Barton Foundation’s 5th annual Signature Cocktail Contest is Sept. 24.
The 5:30-8pm event is at Riva Grill in South Lake Tahoe.
The event will feature heavy appetizers, samples of local mixologists’ cocktail creations and music by Jesse Kalin.
All proceeds benefit Barton Community Health and Wellness. Tickets are $35 in advance, $40 at the door until sold out.
By KRNV-TV
California water conservation efforts are hitting home in Northern Nevada.
State emergency regulations demand a cut to irrigation. Truckee Donner Public Utilities District officials are limiting Truckee area irrigation systems to two uses per week.
The agency is relying on complaints to catch those abusing water privileges and fines begin at the second violation.
By Howard Stutz Las Vegas Review-Journal
CG Technology CEO Lee Amaitis wanted to know the whereabouts of about $9 million that Nevada sports book operators paid to the federal government last year through a tax on all sports wagers.
It seemed like a simple question.
Amaitis asked Rep Dina Titus, D-Nev., if she could find out.
The Internal Revenue Service took several months to answer the query posed by Titus’ legislative director, David Rosenbaum.
The question seemed to perplex the agency. The IRS couldn’t answer how the money was being used.
The congresswoman then devised her own response. She introduced a bill last month to repeal the tax.
“The IRS didn’t even know it existed,” Titus said. “The money just went into some black hole in the general fund.”
In the grand scheme of the federal government, we’re not talking about a lot of money.
Nevada sports book operators pay 0.0025 percent in a federal handle tax on every sports wager placed in the Silver State.
In 2013, based on the record $3.6 billion wagered on college and professional sports, the amount sent to the IRS was $9 million.
Local author John Hindmarsh will launch his new thriller “Mark Two” on Oct. 21 at the South Lake Tahoe Library.
Hindmarch’s second book will be released in November. It continues where “Mark One” left off.
He will give a free talk starting at 6pm about the art of writing and self-publishing. His book will be for sale and he will be signing the.
The library is at 1000 Rufus Allen Blvd.
By Paul Hagey, Inman News
New technology is taking virtual tours a step further by letting buyers drive cameras mounted on remote-controlled vehicles through distant homes, venturing from room to room, peeking around corners and taking in near-360-degree views from multiple vantage points.
San Francisco-based luxury real estate developer JMA Ventures — which also owns Homewood Mountain Resort — is using a system developed by Suitable Technologies Inc. to let homebuyers roam through its properties and communicate with sales agents in real time from anywhere in the world.
The Beam Pro stands over 5 feet tall and can travel over 2 miles per hour.
Key to the experience is Suitable Technologies’ robot-like Beam Pro. The remote-controlled vehicle, which stands over 5 feet tall, transmits a video feed of homebuyers’ faces onto a 17-inch screen and broadcasts their voices through six speakers arrayed on both Beam’s front and back.
Buyers, in turn, see their surroundings through Beam’s wide-angle camera as they use a computer keyboard to guide it, tooling around at speeds that can exceed 2 miles per hour. Users can also hear the sounds it picks up with its two microphones, as information is transmitted to and from the device by a high-speed Wi-Fi network.
JMA Ventures has been using four Beam Pros for about a year to help sell properties near San Francisco’s iconic Ghirardelli Square, and also Lake Tahoe, to luxury buyers from around the world who don’t always have the time to tour homes in person.
First responders contend with 47 injuries and a plane on fire during a drill at Lake Tahoe Airport. Photos/Kathryn Reed
By Kathryn Reed
It was controlled chaos inside and outside of the airport in South Lake Tahoe on Monday as first responders and staff were put to the test in a mass casualty incident.
A C130J airplane carrying 47 people crashed while landing – at least that was the scenario for the Aug. 25 drill.
The city has a specialized fire truck stationed at the airport just in case of an incident like this. It can pump 1,500 gallons of water, while a normal fire engine has 500 to 700 gallons. Normally an engineer with the fire department would operate this truck, though there are a handful of airport employees who are also trained to use it.
