vote

Measure B is up for a vote. I am voting NO because the Lake Valley Fire Protection District spends most of its revenue on salaries and benefits leaving nothing to pay for new equipment.

Dear Chief Alameda:

Here’s my take on Measure B, please correct me if I am out of the ballpark.

Revenue for LVFD for FY 18/19 was $6.8 million/year.

Salaries/wages paid out were a whopping $5.3 million including Overtime: $175,000 and Other Pay including Bonuses: $591,000.

Equipment purchased last year: $77,000.

This year, 2018/19: Equipment budgeted: $22,000.

It is fairly obvious where all the money went: into salaries/wages and benefits.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - To celebrate the 5th year of The Tahoe Women’s Community Fund (TWCF), a record $125,000 will be granted to the South Shore Community this spring.

The 212 members of TWCF contributed to the fund and Lisa Maloff made another generous donation. The $125k they will be giving to the community through grants is 49 percent higher than last year.

Members vote where the grants will be focused and they've added a new category this year, the Inspiration Grant.

Categories

$40,000 Inspiration Grant
- Accepting grant requests up to $40,000.

MEYERS, Calif. - The El Dorado County Department of Transportation (DOT) is asking voters in Meyers and the county areas of South Lake Tahoe for money to replace their aging snow removal fleet and equipment.

On March 3, voters will be deciding whether or not they want to pay $60 more a year via their property taxes to fund CSA3 (from Strawberry to Meeks Bay to South Lake Tahoe City Limits). Measure M, if passed, will supply an extra $540,000 annually for the sole purpose of buying and leasing snow removal equipment. The funds could not be used for salaries, pensions or any other purpose.

With the March primaries just weeks away, voters will be considering not only their choices on the ballot but will also need to consider how they will cast their votes in South Lake Tahoe and El Dorado County.

With poor voter turnout, especially in South Lake Tahoe, and more registered voters choosing to vote by mail, the polling places set up on election days were not frequently used.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - The much-anticipated pairings for the Tahoe Arts Project's 8th annual Dancing With the Tahoe Stars have been announced!

The local celebrities met their professional partners Tuesday night during a party at the Hard Rock Casino.

"Everyone is super excited about it," said Tahoe Arts Project Executive Director Peggy Blowney.

The stars (on the left) and their dancing partners:

Debbie Brown, owner of Cold Water Brewery with Matthew Slater
Jeff Connor, local musician and California Burger partner with Rhonda Keen

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - It was announced Thursday that Lime, the world's largest scooter sharing company and part of the South Lake Tahoe landscape, is pulling out of 12 markets and laying off staff as it struggles to become profitable.

At this time there are no plans to leave South Lake Tahoe, one of their very first markets when they rolled out rideshare bicycles.

"Tahoe is not affected by the Lime issues at this time," said the City's Communication Manager Chris Fiore.

EL DORADO COUNTY, Calif. – Voters who have been mailed a postcard from the
El Dorado County Registrar of Voters Bill O’Neill indicating they are a "No Party Preference" may have to re-register.

“We are confident our mailing list of NPP voters is accurate, however, some voters may have had their party preference unknowingly changed as a result of automatic voter registration through the California Department of Motor Vehicles,” O’Neill said.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Ever since the South Lake Tahoe became an incorporated city on November 30, 1965, there have been five elected councilmembers. Annually those elected members vote for one of them to hold the position of mayor for a one-year term.

That has now changed.

On Tuesday the South Lake Tahoe City Council unanimously approved the proposal to have mayor terms of nine months "so they can all get a chance in their four-year term."

INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. - The Incline Village General Improvement District (IVGID) has announced that Trustee Phil Horan will be leaving his seat on December 16, 2019. His resignation is contingent on the closing of escrow on his home.

Horan and his wife Jan are moving out of the area and recently sold their home. He made the announcement at the IVGID board meeting on November 13.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Each year the South Lake Tahoe City Council chooses who is mayor and who is mayor pro tem during the upcoming twelve months. A wrench was thrown into that format by Councilman Cody Bass who asked that each mayoral term be just nine months so that all of the councilmembers could have a turn at the ceremonial position during their tenure.

What started as a conversation around the living room table in a South Lake Tahoe home has turned into a successful collective giving circle that has donated over $200,000 to the local community.

