Harveys casinos for their continued support of B&B’s goal of providing hot, nutritious meals every Monday evening to the needy of the South Lake Tahoe community.

At the June 17 Adopt A Day dinner, Harrah’s/Harveys HEROs employee community service organization was represented by Jackie Andrews, game supervisor; Jane Flavin, human resources; and Darlene Winkleman, assistant game manager. For three hours, these three ladies cheerfully assisted the B&B volunteers with the dinner’s setup, serving and cleanup.

They summed up their volunteer service to be “very rewarding and it warms the heart to help and give back to our community.”

Thanks to Harrah’s/Harveys monetary donation and the HEROs’ volunteers help, B&B’s guests enjoyed a Mexican themed dinner and the company of fellow diners and volunteers. Bread & Broth would like to recognize and thank Harrah’s/Harveys’ Casinos for their commitment to B&B’s Adopt of Nourishment program.

Caro Gerard, Bread & Broth