INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. – The 2025 Incline Star Follies wrapped another standout season, filling the Incline High School Theater with music, laughter, and a whole lot of community spirit. Over two sold-out nights, audiences eagerly watched friends, neighbors, and local luminaries take the stage in a high-energy revue of music, dance, and comedy – proving once again that Incline’s got talent.
This beloved annual event blends professional-quality production with the playful charm of amateur performers — including teachers, business owners, students, and first-time stage stars. It’s all backed by a dedicated crew of volunteers who make the magic happen behind the scenes.
The 2025 Incline Star Follies Provided
“The Follies is about more than entertainment — it’s about connection, creativity, and having fun together while giving back,” said longtime producer Kathie Goldberg.
And give back it did. Proceeds from the event support Incline Village public schools through the Incline Education Fund – making the Follies not just a celebration of local talent, but also a powerful fundraiser.
This year’s production raised more than $80,000, thanks in large part to the generosity of the Dave & Cheryl Duffield Foundation. The Lake Tahoe–based organization offered a matching grant of up to $26,500, inspiring even more sponsorships and community donations to support local education.
The community is already anticipating the return of the Incline Star Follies in May 2026. The enthusiasm for this beloved tradition demonstrates its enduring legacy in Incline Village.
Meet the biggest little kitty in the world…Reno! She isn’t just a cat, though—she’s a cuddle-sized companion with curves for days and love to spare! With her plush proportions and loving personality, Reno is the perfect companion for anyone seeking a loyal lap cat.
Weighing in at 24lbs, this delightfully plump beauty is the queen of cozy and the champion of snuggles. If you’ve got a soft spot for big cats with even bigger hearts, Reno will win you over in an instant. She adores being petted, loves lounging like the royalty she is, and will greet you with the sweetest purrs and affection. Whether she’s stretched out in her favorite sunbeam or curled up beside you, Reno brings calm, joy, and a whole lot of warmth.
Reno is this week’s Pet of the Week. Provided / HSTT
Reno’s motto? More to love, more to cuddle. Ready to open your heart (and your lap) to this full-figured feline lovebug? Reno is waiting for her forever home, chubby cheeks, chunky belly, and all! Reno is spayed, vaccinated, and microchipped. If you are interested in meeting this giant ball of fur, or learning more about her, please reach out to one of HSTT’s Adoption Specialists at, 530-587-5948 or adoptions@hstt.org. To view more adoptable pets or to learn more about the Humane Society of Truckee-Tahoe, please visit www.hstt.org.
A man who recorded himself taking advantage of a woman who blacked out was sentenced to a maximum of 8-20 years on June 16.
Anthony Joel Arbis, 24, is already serving a 4-10-year sentence in California for taking pictures under women’s skirts.
It was the seizure of Arbis’ electronic devices as part of the investigation into the peeping case that resulted in an attempted sexual assault charge in Douglas County.
The survivor of the assault testified that she wasn’t aware she had been molested until authorities arrested Arbis and seized his electronic devices.
Attorney Mary Brown asked that Arbis’ sentence run simultaneously with his time in California.
Prosecutor Chelsea Mazza argued for consecutive terms, which was supported by the survivor.
Mazza said during interviews with police in California “he described himself as perverse.”
She said the victim was out with friends she trusted, and that Arbis took advantage of an unconscious woman.
Arbis acknowledged he violated the woman’s trust. The two were in a two-year relationship prior to the incident and were at Lake Tahoe to celebrate a relative’s engagement.
He said he would seek treatment where he could and that he hopped someday the woman would accept his apology.
“I still have purpose in my life,” he said.
The survivor said the last thing she remembered was getting into an elevator with Arbis after throwing up in the bar.
When she woke up the next morning she was in her pajamas, and she said she apologized to Arbis and thanked him for caring for her while unconscious.
She learned what happened at a family wedding when she asked Arbis why he was arrested. She testified he sat her down and told her he recorded himself assaulting her.
“I had no idea everyone else knew,” she said. “Most days I feel I can’t catch a break personally or professionally. I have to live with that, and so should he. Please let it end with me. He’s not sorry for what he did. He’s sorry he got caught.”
In addition to adding 8-20 years to any sentence he’s currently serving, Arbis is subject to lifetime registration as a sex offender.
INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. – An ages old Wá∙šiw (Washoe) story outlines the journey of a large black and white flightless bird that carried a pouch of seeds. What the bird did with those seeds would go on to have important implications for the people and land. It’s a story tribe member Herman Fillmore shared in his discussion on how culturally significant stories relay data and observations through time at the Ethnobiology Conference that took place last month at the University of Nevada, Reno’s Tahoe Campus.
As the Tribe’s Culture and Language Resources Director, Fillmore has been working with elders and children to preserve and sustain the Washoe language, including through these stories.
The culturally significant story continues with the bird sharing the seeds with multiple species who were navigating survival amid the harsh conditions of ice and snow.
“For Washoe people, that’s a big cultural teaching,” Fillmore explained, “to care for others, to give them what you have, to take care of the whole, right?”
Pinyon pine nuts on a table during the Ethnobiology Conference on May 24. Katelyn Welsh / Tahoe Daily Tribune
But that wasn’t the end of the story. As the seeds got low, the bird decided to plant them for the future. The story conveys how those seeds then grew into the pinyon pine (Pinus monophylla) that grows throughout the Great Basin today.
“This is something that Washoe people, because of our presence in this place,” Fillmore explained, “saw come to fruition.”
The story doesn’t just emphasize morals and teachings of the Washoe culture, it has also encapsulated observations, experiences and data, preserving them over time.
It’s information that Fillmore has shared with researchers David Thomas and Constance Millar on a project that explores the expansion of pinyon pine by incorporating tribal oral histories and ecological knowledge.
“And so in this project,” Fillmore said, “it’s been a lot of fun to go through and to talk about the importance of our pine nuts, but even more so, to give credence to the idea of this being a direct observation by Washoe people 12,000 years ago, when Pinus monophylla entered the western edge of the Great Basin.”
This wasn’t the only example of how the Wá∙šiw language, legends and stories reflect data and observations passed down generation to generation, many times over.