That one night has changed the lives of many as the Tahoe Women’s Community Fund (TWCF) formed under the guidance of Bill Roby and the El Dorado Community Foundation.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - During Tuesday's City Council meeting a development agreement with Redefining Organics, LLC was approved, making way for the first cannabis microbusiness since Tahoe Wellness was allowed to move operations from medical-use to adult-use cannabis.

Thank you for the opportunity to share the concerns of residents in the Ski Run /Needle Peak Road residential area with the proposed 112-foot Verizon cell tower.

There is an urgent need for the South Lake Tahoe City Council to adopt a cell tower ordinance to give reassurance to existing residents that their neighborhoods will not be compromised. There needs to be certainty to telecommunications companies by making clear where they can locate their facilities. An urgency ordinance may be adopted by the City Council with a 4/5 vote of its members.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Vacation Home Rentals (VHR) in South Lake Tahoe continue to be the hot topic, even months after a measure to ban most of them in the city limits narrowly passed in the November 2018 election. Voters approved Measure T by 58 votes.

The subject has created a big divide in the community and a decision by the South Lake Tahoe City Council Tuesday will not lessen that division though their intent is now clear.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - After much discussion, the South Lake Tahoe City Council voted to sign Memos of Understanding (MOUs) with the Tahoe Transportation District (TTD) and two developers to build affordable housing in the community.

Pacific Development Group and United Housing Corporation have identified properties, some which have already been purchased, to build housing for those who would be displaced by the proposed US 50 South Shore Community Revitalization Project which would move the highway through the Rocky Point neighborhood off Pioneer Trail.

August closes with a Chautauqua presentation “Sisters of the Sage” which will highlight the lives of Annie H. Martin, Lillian V. Finnegan and Anna N. Harris at the Dangberg Home Ranch Historic Park on Wednesday, August 28, at 6:30 pm.

These three influential women from the early days of Nevada will meet to reminisce about their early lives, the suffrage movement and their accomplishments as women, in both Carson Valley and Carson City.

Location

South Lake Tahoe’s renewable energy leadership is providing the opportunity for the installation of substantive solar projects on the rooftops and properties of public buildings throughout the Sierra. The City took on this leadership role in May after signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to become the lead agency for the Sierra under the Solar Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Fund, a not-for-profit program aimed to empower public agencies to evaluate and participate in regional collaborative procurement of municipal solar projects.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - "This is a nightmare," says life-long South Lake Tahoe resident Monica Eisenstecken.

Her summer has been filled with preparing to fight the South Lake Tahoe Planning Commission's decision in June to allow Verizon to place a 112’ monopine cell tower next door to the home her dad built (it could go as high as 123' with a ten percent change allowed).

LAKE TAHOE, Nev. - Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Lake Tahoe will host four celebrity meet-and-greet opportunities during the 30th annual American Century Championship Celebrity Golf Tournament next week, July 9-14.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Columbus Day has been a holiday at the federal level since 1934, one that honored Christopher Columbus for, what was once thought, the discovery of America.

In the last two decades, a lot of information has been uncovered that said, while Columbus was a brilliant mariner, he exploited and enslaved the indigenous population (according to the final volume of a compendium of Columbus-era documents published by the University of California, Los Angeles's Medieval and Renaissance Center in 2004).

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Indigenous Peoples' Day is replacing the Columbus Day holiday in cities around the country, and South Lake Tahoe could be next.

During their meeting on Tuesday, June 18, the City Council will vote on a resolution to rename the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples' Day in South Lake Tahoe. The first city to rename the holiday was Berkeley in 1992, followed by Santa Cruz in 1994 and since then cities across the country, as well as whole states, are adopting the new holiday.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - The current staffing level of the South Lake Tahoe Police Department (SLTPD) is 30 authorized, sworn officers, and even with this low number they are rarely at full staffing. During the summer of 2018, the department handled an average of 99 calls per day and had 196 incidents where no officer was available to respond immediately, and about 15 times a day they told callers to 911 the officer would be delayed.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Heading to the polls will soon have a different meaning to the voters of South Lake Tahoe and the rest of California as the one-day voting period ends and initiation of voting centers begin.

With the passage of SB450, the 2016 Voter's Choice Act, 11-day and 4-day voting centers are planned to begin in 2020 after being started in 2018 with pilot centers in five counties: Madera, Nevada, Napa, Sacramento and San Mateo. El Dorado County will start vote centers in the 2020 election pending approval from the Board of Supervisors.