development

A charity with operations in South Lake Tahoe is the recipient of the national $50,000 Gatorade "For the Love of Sports" campaign. Besides Lake Tahoe, SOS Outreach serves youth in Colorado and Seattle.

"Thank you to the Tahoe community for the support during the For the Love of Sports Campaign to help us win the $50,000," said Theresa Papandrea, VP of Youth Programs for Lake Tahoe.

Papandrea said the SOS Outreach efforts will serve around 700 local youth and 5,000 nationally.

With the dormitories at the University of Nevada Reno (UNR) currently at 121 percent of capacity, new housing projects are being built to accommodate the growing campus population.

One company that is helping create new housing opportunities in Reno is Pink Hill Properties, a company that has ties to South Lake Tahoe.

Pink Hill's co-CEOs Kevinn Pinkney and Garry Hill-Thomas both played basketball for the UNR Wolf Pack and later played professionally. Hill-Thomas is currently an assistant coach with the Reno Bighorns.

Hal Cole, the longest serving City Councilmember in South Lake Tahoe, was honored in a ceremony during Tuesday's Council meeting, his last one after 20.5 years on the dais.

Cole chose not to run for a sixth term this November.

He started off his public service career in 1990 when he was named to the SLT Building Board of Appeals, was a part of the development of the Bijou Community Plan in 1993 as a Planning Commission. In 1994, Cole moved over to the City Council and was elected to a four-year term five times. During that tenure he was the City's Mayor an unprecedented six times.

Roman Kreminski lives in South Lake Tahoe and, like many others, makes his living in building "Spec Homes," the process of building and selling homes for sale without any particular buyer in mind. It used to be a good business for Kreminski based on speculation of a strong real estate market and buyers waiting to invest in paradise.

He kept about five local families working full time to build the homes.

After Thursday's South Lake Tahoe Planning Commission meeting Kreminski said, "I'm done."

Legal action against the approved Martis Valley West project was taken in court Thursday as three groups, Sierra Watch, Mountain Area Preservation and the League to Save Lake Tahoe, joined forces to stop the controversial development proposal they feel threatens Lake Tahoe's clarity.

The Tahoe Resource Conservation District's Landscape Conservation Program is seeking input from past participants of the program in order to continue to serve the community with high quality services into the future.

If you have received services through the the Landscape Conservation Program in the past, we please ask that you take 5 minutes of your time to fill out the online survey at the link below.

https://www.esurveycreator.com/s/6609af1

Citing concerns for safety, under-age party goers and an already taxed law enforcement staff, the Douglas County Board of Commissioners denied an outdoor festival permit for SnowGlobe Late Night events December 29-31 at Stateline.

Chad Donnelly proposed the after-party each night of the annual concert to be held under a tent in the parking lot of Hard Rock Lake Tahoe from 10:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. The proposal was just in writing as neither Donnelly or representatives from the Hard Rock attended the meeting.

As a resident of the District for the past 38 years, with the last 11 years serving as Director for the Lake Valley Fire District (LVFD) Board and 10 years as Chairman of Cal Tahoe JPA, our local emergency medical service (EMS) provider, I wish to leverage my experience and continue my passion for community service as a Director of LVFD. With a distinguished career in public service of over 40 years, having many years of experience in oversight and management in local Fire District some noteworthy accomplishments are:

Who is John Shearer: Business owner, husband and father, captain, long-time local, and hard-worker, President of Marine Research & Education ( A non-profit educating youth about the lake and preserving the basin). Tourism Award-2014 Blue Ribbon Awards.

Focus: Tourism, recreation, infrastructure, and incentivising redevelopment and new development.

It is an exciting time to live on the South Shore – during a critical point in our region’s evolution and potential. It is time to set our course: moving away from bickering and blaming, exclusionary special interests and single-industry dominance to consensus-building and proactively choosing progress. Whether we live in Nevada or California, everyone benefits from uniting towards a sustainable vision for the South Shore.

A former member of both the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors and California State Assembly has been named the interim director of the El Dorado County Community Development Agency.

At the BOS meeting Tuesday, Roger Niello was appointed to fill the spot vacated when Steve Pedretti left the position for Placer County.

Niello begins his job November 2.

Before he went into public service, Niello managed the Niello Auto Group for
25 years until 1999.

Metal artist, and 1986 Douglas High graduate, Terrence Martin has made a name for himself in the world of public displays of unique art done in metal.

In 2015, Martin created the guitar that is on display outside of the Hard Rock Lake Tahoe. Thursday night, his latest creation was unveiled at the new Golden 1 Center, the new home of the Sacramento Kings.

A prime piece of real estate in Tahoe City that was originally built in 1957 for housing during the 1960 Olympics has never lived up to its potential, and is now proposed for destruction to make way for a 118-room hotel.