Another story Fillmore shared exhibited data synonymous with research initiated in the late 1990s that theorizes a tsunami.
The Wá∙šiw story follows two brothers in an incident in which the younger brother invokes a large wave that came from the western shore to the south shore. The tsunami theory of the nineties hypothesizes a landslide trigger that started the tsunami near McKinney Bay between 10,000 – 20,000 years ago—on the western shore.
“The cool part here is this connection with place, this observation, the capturing of this story, and the relaying of this information, not just in a generation’s time,” Fillmore expressed, “but for potentially 15,000 years.”
The story also names sacred sites for the Wá∙šiw people, including magóyat (Incline Village), dawgašásiw wáťa (Cave Rock), dawgašásiw wáťa (Taylor Creek), and dewbeyúmuweɁ (the Truckee River leaving the lake).
Washoe Tribe Culture and Language Resources Director, Herman Fillmore, was this year’s opening speaker at the Ethnobiology Conference in May.20205.05.22.ethnobio-8567
Fillmore stated the importance in recognizing how the Washoe people integrated data and observation as an inherent and organic part of their culture.
“It wasn’t something that was talked about or sought after,” he said, “but something that was a baseline understanding.”
Fillmore delved into how the very language that tells the stories also reveals another innate perspective of the Washoe people—that of reciprocity for place.
This is demonstrated with the Wá∙šiw phrase that explains where someone is from. Rather than meaning “from this place,” Fillmore explained it means, “I am this place.”
“That this land is an extension of me and I’m an extension of place as well,” he added.
The Washoe language also displays a reverence for Lake Tahoe. One of the Tribe’s words for Lake Tahoe is dáɁaw. The direct translation means “the lake.” Its significance is reflected in the fact that other regional lakes have qualifiers in front of dáɁaw.
“And so I really like the idea of the reverence for this place. That when you refer to just a lake, everybody recognizes it as the Tahoe Basin,” Fillmore said. “Any of the other lakes you talk about, you might want to add something to it because it just doesn’t compare, right?”
Herman Fillmore writes Washoe words on a whiteboard at the Ethnobiology Conference on May 22.Katelyn Welsh / Tahoe Daily Tribune
Herman shared that much of the tribe’s work today in the Tahoe Basin has been elevating the concept of the lake as a person, to give it personhood, credence and protection.
The 46th Annual Conference of the Society of Ethnobiology took place May 21-24, discussing topics of the interdisciplinary study that delves into the relationships among peoples, plants and animals, as well as their environments.
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – The El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office, Office of Emergency Services, announced that there is a hazardous materials incident occurring at the pier to Camp Richardson. There is concern that the water system for the homes along Jameson Beach Road may be impacted.
Out of an abundance of caution, they are asking homeowners along Jameson Beach Road to not use your water system until we can evaluate the potential impacts. There will be further information as to the developments of this incident and its potential impacts.
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – The Lake Tahoe Unified School District proudly announced Jason Cox as Bus Driver of the Year, an honor voted on by his peers in recognition of his dedication, professionalism, and team spirit.
The celebration was part of a special recognition event where LTUSD leadership expressed deep appreciation for the entire transportation team. Superintendent Cutler thanked all of the district’s bus drivers and mechanics for their commitment to safely transporting students each day through the challenges of Tahoe’s snowy winters, ongoing spring and summer road construction, and even long-distance routes reaching as far as Elko Nevada.
Jason Cox and Andy BurrowProvided
“We’re incredibly thankful for the way you deliver our students smoothly and safely, day in and day out,” said Dr. Cutler. He also extended his gratitude to Transportation Supervisor Coral Lathrop for her leadership and continued support of the team.
Associate Superintendent Alan Reeder added a special acknowledgment to all bus drivers, noting that they are known for being “cool with the kids” — a testament to the positive connections LTUSD drivers build with students each day.
In accepting the award, Jason Cox humbly stated, “It’s truly a team effort.” His words reflect the strong camaraderie and shared commitment that define the LTUSD Transportation Department.
We all know that pets provide us with valuable companionship, but did you know that there are several other benefits to owning a pet? Benefits that can actually improve our health and mental well-being. It’s been said that pets have been used to help aid health and social-emotional well-being in humans dating as far back as the days of Florence Nightingale, a renowned nurse during the early 19th century, who was said to have used pets to help speed the healing process of wounded soldiers. In the 1960s, psychiatrist Boris Levinson utilized his dog, Jingles, with his young patients to create a more comfortable environment, helping them feel at ease during therapy sessions. Levinson has been credited with coining the term “therapy dog,” which has since created a new realm of beneficial interaction between pets and humans.
Provided / HSTT
Not only do pets provide us with comfort, love, and affection, but research-based findings prove that having a pet can also help humans in other ways. According to the National Institutes of Health, pets help decrease stress and anxiety, improve heart health, and even help children with their emotional and social skills.
The benefits of owning a pet extend beyond companionship; they can significantly contribute to reducing stress levels. Engaging in the simple act of petting a dog is known to promote relaxation and lower anxiety. According to research done by the Cleveland Clinic as well as an article published through Harvard Health, petting an animal can actually decrease the stress hormone, cortisol, in turn helping to decrease your blood pressure while overall helping you feel less stressed. In 2022, a survey sent out by the American Heart Association concluded that 95% of pet owners stated that they rely on their pets for stress relief.
In addition, owning a dog in particular encourages regular physical activity through walks and playtime, which not only helps alleviate stress but also positively impacts a person’s overall physical health. For many dog owners, walking their dogs is part of their daily routine. This combination of emotional support and exercise makes having a dog a holistic approach to improving overall well-being.
As mentioned previously, the interaction between pets and children can have a significant impact on their social and emotional state. There are many programs that exist and have shown significant positive results for students in school settings. At the Humane Society of Truckee-Tahoe (HSTT), we operate many programs geared at not only educating children but also promoting dog bite prevention, pet safety, increased literacy skills, and social and emotional well-being in conjunction with various school wellness centers/school counselors. An inviting and relaxing environment allows students to feel at ease and more comfortable. HSTT pet-assisted therapy teams help students and children in our community through programs we offer at local libraries, school wellness centers, classroom visits and fields trips, and in conjunction with the R.U.F.F. (Read Up For Fun) program (a program aimed at helping struggling students with reading). All of our visits involve creating strong bonds between the pet therapy dogs and youth in our communities, creating a relaxing, stress reduced and judgment-free environment.
