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SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - It's been twelve years since Bijou Community School in South Lake Tahoe started offering two-way immersion classes where students become bilingual and learn Spanish and English in their daily work.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - The Amgen Tour of California 2019 is returning to South Lake Tahoe and the list of cyclists to participate has been released. Men’s Stage 2 race from Rancho Cordova to South Lake Tahoe will take place on May 13.

Amgen will feature the current top-three WorldTour teams and a world-class peloton featuring World and National Champions, Olympic and Tour de France veterans including:

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - It was another successful night of Dancing with the Tahoe Stars as contestants tapped, salsa'd, ballroomed and funked their way across the MontBleu stage, all to raise money for the Tahoe Arts Project (TAP).

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - The Bijou Marketplace in South Lake Tahoe is starting to take shape with the first business, Chase Bank, open and serving the public. Panda Express will most likely be the next to open.

Also confirmed for spaces with plans submitted and approved are Whole Foods and Hub Coffee, with a nail salon and Five Guys currently in plan review.

See the layout in the photo above and below are the confirmed businesses with applications on file going into the spaces:

3600 Lake Tahoe Blvd. Building A Unit 100 – Whole Foods

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - With a 400 acre plume of tetrachloroethylene (PCE) in some of the South Lake Tahoe groundwater, agencies tasked with protecting the local drinking supply updated the community on cleanup efforts and the status of the plume Wednesday evening.

Authorities originally identified the chemical entered the groundwater at the site of the old Lake Tahoe Laundry Works which was located at the South Y Center that is now home to Raley's and KMart.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - The premiere of the multi award-winning film, Life Cycles, will be held at a Tahoe Area Mountain Biking Association (TAMBA) fundraiser at South Lake Brewing Company on March 22.

Local Freshies® is hosting the event with the brewery located at 1920 Lake Tahoe Blvd. in South Lake Tahoe. Doors open at 6:00 p.m. and the show starts at 7:00 p.m. All ages are invited and the cost is $5 each.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - County Supervisor Sue Novasel was honored by Assemblyman Frank Bigelow as the 5th District's Woman of the Year during a special ceremony on Monday during a Floor Session in Sacramento.

Each year, the California Women’s Legislative Caucus sponsors and hosts its Woman of the Year event to honor women from around the state for all they do in their communities.

The best in business returns to the South Shore at the 2019 GO Local Business EXPO taking place Friday, March 29 at Harveys Lake Tahoe from 4:30-8:30 p.m. This annual event is a community favorite that aims to showcase the most cutting-edge businesses. Each year approximately 90 exhibitors feature their latest and greatest products, services and promotions. All members of the community are encouraged to attend and can expect a night of food tasting, beer and wine sampling, live music and vendor giveaways.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - During the winter that keeps on giving. local students have already had more than an average number of days off of school due to snow.

For Lake Tahoe Unified on the South Shore, students will not be going to school Tuesday, their sixth so far this year. The closed schools due to the "blizzard and Extremely low visibility."

Tahoe Truckee Unified School District on the North Shore is also closed Tuesday.

Incline Village schools will hold a Digital School Day.

Douglas County Schools at the Lake (Zephyr Cove Elementary and Whittell High) are closed.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Local celebrity, radio show host and comedian Howie Nave has teamed up with Paul Reder, co-owner of The Loft Tahoe, to bring national touring comedians to the intimate showroom inside the Heavenly Village.

Howie's House of Comedy will be open every Sunday in the Loft Theater starting March 3. Known for its award-winning magicians from around the world, the theater will now have some of the best names from the world of stand up comedy.

EL DORADO COUNTY, Calif. - Films, commercials, and television shows are shot all over South Lake Tahoe and the rest of El Dorado County, and many times the local film industry needs the help of the community to fill positions from catering to actors.

To learn how you can be part of the lights, camera, and action, plan on attending the El Dorado Lake Tahoe Film & Media Office annual "I Love Film Mixer" on Friday, March 22 from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the El Dorado County Fairgrounds in Placerville.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - John Albert Thompson, a Norwegian immigrant nicknamed Snowshoe Thompson, was the legendary 'Mailman of the Sierras' and a man many consider to be the father of California skiing.

His life will be celebrated in South Lake Tahoe on March 2, 2019, during the 19th annual Snowshoe Thompson Ski & Snowshoe Celebration at the Lake Tahoe Golf Course from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The cost for the day is a $10 donation for adults and kids under 12 are free.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - In an effort to bring more of the public to their meetings, the South Lake Tahoe City Council is holding their second meeting of each month in the evening.