Sold at the end of 2013, the property known as the Hendrickson Building located at the west end of Tahoe City at 255 North Lake Blvd. is being transformed into the Tahoe City Lodge.

Pedestrian and bicycle transportation and safety will be among the topics at the 14th annual Nevada Bicycle and Pedestrian Summit, scheduled for Nov. 9 and 10 at the MontBleu Resort Casino in Lake Tahoe.

Developed to augment statewide bicycle and pedestrian resources, the summit will provide the latest information on bicycle tourism, facility planning and design, safety, enforcement and education initiatives, as well as Safe Routes to School and complete streets program information and more.

The South Lake Tahoe chapter of the Citizen's Climate Lobby recently asked all ten of the candidates their views on climate change, green buildings and our carbon footprint and how they can make a change if elected.

The Citizen's Climate Lobby is an organization focused on national policies to address climate change, and the South Lake Tahoe chapter is one of 354 in the United States and abroad.

Patricia Sussman of the local chapter said just five of the candidates responded to their questions.

The 2007 Douglas County Transportation Plan did not address any needs in the lake portion of the county, and the newly completed 2016 plan doesn't as well though it discusses a potential gondola from the base of Kingsbury Grade to Heavenly Mountain Resort.

The results of 2016's Douglas County Transportation Master Plan update will be presented during a public meeting on October 20 at 6:00 p.m. in the C.V.I.C. Hall.
Parsons Corporation, the organization which prepared the update, will give the presentation.

The Lake Tahoe Basin saw continued environmental improvement over the last four years, but faces major challenges from climate change, according to a draft 2015 Threshold Evaluation Report released by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA).

The report offers a detailed assessment of the health of Lake Tahoe and its treasured natural environment as indicated by 178 threshold standards in nine categories: Air quality, water quality, soil conservation, vegetation, fisheries, wildlife, scenic resources, noise, and recreation.

An old, blue building on the corner of Highway 50 and Sawmill Road adjacent to the Upper Truckee River is being demolished, and the sensitive land it sits on will be restored to natural wetlands.

The building is near the site of the historic Ethel's Pie Shop.

The 1.05 acre parcel was acquired by the California Tahoe Conservancy under its Tahoe Livable Communities Program in December 2015.

For the first time since 2008, El Dorado County’s Public Housing Authority will open its Housing Choice Voucher Waiting List. The Housing Choice Voucher Rental Assistance Program (formerly known as Section 8) is funded by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and provides rental assistance to income qualified individuals and families. Applicants must be United States citizens or have eligible immigration status.

More money is headed to preserve and restore Lake Tahoe. In Washington Wednesday the U.S. Senate passed its $415 million version of 2015's Lake Tahoe Restoration Act by a vote of 95-3.

The money for Lake Tahoe is part of the $10 billion Water Resources Development Act of 2016.

This is the first time the funding legislation to reauthorize the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act has cleared the full Senate even though its has succeeded at the committee level several times.

The Placer County Supervisors today approved one portion of the controversial Martis Valley Project on 1,052 acres adjacent to the Northstar California Resort, west of State Route 267.

Known at Martis Valley West, the project will add residential and commercial uses while permanently preserving 6,376-acres known as the East Parcel. Even though the acres will be preserved, 760 units and 6.6 acres of commercial area previously approved for the East via the Martis Valley Community Plan will be transferred to the West Parcel.

Starting in Fall 2016, Tahoe Youth & Family Services will begin contracting with Suicide Prevention Network of Douglas County to bring suicide prevention education and resources to residents of South Lake Tahoe.

The combined effort will provide community-wide awareness programs and mental health stigma reduction outreach. Suicide survivor grief support groups will also begin at the Tahoe Youth & Family Services’ counseling office at 1021 Fremont Avenue in South Lake Tahoe. Funding for the new program comes from an El Dorado County Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) grant.

Kirkwood Mountain and Vail Resorts are facing steep fines after an anonymous complaint led Central Valley Water Board officials to investigate water quality impacts after it was found that asphalt grindings from parking lots at the resort ended up in Kirkwood Creek during snow removal operations during the 2015-16 season.

It was found during the inspection that the asphalt grindings, commonly spread on parking lots to assist with traction during icy and snowy conditions, ended up in Kirkwood Creek and other sensitive areas.

I am lucky to have lived in South Lake Tahoe for 9 years and grateful to be raising my children in such a wonderful place. I received a Masters Degree in Land Use Planning from UNR and am currently a solution oriented AICP, Senior Planner at Midkiff & Associates. My commitment to community service led me to the Leadership Lake Tahoe program, board membership with the Tahoe Drug Free Coalition, the Chamber Government Affairs Committee and the fight against climate change.