HSTT partners with local libraries, school wellness centers, classroom visits and fields trips, and in conjunction with the R.U.F.F. (Read Up For Fun) program.Provided / HSTT
HSTT also offers pet therapy programs intended to help patients at local hospitals, stress-reducing visits during high school and middle-school midterms/finals, and college de-stress nights. HSTT pet therapy programs are offered in Truckee, North Lake Tahoe, and South Lake Tahoe.
Are you yearning for the companionship and joy that only a pet can provide, but don’t have one of your own at home? Volunteering with HSTT could be the perfect solution for you! By signing up, you can engage in hands-on experiences with pets that truly need your love and attention. Not only will you have the opportunity to connect with adorable animals, gaining invaluable experience that can enrich your life, but you will also play a vital role in assisting homeless pets in finding their forever homes. This rewarding endeavor offers a fantastic chance to engage in a stress-reducing activity that enhances your well-being while making a significant difference in the lives of animals waiting for adoption.
Provided / HSTT
However, most importantly, consider adopting a pet in need. At HSTT we offer an amazing array of great animals, each cared for by our volunteers and knowledgeable staff who take the time to truly understand their personalities and needs. In a world that often feels disconnected and fast-paced, pets remind us of the simple joys of companionship. They are not just animals; they are family members who provide unwavering love, support, and countless benefits to our emotional and physical well-being.
With the numerous benefits of pet ownership and the pressing pet overpopulation crisis in America, there has never been a more crucial time to consider adopting an animal in need. Every year, countless pets find themselves without a home, longing for love and companionship. By choosing to adopt, you not only save a life but also enrich your own. Explore the incredible pets available for adoption by visiting HSTT’s website or following us on social media. Each furry friend waiting for a forever home has a unique story and personality, ready to bring joy, comfort, and unconditional love into your life. Not only will you save a life in need, but improve yours as well. Embrace the empowering journey of pet adoption, it’s not just about giving a pet a second chance, it’s also about transforming your own life for the better.
To find out more about the programs offered at the Humane Society of Truckee-Tahoe or a list of animals awaiting their forever homes, please visit, www.hstt.org.
It’s back! Every June, the eerie yellow pollen arrives, an unwelcome guest dusting everything in sight. Reaching for a tissue and a plan, I brace myself for the season. During my research for the honey book, a Reno beekeeper, eager to introduce me to his new queen bees, shared his wisdom about nature’s nectar. I left with a jar of his golden honey, and, following his advice, I took a daily tablespoon of the local product. Honey experts suggested that consuming local honey could help my immune system adapt to the local pollen, reducing allergy miseries. Whether it was the honey, or a combo of tactics, I found myself better equipped to face the yellow powder that coated my world on the South Shore.
The presence of yellow pollen in the Lake Tahoe area during early summer is a common phenomenon. Here’s its potential health impacts, and tips to adapt to the yucky yellow stuff.
So, What is Yellow Pollen, Anyhow? Yellow pollen in the Tahoe area, in early summer, is primarily from pine trees. Pine trees are prolific pollen producers, and their pollen is easily spread by the wind. The result: Tell-tale yellow dust that can coat your car, yard, clothes, and even be visible on the lake’s surface.
Is the Yucky Powder Unhealthy? Nah, but it can trigger allergic reactions in sensitive individuals, like me, and maybe you. Symptoms of tree pollen allergies include sneezing, itchy eyes, throat, and watery eyes. Blame it on the body’s immune system overreacting to the pollen, releasing histamine that causes inflammation.
How to Deal with Yellow Pollen: Check local pollen forecasts: (AccuWeather website) to anticipate high pollen days. Keep Windows and Doors Closed: This helps prevent pollen from entering your home. Shower and Change Clothes: After being outdoors, shower and change clothes to zap pollen. Try Allergy Medications: Over-the-counter antihistamines can help alleviate symptoms. Consider an Air Purifier (or two): An air purifier with a HEPA filter can help remove pollen from indoor air. And consider what you consume, too…
Anti-Pollen Diet: Hydration: Drinking plenty of water and tea to help thin nasal mucus and ease congestion. Vitamin C-rich foods: Some studies suggest Vitamin C may have antihistamine properties. Consider citrus fruits, berries, and bell peppers. Probiotic-rich foods: Probiotics may help curb the immune response. Yogurt is a good source.
Honey to the Rescue: Go ahead—drizzle honey in your yogurt, like I do. Check out local honey producers. Warning: To avoid infant botulism, don’t feed honey to a baby who is younger than one year.
In a nutshell, by July sometime the yellow dust will say goodbye and you’ll be ready for other summertime air quality culprits—but you’ll be better prepared.
CAL OREY, M.A., is a bestselling author-novelist specializing in topics such as adventure, health, nutrition, and science. She holds a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in English (Creative Writing) from San Francisco State University. Her books include the popular Healing Powers series, and Courage with Paws: The Heart of a Siamese Cat, (Book 2) Time-Traveling Tabby, and a thrilling co-authored sci-fi series–The Ghost Ships. She is a South Lake Tahoe local. Her website is www.calorey.com
Two years ago, I was writing about the high inflation of 2022 and 2023. Right around that time inflation started dropping dramatically, all the way to where it sits now—below 3%. Meanwhile, interest rates have not dropped, and are holding at rates substantially higher than we saw just a few years ago. The 10-year treasury rate is sitting at 4.4%, compared to 1.6% at the beginning of 2022.
All of this means that—for the moment—you can actually find money market funds and CDs that are paying interest rates above the rate of inflation! As an example, Schwab’s Treasury Obligations Money Market Fund (SNOXX) paid a 7-day yield equivalent of 4.00% as of June 13th. That’s a full percentage point—or more– than the current rate of inflation!