In addition to the water it has a foam substance that is used because it acts as a barrier by cutting off oxygen for the fuel. Purple K is a powder substance that the truck has for engine fires.
South Lake Tahoe Fire Chief Jeff Meston, standing, checks in at the emergency operations center.
While a complete debriefing is yet to come, the initial reactions from South Lake Tahoe Fire Chief Jeff Meston and City Manager Nancy Kerry is that it went well.
The biggest glitch was the technology breakdown in the emergency operations center. The Internet was down. Email wasn’t working.
Staff was tasked with doing jobs they don’t normally do. In the emergency center, which is where the City Council meets and in an actual incident would be off-limits to the media, there are predesignated groups in charge of specialized tasks.
Victims in the path of a fire hose.
Lauren Thomaselli, who works in parks and rec, is handling logistics. She has to figure out where the chaplain can meet with family members. A bus has been ordered to take able-bodied victims to the Red Cross shelter at the city’s recreation center.
Lts. Brian Williams and David Stevenson are working the law enforcement side. (Normally only one of them would be at the center.) They are making sure there are refrigerated trucks for the bodies. They have contacted the FBI in case this turns out to be a terrorist attack. The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration are contacted.
People are constantly being interrupted to be updated with facts – number of those injured, killed, where they had been taken, that the FAA is on site, that the media needs to be briefed.
Paramedics lift a victim onto a gurney.
At various times the heads of each sector meet separately to assess how things are going, what needs to be done and what each will be doing going forward.
Hilary Roverud, who is in charge of the city’s planning department, leads these meetings.
“Hilary did a bang-up job as planning chief,” Meston tells Lake Tahoe News.
What Meston was initially most happy about was seeing the type of air support that is available to the city.
“I feel 1,000 percent better knowing that the military is a call away. They could have transported all the injured in their units,” Meston said.
Chinook and Black Hawk helicopters were part of the training. The C130J – had it not been the training module – is also designed to ferry people. Inside it is like a flying hospital, where patients can be stacked three high in the center on suspended gurneys. Flight nurses are registered nurses and the medical technicians have at least their EMT, while most are at the LVN level.
“Because we are so isolated and have one hospital, to fly people out is critical,” Meston said.
Still, the weather in Tahoe is not always conducive to flying.
That is why the fleet of ambulances was lined up on the tarmac as well. And with those vehicles come the paramedics whose job it is to assess the needs of those who are injured and get the most critically wounded to a hospital ASAP.
Just outside the danger zone is South Lake Tahoe firefighter/paramedic Mike Mileski. He has one of the more difficult jobs because he is coordinating the medical response.
People are yelling for tourniquets and backboards.
Ambulances are ready to whisk patients to Barton Hospital.
California Conservation Corps members are the victims. One has a foreign object sticking out of her shin; others have blood dripping from their faces. It takes personnel time to assess all the injured.
On the far side of the aircraft firefighters are putting out the “fire”, even getting some victims wet. South Lake Tahoe Capt. Mark WyGant is working along side firefighter Steve Pevenage of Lake Valley fire. It shows the cooperation that would take place in a real scenario.
While these two agencies often work together, others who were part of the drill are not always immediate partners. But they would be in situation like this or if there were another Angora Fire.
Some of the other agencies involved in the drill were, South Lake Tahoe police, Fallen Leaf Lake fire, Carson City fire, El Dorado County sheriff’s, El Dorado search and rescue, CalFire, CareFlight, Air National Guard, El Dorado probation, Barton, CalStar, North Lake Tahoe fire, Tahoe Douglas fire, Meeks Bay fire and Truckee fire.
By Larry Weitzman
Some people take their losses and move on, others are vindictive. Sometimes when you want retribution and revenge after a loss, your actions are not only spiteful and selfish, but costly. That can be said for termed-out El Dorado County Board of Supervisor Ron Briggs who will lose his $77,000 a year job at the end of the year.
Briggs, knowing he will soon be out of a job, made a run for another political office this past June — for EDC tax-collector/treasurer. He lost decisively.