Tuesday, February 19 will be the first night meeting for the new Council and the agenda appears to be fairly short. The meeting starts at 5:30 p.m. and the Council voted to not allow the night meetings to go past 10:00 p.m.

We are not unique in the fact that traffic apps have been showing shortcuts and causing headaches in neighborhoods, which have become freeways filled with people speeding through them to "save" up to a minute on their commute.

We do not have the luxury of support from our elected officials as other communities do, so we must come up with a solution ourselves.

Meyers is under siege every weekend with tourists trying to get home after a long weekend of enjoying what we sometimes take for granted and they are using traffic apps to try to get around the gridlock.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - The stories of 10-15 hours to get to Lake Tahoe from the Bay Area on Friday were not isolated, and many of the repeat reports are occurring on Saturday.

Epic ski conditions have beckoned visitors to the mountains over the three-day holiday weekend, but what created those ski conditions has also caused local roads that aren't passable and clogged highways with frequent closures.

LAKE TAHOE, Nev. - During the storm that hit Lake Tahoe on Saturday, February 9, several drivers decided to ignore closure signs on the Mt. Rose Highway and proceed without complying to chain requirements on the open portions. These vehicles became stuck in the heavy snowfall or stopped due to zero visibility white-out conditions, leading rescuers into what they call "life-threatening conditions."

While the rate at which trees died in California has slowed, an additional 18 million trees (mostly conifers) have died in the state, bringing a commitment from both the USDA Forest Service and CALFIRE to make forest health their top priority.

The USDA Forest Service announced today over 147 million trees have died across 9.7 million acres of federal, state, local and private lands in California since the drought began in 2010. Since 2016, federal, state, and local partners have felled 1.5 million dead trees, primarily those posing the highest hazards to life and property.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Each year Azul Latin Kitchen selects a local nonprofit to be the recipient of their fundraising for the year. In 2018, Live Violence Free (LVF) was the recipient of that generosity and today were presented a check for $16,917.50 at a ceremony at Lake Tahoe Community College.

The popular restaurant in the Heavenly Village in South Lake Tahoe had Tahoe Youth & Family Services as their nonprofit of choice last year and Tahoe Arts Project will get the funds in 2019.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - El Dorado County Sheriff's Office responds to calls throughout the county. The following are calls that only pertain to the South and West Shore, including Meyers, South Lake Tahoe, Meeks Bay, Tahoma, and the Echo Summit area. There may be some missing calls due to sheriff's logs not being completed at the time of the story.

Some of those recently added to last week's log:

1/23

4:51 a.m. - Missing Person - Price Road

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Analogies of touchdowns and goals were given to today's approval of a cannabis ordinance for South Lake Tahoe, the culmination of many months of meetings, discussion, disagreements and committee work.

On March 7, 2019, South Lake Tahoe will have a cannabis ordinance, opening the door to retail sales, cultivation, manufacturing, and lab testing businesses.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Fire Chief Jeff Meston is retiring from South Lake Tahoe Fire Rescue (SLTFR) on February 28, five years and five months after he came out of retirement to head up the department.

On Friday, February 1, Meston submitted his resignation to the City.

"When I was hired by CM (City Manager) Kerry I promised to spend between 3-5 years with the City Fire Department and bring them as far as I could to be a “world class” fire department," Meston said in his resignation letter.

He feels he's accomplished what he set out to do.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Fresh snow is covering all of the Sierra and Lake Tahoe, leaving and foot and above on local roadways. Here is a list of all road controls in the area as of 8:30 a.m.

US50

Chains Required, All Vehicles Except 4-Wheel Drive with Snow Tires - on US-50 from mile post 43.9 in El Dorado County to mile post 52.5 in El Dorado County in California.

Chains Required, All Vehicles Except 4-Wheel Drive with Snow Tires - on US-50 from mile post 0.0 in Douglas County to mile post 7.6 in Carson City County in Nevada.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Tahoe-area El Dorado County government offices will be closed Monday, February 4 due to weather. This includes the South Lake Tahoe Library.

Schools in South Lake Tahoe, Truckee Tahoe, Incline Village, Zephyr Cove will also be closed. Lake Tahoe Community College is closed.

Kirkwood Mountain Resort is closed.

Due to weather and road conditions, TTD transit routes 19x and 22 are canceled for the day, February 4, 2019.

Dance Classes at the Marcia Sarosik Dance Studio are closed today.

The following is a letter created by the four agencies currently working together to try and find a solution to the traffic problem in Meyers as visitors exit Lake Tahoe after a weekend. A public meeting was held on Friday night and that story will be carried on Saturday.