However, operating on the assumption that this will continue would be like assuming that because our lake here in Tahoe is now full, it will remain full. We’ve all been around long enough to watch the cycles of snow and drought that see the lake lower, and then fill, and then lower again. It was just a few years ago that we saw boats getting beached hundreds of feet out from shore due to the low water level in the lake.
Similarly, don’t be fooled into thinking that these safe investment rates will always outpace inflation. Money invested in CDs and money markets often loses buying power due to inflation. Unsatisfyingly, it can be very hard to predict when this change might occur.
Many economists are projecting that any new tariffs will cause some inflation. At the same time, consensus projections for interest rates suggest the possibility that the Fed will cut rates sometime this year. If those two things were to happen, we could very quickly be back in an environment where CDs and money market funds can’t keep up, and those sorts of cash-equivalent assets are losing value.
So, what is a smart investor to do? For starters, don’t do anything rash! If you’ve built a portfolio that makes sense for your timeframe, goals and risk tolerance, you shouldn’t need to make major changes. Some smaller tweaks around the edges may make sense, depending on your situation.
If interest rates do fall and you need less-volatile assets, it is more advantageous to hold bonds than to hold cash. Remember, bonds go up in value as interest rates fall. Cash, on the other hand, brings a lower rate of return when interest rates fall. Of course, nobody knows what happens next, and if inflation does increase it’s quite likely that interest rates will eventually follow higher. To hedge against this possibility, you could consider keeping your bond holdings to a shorter-duration, so that there is less volatility when rates change. If rates do spike higher in the future, it might be an opportunity to trade in those short-term bonds for some longer-term ones to lock in those higher rates.
A diversified equity (stock) portfolio is arguably your best chance of beating inflation over the long run. With average annual returns, per Investopedia, of approximately 10% before inflation (assuming reinvestment of dividends) for the S&P 500 Index over nearly 100 years, there have been very few 10-year periods when stocks did not outperform inflation. Adjusting the amount of equities in your portfolio depending on your timeframe, goals and risk tolerance remains critical, so make sure that you still have appropriate amounts of bonds, cash, and possibly real estate and commodities as well for balance.
Like the lake, financial conditions are always changing—but with the right preparation, you can stay afloat for all seasons.
Whatever route you take to deal with inflation, invest smart and invest well!
Larry Sidney is a Zephyr Cove-based Investment Advisor Representative. Information is found at https://palisadeinvestments.com/ or by calling 775-299-4600 x702. This is not a solicitation to buy or sell securities. Clients may hold positions mentioned in this article. Returns are not guaranteed and past performance does not guarantee future results. Consult your financial advisor before purchasing any security.
A Request to Reconsider the Tournament in Honor of Giada
Dear Members of the High Sierra Softball Board,
First, I want to thank you for your dedication to the players, families, and community that make up our softball league. I write to you today with a heavy heart following the tragic loss of Giada — a bright, joyful soul who touched many lives both on and off the field. My heart goes out to her family, her teammates, and to all who loved her.
I deeply respect and understand the board’s decision to cancel the tournament as an expression of mourning and solidarity. It’s clear that this community feels Giada’s absence profoundly. At the same time, I would like to share a different perspective that I hope you will consider with open hearts.
Giada was a softball player, and from all accounts, she lived with joy, energy, and a love for the game. In the spirit of “Live Like Giada,” I believe we can best honor her memory not by silence or cancellation, but by coming together to play the game she loved. Let the field be a place of tribute — full of laughter, teamwork, and passion — the very things Giada brought to her team.
By allowing the tournament to go on, not only do we give closure to the girls who worked so hard all season, but we also create an opportunity to celebrate Giada’s life in a way that reflects her spirit. Imagine beginning the tournament with a moment of silence, wearing ribbons or patches with her name, dedicating the event in her honor — transforming grief into something beautiful and lasting.
While no single decision will feel perfect in the face of such a loss, I truly believe that continuing the tournament in her memory offers healing, hope, and a way for all the players to say goodbye — through the game Giada loved.
With the deepest respect and empathy for all involved, I hope you will reconsider. Let this season end not in sorrow, but in unity, joy, and remembrance.
Imagine Lake Tahoe with high rises ringing all 72 miles of shoreline and waters that are muddy or gray. This picture is what we might be seeing today if many Lake Tahoe champions had not come together in the late 1960s to form the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA). While the “fairest picture the whole earth affords,” as Mark Twain once described Lake Tahoe, still takes our breath away today, the Tahoe Basin is facing new and unprecedented threats.
The clarity of the lake itself is susceptible to changes in and out of the Tahoe Basin, especially during summer months. The annual Lake Tahoe clarity report released by UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center this week indicates that while clarity is holding steady overall and clarity during winter months may be improving, summer clarity is declining. TRPA is working with the Tahoe Science Advisory Council to learn more about the drivers of clarity in the lake and to understand the role factors like extreme weather, warming temperatures, aquatic invasive species, and wildfire smoke are playing. Just as important to this research are continued strategies to restore clarity, which averaged nearly 100 feet when UC Davis researchers began measuring it in the late 1960s. At that time, a city the size of San Francisco, complete with freeways and a bridge over Emerald Bay, was planned for the Tahoe Basin. TRPA’s creation led to protections for sensitive lands, regional environmental standards, and caps on future development.
However, damage had already been done. The lake lost about 1 foot of clarity every year for 30 years before stabilizing in the 2000s. Over the last 20 years, year-round clarity has averaged 69 feet. Scientists have pointed to fine sediment from erosion and polluted stormwater, and algae growth from additional nitrogen and phosphorus entering the lake as the main factors in lost clarity. In 2011, TRPA, state water quality agencies, and local governments adopted the Clarity Challenge, a science-based plan to achieve the 100-foot clarity goal by 2076. The plan calls for property owners, land managers, and local governments to reduce pollutants entering the lake through erosion control projects, stormwater treatment systems, and restoration of wetlands damaged by earlier development.