So what does Briggs do? First, he attempts to eliminate the tax collector’s office, along with other non-state mandated elected offices such as the all important controller-auditor’s office from being elected to becoming appointed. Hey, if you can’t win the election, maybe you can eliminate the elected office and get the appointment. (There is a Charter provision that prevents for one year elected officials from receiving such an appointment, but after a year it would be legal). It would also be a big raise in salary for Briggs. The idea of changing the office from elected to appointed is still ongoing. It is under consideration by the Charter Review Committee as I write this column. It is an attempt to disenfranchise the voters of El Dorado County among other things and the balancing act.
And such a move would be a huge power grab by the “never been elected to anything” appointed bureaucrat Terri Daly, the county CAO, as she would have the power of such an appointment according to other changes she wants in the charter.
Actually, the approximately $140,000 treasurer’s salary is a bit low for an experienced CPA. In fact in what could be a vindictive move by Briggs, it was Briggs who sponsored the move to lower the salaries of certain elected department heads, including his opponent in the election he lost. But the upshot of this story is that at the same time, the Board of Supervisors recently gave a huge 15 percent raise to all other county employees (except deputy sheriff’s). Briggs reasoning certainly can’t be he is saving the county money, as this countywide raise is certain to cost tens of millions of dollars annually. There are about 1,400 county employees who received this giant raise. And the BOS, Briggs included, just approved a raise for the part-time indigent legal defense panel of 10 percent. It was an annual increase of about $75,000 in their total monthly retainer (it went up about $600 a month for each of the panel of 10) whether they work or not (the retainer is just a bit more than $6,500 a month, more on this issue in another column). It is even more pay then received by some fulltime public defenders. The salary cut for the auditor and tax collector was purely vindictive. You see, the incentives he cut from the current auditor-controller and tax collector/treasurer would not have affected Briggs if he had been fortunate enough to have won the election, as he is not a CPA and not even qualified to sit for the exam. But there is a whole lot more to this.
In another vindictive, selfish move, Briggs has proposed an ordinance that would require that all monetary transactions involving EDC be payable to or name solely the County of El Dorado on the financial instrument period, not the Building Department of El Dorado County or Tax Collector or County Recorder or if a person is actually named, like William Shultz, recorder. Briggs probably thinks his adversary in the election had a name recognition advantage in the election. But what is worse is that his ordinance would prohibit the negotiating any check by the county with a name on the check such as Raffety, Schultz or another department head or the department itself. Briggs speciously thinks perhaps there is a safety issue as if the named person might steal a check.
There are three very serious problems with Briggs’ vindictive thinking. First, in all the years Raffety has been the tax collector and Shultz has been the county recorder, there has never been a problem with this issue. In other words, nothing is broken. Second, if a check were not made out exactly to EDC and had a department name or another department head’s name on it, per the proposed policy, it would not be negotiable by the county. Think of all the computer generated, pre programmed property tax checks from homeowners’ escrow accounts or checks from title companies to record deeds that would have to be returned and the tax penalty, bookkeeping nightmare that would ensue. Even bigger nightmares would occur for deeds not getting recorded timely because of an improperly made out check. It would make the rollout of Obamacare look like child’s play. Those escrow holders will also be saddled with an expensive reprogramming. Many won’t do it at all.
And thirdly, as it happens, a California code section covering the payment of property taxes (Revenue and Taxation Code Section 2611.6 (h)) requires that instructions on all tax bills with respect to tendering property tax payments must include the NAME (emphasis added) and mailing address of the TAX COLLECTOR (again emphasis added). So at least two things will happen anyway. One, the taxpayers who pay personal and real property tax will see who the tax collector is (which the elimination thereof appears to be the sole purpose of Briggs’ ill thought out and ill advised ordinance) and two, it will cause confusion as to how to make out the check.
Under this proposed policy, any checks that are not made out to EDC will supposedly have to be returned. One other problem with eliminating the tax collector’s name is that with the tax collector’s name on the check it is another safeguard to ensure proper credit to the county property tax rolls for the taxpayer.