Despite the mixed trajectory of lake clarity, the Tahoe Basin is meeting or exceeding interim targets for reducing pollutants. Under the Lake Tahoe Environmental Improvement Program (EIP), public and private water quality investments are keeping more than 500,000 pounds of pollutants out of the lake every year, just from urban areas alone. Scientists tell us these reductions are improving water quality, and we need to stay the course while supporting research to better understand the complex drivers of lake clarity.
As with any landscape-scale restoration program, TRPA and our EIP partners can’t do this alone. You can help reduce erosion by staying on trails and parking on pavement instead of road shoulders. If you are a property owner, ensure your property is certified with the required stormwater Best Management Practices (BMPs). Reduce vehicle trips and engine emissions by using bike and pedestrian paths, taking free transit, or carpooling to get around.
I believe wholeheartedly there isn’t a better summer experience anywhere than at Lake Tahoe. With changing conditions around lake clarity, new threats from aquatic invasive species, wildfire, and more extreme weather, preserving that experience takes constant care and vigilance from us all. Whether you are here for one day or have lived in the Tahoe Basin for decades, everyone who loves this special place must work diligently to protect it.
Julie W. Regan is Executive Director of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency
Barred owls, with their vivid brown stripes, are acting like bullies of the forest in the Northwest, driving their smaller cousins, the northern spotted owl, to the brink of extinction. Once barred owls start colonizing old-growth forests, rare spotted owls no longer have a home.
The survival of spotted owls meant a lot to me as a young environmental activist. In 1985, I spent days living on a plywood platform perched high in the canopy of an Oregon Douglas fir. The tree was majestic, over eight feet wide at the base—just one of many in a stand hundreds of years old.
If you’re a certain age you might recall the banners: GIVE A HOOT: SAVE THE SPOTTED OWL. They spawned a bumper sticker in what became a culture war: SAVE A LOGGER, EAT A SPOTTED OWL.
My 40-year career as a conservationist began in those Northwest timber wars as I joined other tree-sitters and protesters to halt the logging of gigantic old-growth trees.
The threatened survival of federally endangered spotted owls in the region’s forests became the central issue in a storm of litigation. In 1994, the dispute finally led to President Clinton protecting 24 million acres of ancient forest housing the owls. But even then, barred owls were invading from Eastern states, stealing a prey base of small animals from the spotted owls. The numbers of spotted owls continued to plummet.
Last August, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service signed off on a controversial Barred Owl Management Strategy that relies on hiring sharpshooters to kill up to 16,000 barred owls a year at a cost of up to $12 million. The plan aims to give spotted owls a chance to survive.
During the 1990s, President Clinton’s sweeping forest plan to save the owls by saving old-growth forests was among many highlights of my conservation career. But I also recall numerous lows-lows. The first was when I learned that loggers had chain sawed that huge tree I’d occupied.
Mostly, I’ve managed to be hopeful about conservation no matter the grief from accelerating losses on the ground. But here’s the dilemma: How are we to process the steady decline of the spotted owl? Conservationists won an epic battle against logging because of these owls, only to see their habitat becoming the arena for an owl-on-owl smackdown.
Must the solution be that we shoot one species to save another? The plan is based on research overseen by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, whose experiments showed that removing barred owls in limited areas could help spotted owls survive.
When the federal agency’s plan was announced, animal welfare interests sued to block it, arguing that it would fail. They also claimed the costs would add up to more than $1 billion over three decades. Officials at the agency say they will start small and demonstrate their plan’s effectiveness and affordability.
Mixed feelings like mine are shared. Madeleine Cameron, who was part of a University of Wisconsin team involved in experimental removals of barred owls, told the Seattle Times: “I personally did not decide to do owl work thinking this is where my career would be. You get there through watching all your favorite owls disappear.” Meanwhile, some biologists foresee adaptation and hybridization. “Sparred” owls already exist in the Northwest, filling the niche of displaced spotted owls.
Reluctantly, I support killing some barred owls. But like Cameron, this is not what drew me into conservation. And now the whole issue might be academic as the Trump administration disrupts scientific research and agency continuity.
Elon Musk’s cost-cutters fired more than 400 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees in March, an action the Supreme Court upheld April 8. With voluntary retirements and likely further reductions in force, it’s a real question whether the agency will have the funds or staff to carry out the shooting of barred owls.
Meanwhile, the bullies of the forest are winning.
Mitch Friedman is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit spurring lively conversation about the West. He heads Seattle-based Conservation Northwest, which he founded in 1989 after years with Earth First!. His book, Conservation Confidential: A Wild Path to a Less Polarizing and More Effective Activism, is about to be published.
Update June 23 at 11 a.m. – Yesterday evening, June 22, 2025, search and rescue efforts located and recovered one of the boaters who was still missing. The boater was deceased.
El Dorado County is continuing Search and Rescue operations today and utilizing dive team members from the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office, the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office and the San Joaquin Sheriff’s Office.
At this time, there are two survivors, seven deceased, and one still missing. The identifications of the deceased from the incident will not be released until proper notifications have been made.
Update June 22 at 3 p.m. – The Coast Guard suspended its search at 10:55 a.m., Sunday, pending further developments, for two missing people in the vicinity of D.L. Bliss State Park at Lake Tahoe after their boat capsized Saturday afternoon.
Coast Guard and partner agencies searched over 390 square miles for 12 combined hours.
“Suspending a search is always a difficult decision to make and weighs heavily on each Coast Guard member involved,” said Coast Guard Cmdr. David Herndon, a search and rescue mission coordinator assigned to Coast Guard Sector San Francisco. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and loved ones of those involved in the boat capsize.”
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – On Saturday, June 21, just before 5 p.m. the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office (EDSO) received multiple reports of a capsized boat in South Lake Tahoe, near D.L. Bliss State Park. Callers indicated that approximately 10 individuals were in the water near the vessel, with reported wave heights reaching 8 feet.
EDSO, in coordination with local emergency response partners, immediately responded to the area. Two individuals were rescued and transported to a local hospital. Tragically, six deceased adults were recovered from the water.
As of 10 p.m. on Saturday, two individuals remain unaccounted for.
EDSO Search and Rescue, along with the EDSO Dive Team, will return to the area in the morning to continue search operations.
The identities of the deceased will not be released until next-of-kin notifications have been made.
The Conner fire burning in the Pine Nuts east of Gardnerville is estimated to have grown to 2,000-2,500 acres, according to the incident command located at the Douglas County Fairgrounds.
An aircraft was dropping fire retardant on the fire as a firefighting helicopter flew buckets of water to the area east of Out R Way in the Pine Nut foothills.
The Conner Fire is named after the street where a 1:30 a.m. structure fire claimed two homes along the west edge of Pine View Estates. By 4 a.m. the fire spread into the old Numbers Burn and was burning north.
At firefighters’ request, NV energy shut power to 62 customers around 9:41 a.m. Most of those are located in Pine View Estates but there are a dozen scattered through the Pine Nut foothills.
A red flag warning is in effect through midnight tonight for gusty winds and low humidity, contributing to fire spread.
As of 10 a.m., authorities were closing Pine Nut 2 and Out R Way between Ruhenstroth and Fish Springs as winds gusting to 23 mph pushed the flames north.
“New evacuation orders have been issued for Pine Nut Road from Dump Road to Out R Way due to increased fire activity,” according to Douglas County.
“Reverse 911 notifications are being issued to alert residents in the affected zones,” said Douglas County spokesman Eric Cachinero. “All individuals in evacuation areas should leave immediately and follow instructions from emergency personnel. Do not delay evacuation to gather belongings.”
Cachinero directed evacuees to the Douglas County Community & Senior Center in Gardnerville during the day.
Douglas County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue has been working the barricades and reported a couple of people claiming to be residents drove past them.
The Sierra Front Interagency Dispatch reports state and federal resources have responded to the fire.
Fire engines and brush trucks responded to the blaze. Members of Tahoe Douglas Zephyr hand crew were staged along Pine Nut 2.
The incident command for the fire is at the Douglas County Fairgrounds.
Reno Fire is sending two engines to the fire and additional resources are being sought from Truckee Meadows.
Rep. Kevin Kiley Calls for Meaningful Local Input of Public Land Sales
WASHINGTON, D.C.
In response to the public land sales language in the Senate budget reconciliation bill, Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) has issued the following joint statement along with several other leaders in California’s Third District.
“It is crucial that any decisions made regarding the acquisition or disposition of public lands be made only after significant local input. Our district is home to some of the most breathtaking landscapes in the United States, and is a source of clean water, jobs, tax revenue, and recreation. Local buy-in is the key to preserving these spaces and guaranteeing that our policies benefit the people we represent. I will not support legislation that excludes local leaders from having a meaningful seat at the table for these important decisions,” said Rep. Kiley.
“In partnership with local governments, Congress recently reauthorized the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act (LTRA), which conserves land and sends the unambiguous message that Tahoe is not for sale. Decades before that, Congress ratified the bistate compact that governs land use planning at Lake Tahoe. Altogether, the Senate proposed language would reverse 50 years of standing land policy at Tahoe. Thank you, Rep. Kiley, for fighting for our public lands,” said Julie Regan, Executive Director of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA).
“Local and regional governments cannot be relegated to an advisory role in decisions related to the sale of our federal lands. The goal of affordable housing is one we all share, but the Senate language will not make measurable progress toward that goal, and instead would put local governments on defense, responding to nominations made by outside groups that may or may not align with local planning. I support Rep. Kiley in his effort to make sure local input is part of the discussion of public land sales,” said Cindy Gustafson, Placer County Board of Supervisors.
“Tahoe is not for sale! We strongly urge the Senate to remove this language in the reconciliation bill and instead work with local governments and local Indian tribes on sensible land policy that can achieve our shared goals to advance housing while protecting our natural resources,” said Brooke Laine, El Dorado County Board of Supervisors.
~ Rep. Kevin Kiley press release
Lake Tahoe Clarity Report — Trend Stable, Not Improving
LAKE TAHOE
Lake Tahoe’s long-term clarity record is not trending worse, nor is it improving, according to the 2024 annual clarity report from the University of California, Davis’ Tahoe Environmental Research Center (TERC).
The report, released June 16, documents steep declines in clarity through the 1990s before leveling off in recent years. In 2024, annual average clarity for Lake Tahoe was 62.3 feet. That is down from last year’s average of 68.2 feet, but it is not statistically worse, the report notes. The number is a measure of the depth at which a white disk remains visible underwater.
Winter clarity has been stable or improving in recent years, though was relatively poor (68.9 feet) in 2024 following an exceptional 91.9-foot average the winter prior. The past 10 summers have marked some of the worst averages on record, with 2024 summer averages measuring just 53.4 feet below the surface.
Detailed investigations conducted about 20 years ago pointed to sediment as the primary particles driving Tahoe’s clarity. A variety of management actions to reduce sediment runoff into the lake followed. Today, Lake Tahoe faces new challenges. It is warmer, more affected by wildfire and smoke than it was in recent decades, and its ecology is being impacted by aquatic invasive species.
NOT GETTING BETTER: The 2024 annual clarity report from the University of California, Davis’ Tahoe Environmental Research Center shows Lake Tahoe’s long-term clarity is not trending worse, but it’s not improving either. “We should embrace the improvements we have seen since the 1990s,” said Stephanie Hampton, director of TERC and a UC Davis professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy. “It’s not, at this point, noticeably worse. But it’s not getting better, and we need to find out why.” Pictured is Brandon Berry diving beneath Lake Tahoe. Photo by Brant Allen
The report said future research should use new data, tools and technologies to reexamine the nature of clarity-reducing particles. This will help reveal the extent to which biology — such as algae — and physical processes influence water clarity at Lake Tahoe.
Clarity is measured as the depth to which a 10-inch white disk, called a Secchi disk, remains visible when lowered into the water. In 2024, UC Davis scientists took 27 readings at Lake Tahoe’s long-term index station and 12 readings from the mid-lake index station. View the historical clarity readings from 1968 to 2024.
UC Davis has been measuring clarity and other health indicators at Lake Tahoe since 1968. Clarity is just one measure of the health of the watershed, but TERC’s measurements of clarity loss in the 1950s and 1960s became central to efforts to protect the watershed from pollution and unplanned development.