This entire proposal saddles the board with a needless waste of valuable time regarding this ridiculous proposal. And for what? Because he lost the election, an elected position he wasn’t even qualified to run for pursuant to the Robert Citron law (Government Code Section 27000.7) created in 1998 to prevent another Orange County bankruptcy.
Larry Weitzman is a resident of Rescue.
By Kathryn Reed
Galettes are described as free-form rustic tarts. My first one was so free form that it spilled over the sides, smoked up the oven and was not pretty.
It was a good thing this was not a competition because I would have failed on overall presentation.
But the taste. Wow. This really was scrumptious.
Merle in particular liked the crust. Sue liked the combo of fruits, especially since she had not had them together before.
The natural sweetness of the fruits means there is no need to add any sugar to the concoction. While this isn’t health food, it certainly is not the worst dessert in the world for you.
And I was able to get the fruit at a farmers’ market.
I didn’t make the “walls” solid enough, so as it was cooking the juices overflowed. It did not change the flavor, which was a good thing.
This made for a wonderful breakfast the next day.
Peach-Raspberry Galette
Pastry
1½ C all purpose flour
½ C cold butter
4-6 T cold water
Filling
3 T cornstarch
¾ C, plus 1 T sugar
1½ pounds peaches, cut into thick wedges
1 carton raspberries
2 T butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg white, lightly beaten
Optional
Vanilla ice cream
Mix flour and butter until it resembles coarse crumbs. Add water 1 tablespoon at a time until dough holds together. Form into a disk. Refrigerate in plastic wrap for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Combine cornstarch and ¾ cup sugar. Add peaches and raspberries. Stir together so fruit is covered with dry ingredients.
Roll dough into a 13-inch round. Put it on parchment paper-lined cookie sheet.
Put fruit filling into the center of the dough, leaving 2½ inches on the border. Fold dough up around fruit mixture to make a border. Coat crust with egg white wash.
Sprinkle crust with remaining sugar. Cut 2 tablespoons of butter onto fruit.
Bake 45 minutes or until bubbling. Crust should be golden.
It was 34 years ago this week that a bomb blew up Harveys at Stateline. Photo/Western Nevada Historic Photo Collection
Aug. 27 marks 34 years since the Harveys bombing.
I was the chief engineer of KRLT, whose transmitter is atop Harveys.
Of course, the building was evacuated and the station was off the air when the bomb was found. I was allowed to trek all the stairs to the roof the day after the bomb blast to check on our transmitter equipment. Iit was OK.
The building smelled like a wet, dark smoldering fireplace, and was pretty much hollowed out from the basement to the fourth and fifth floors. What a mess. The hallway on the sixth floor had an obvious bulge in the middle. Regardless, its concrete and steel structural integrity was such that the building was restored.
An FBI agent said I looked like one of the suspects and I was questioned.
This link is a terrific video by Chris Ronay of the FBI who investigated.
— Bill Kingman
Rosemary Manning can’t avoid getting wet as she walks to her vehicle at Blue Angel Cafe in South Lake Tahoe Aug. 25. Photo/Kathryn Reed
A fast moving storm dumped so much hail on the South Shore it looks like winter.
A flash food warning remains in effect until 9pm Aug. 25 from Stateline to Fallen Leaf Lake.
The National Weather Service in Reno is warning people who live near or are playing by Heavenly Valley Creek, Trout Creek, Taylor Creek and the Upper Truckee River that they should stay away from the water because it could rise quickly.
Pea-size hail looks like snow near Motel 6 in South Lake Tahoe. Photo/Susan Wood
Streets in South Lake Tahoe are a mess. Many storm drains are overflowing. Roads are covered in water. And where there isn’t standing water, there is measurable hail that looks like it just snowed.
“It seems like the majority of the thunderstorm was small hail,” Alex Hoon, meteorologist with the NWS in Reno told Lake Tahoe News. “This is pretty much it. We are not expecting much after this thing rolls through.”
Hoon said temperatures dropped to the upper 40s when the storm came through early Monday evening. Temps for the rest of the week are expected to be in the upper 70s.
— Lake Tahoe News staff report