~ UC Davis TERC press release
New Signs Help Remind Everyone to Keep Tahoe Beaches Clean
PLACER COUNTY
Officials from the Placer County Sheriff’s Office and Placer County want to remind tourists and residents throughout the Lake Tahoe Basin to follow the county’s beach ordinances this summer.
From Tahoe City to Kings Beach, the following rules apply to locals and tourists alike:
No dogs allowed on the beach or in the water
No glass containers
No littering
No smoking, fires, or BBQs
Alcohol is prohibited at most county beaches
And a reminder to stay safe; many beaches do not have a lifeguard on duty
The county is working collaboratively with local utility districts, state parks, and the federal forest service to ensure beachgoers enjoy safe access and clean beaches throughout the North Lake Tahoe region. Rules may vary at Skylandia Park and Beach near Tahoe City and visitors are encouraged to follow the posted signage during their stay.
In case of an emergency, call 9-1-1. For non-emergency calls, dial the Placer County Sheriff’s non-emergency dispatch at (530) 886-5375.
Tax Relief Available for Property Owners Affected by Disasters
NEVADA COUNTY
Tax relief is available to property owners living in Nevada County who have experienced severe weather-related property damage such as wildfires and snowstorms in recent years, according to Nevada County Assessor Rolf Kleinhans.
The California Revenue and Taxation Code allows qualifying property owners impacted by misfortune or calamity to receive a temporary reduction in assessed value, resulting in lower property taxes. Millions of dollars in tax relief have been granted in recent years for storm-related property damage, said Kleinhans.
To qualify, property damage must exceed $10,000 in market value and applicants must file claims with the assessor’s office within one year of the calamity. If the damage meets the $10,000 threshold, the assessor will temporarily reduce the property value while the damaged property is restored.
Humane Society’s Field Trip Program Aims to Boost Dog Adoptions
TRUCKEE
The Humane Society of Truckee-Tahoe’s Shelter Dog Field Trips program is an innovative initiative that allows trained volunteers to take dogs out of the shelter for short adventures designed to improve the animals’ well-being and adoption prospects.
FIELD TRIP OF A LIFETIME: The Humane Society of Truckee-Tahoe’s new Field Trip Program allows volunteers to take dogs out of the shelter for short adventures. Courtesy photo
The program enables volunteers to take dogs on hikes, coffee runs, trips to rivers or lakes, or for relaxing time at volunteers’ homes. These outings provide mental stimulation and socialization for the dogs while offering valuable exposure to potential adopters.
The program helps reduce shelter stress by giving dogs a break from their kennels and routine walking paths. It also allows HSTT staff to gather more behavioral information about dogs available for adoption.
Program Requirements:
Interested volunteers must attend an orientation and dog training session through HSTT. Once trained, participants must complete a minimum of three shelter visits to learn routines and demonstrate understanding of safety protocols and dog handling.
Volunteers must be 18 or older, though families can participate if a trained adult has been cleared by the organization. Participants are encouraged to photograph their outings and share experiences with HSTT to help promote the dogs.
Mountain Lotus Celebrates Grand Opening of New Outdoor Yoga Deck, Renovated Creekside Dining Area
TRUCKEE
Mountain Lotus Yoga is thrilled to announce the grand opening of its brand-new outdoor yoga deck and beautifully renovated creekside dining area.
To commemorate this exciting new chapter, Mountain Lotus Yoga owner Scott Fitzsmorris, General Manager Pia Nunez-Helvey, and other staff celebrated with an official ribbon cutting and red envelope ceremony attended by officials from the Town of Truckee and Truckee Chamber of Commerce staff and board members.
RED RIBBON: Mountain Lotus Yoga staff celebrated its new outdoor yoga deck and renovated creekside dining area with an official ribbon cutting and red envelope ceremony attended by officials from the Town of Truckee and Truckee Chamber of Commerce staff and board members. Courtesy photo
This Saturday, June 21, the community is invited to Mountain Lotus Yoga for “Solstice on the Patio,” a free celebration downtown from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 10124 E. St. in Truckee.
Mountain Lotus Yoga’s new outdoor deck offers a serene space for yoga, sound healing, and mindfulness. The newly enhanced creekside patio area complements this peaceful setting with delicious fresh, vegan-friendly cuisine with an Asian slant, sourced from Tahoe Food Hub. Mountain Lotus Cafe is open daily from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The Solstice on the Patio event will be a celebration of connection, wellness, and community. Guests can look forward to:
Free outdoor yoga and sound healing sessions
Delicious bites featuring fresh, local, seasonal fare
LAKE TAHOE, Nev. / Calif. – The Senate is currently considering its version of the “Big Beautiful Bill” after the House passed the budgetary bill last month and it could have implications for treasured Tahoe landmarks.
The bill itself is a standard tool lawmakers use to balance the checkbook with components such as funding cuts, the activation or increase of energy resources (oil, timber, coal), and land leasing, but one component is relatively new—the sell off of public lands.
“Really never in our history has public lands and waters been something that was used as a budgetary item.”
That’s according to Katie Hawkins with Outdoor Alliance, who warns this could set a dangerous precedent.
“It sets the example that this can be done in the future,” Hawkins says. “If it does set the precedent that this can happen year over year, what does that mean?”
Last month, the House pulled a public land sale provision from their version of the bill after bipartisan outcry. It was to the relief of some, but that relief was short-lived after Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) added this public land sell-off amendment to the Senate’s version
What could this potential D.C. decision mean for the Tahoe region?
Some fear it could spell the sell-off of prized regions of Lake Tahoe and Truckee like the Inspiration Point lookout of Emerald Bay, areas surrounding Fallen Leaf Lake, and Kiva Beach, in addition to campgrounds around Boca Lake near the Truckee region, to name a few.
The new fence at Kiva Beach. Mike Peron / Tahoe Daily Tribune
That’s because these regions all fall on National Forest Service land, which the bill calls for the mandatory .5-.75% disposal of for the purpose of housing. It also calls for another .5-.75% of Bureau of Land Management land, which impacts the basin very little as there’s no BLM land here.
A majority of the region’s ski resorts lie within National Forest lands as well, including Heavenly, Kirkwood, Sierra-at-Tahoe, Mt. Rose and Alpine Meadows, raising questions of what could happen to the ski industry.
As proposed, the bill would allow “interested parties” to nominate tracts of land for potential purchase in the 11 eligible states, which includes California and Nevada.
Some worry this opens up America’s public lands to foreign interests.
It also directs the Secretary of the Interior to select and regularly roll out certain tracts of land for sale every 60 days at a price “not less than fair market value.”
It could all start happening within 60 days of enactment and continue until the Secretary meets the mandatory percentage, a total of between 2.02 and 3.04 million acres. The bill gives the Secretary five years to reach that mark.
“Once it’s gone, it’s gone,” Hawkins says. “We can’t get these lands back in the federal register or back in the hands of the American people.”
Eligible lands for disposal include any BLM or Forest Service land except those federally protected, subject to valid existing rights, or outside of the 11 eligible states. Federally protected areas include National Parks, National Trail Systems, National Recreation Areas, and Wilderness Areas.
According to the International Mountain Biking Association, most of our western mountain bike trails are on lands eligible for sale. An Outdoor Alliance analysis shows nearly 100,000 miles of trail are on land that would be eligible for sale. In Tahoe, that includes Corral Trail, Mr. Toad’s and portions of the Tahoe Rim Trail.
The Tahoe Area Mountain Biking Association (TAMBA) is engaged in discussions pushing back against the public land sell-off.
“We will continue working with our partners to ensure that our voices are heard in support of keeping public lands in public hands,” TAMBA executive director, Drew Bray says.
Some believe the impacts would ripple beyond recreation.
“It would be incredibly damaging to our economy in the Truckee/Tahoe region and the Sierra, which rely in part on tourism to our public lands,” David Polivy says, owner of Tahoe Mountain Sports.
Nevada County Commissioner Hardy Bullock says, “Communities like ours depend on easily accessible public lands as a major pillar of our economy, and are a reason so many of us call this place home. Selling them off to the highest bidder would see significant long-term negative consequences for conservation, diminished Native American rights and cultural heritage sites, and reduced or eliminated public access to our treasured outdoor resources.”
The Wilderness Society has created an interactive map (sources data from BLM, USFS, NPS, USGS, and the reconciliation bill text) revealing land eligible for sale with eligible Forest Service land in dark green and BLM land in orange across the 11 eligible western states. The Outdoor Alliance has also created a map revealing these regions.
Provided
“It’s alarming, to be honest,” Hawkins says.
“But also, too, this isn’t a vehicle to help address housing,” Hawkins continues.
The bill limits the land disposed to be solely used for the development of housing but goes on to state “or to address associated infrastructure to support local housing needs.” It also doesn’t specify what type of housing and could be anything from workforce housing to the wealthy elites’ next consecutive home.
Hawkins says, “The language is vague for a reason,” and adds, “It leaves a lot of ambiguity and opportunity for other people to advance their own interest and not the interest of the community or the people that care about public lands and waters.”
The bill does outline priorities the Secretary shall consider when selecting land for disposal. Those priority considerations are land that is nominated by states or local government, are adjacent to existing developed areas, and have access to existing infrastructure or are suitable for residential housing. However, Hawkins says these lands often don’t have the infrastructure to support housing.
The bill also says the Secretary shall consult the governor of the state regarding the suitability of the area for residential housing, each applicable local government, and the applicable tribe.
While the bill seemingly outlines these and other limitations, Hawkins explains it bypasses the ultimate safeguard—public input.
“Who gets to say how these lands are used? It’s not you or me,” Hawkins expresses. “It leaves it very open to interpretation and that’s what’s alarming.”
And although the bill directs the consultation with tribes, they are not given priority considerations to purchase land like states or local governments are.
In a mid-week update, republican leaders are tentatively planning for an initial procedural vote on the bill as soon as Wednesday and potentially a final vote shortly thereafter.
“There’s a real opportunity here for this to happen if we are not engaged,” Hawkins says and encourages the public to contact their members of Congress.
There are hundreds of miles of mountain bike trails in and around the Tahoe basin. Riders of all fitness levels and experience can find almost anything they are looking for on those trails, from a flowy, casual ride, awesome views and technical descent.
But for those who are looking to work on specific skills, want to stay in one place or are just looking for a short pedal, a bike park might be a better option for their day on their bike.
Here is a guide to the several bike parks in the Truckee-Tahoe area
What is a bike park
A bike park is an off-road cycling area designed for mountain biking or other types of off-road cycling, often featuring a variety of trails, jumps, and other features for riders of all skill levels. Some common features you may find on a bike include pump tracks, which is a continuous loop of dirt berms and smooth dirt mounds that can be ridden without pedaling, flow lines which are typically about two miles or less and start and stop within the park, jumps, drops and berms.
Northstar California
“As the snow melts and the landscape transforms, Northstar shifts from a winter wonderland into an exhilarating dirt playground. The mountain takes on a whole new personality in the summer, and the Northstar Bike Park becomes the heart of that transformation,” said Ashley Lambert, Senior Communications Manager, Tahoe Region.
The bike park offers a mix of singletrack, downhill, and cross-country trails, plus the all-new Gatorade Skills Park. Northstar is known for its challenging and technical terrain, such as Sticks N’ Stones and Livewire. They’ve also revamped the Toyota Jump Park, which offers terrain built to challenge and inspire riders at every level – whether you’re just starting out or pushing expert lines.
Northstar Bike ParkNorthstar_CAEnduro_8.20.21_kateyhamill_I81A3970
To help riders progress and make the most of their time on the mountain, the Northstar Bike School offers a full range of lessons, clinics, and camps. It’s the perfect spot for anyone – from total beginners to seasoned riders – looking to sharpen skills and gain confidence on the trails. The Sunday Mountain Bike Program, introduced last season to help kids build confidence and skills in a fun, supportive environment, is back for another summer. They’re also excited to bring back their popular “Progression on Pedals” series – designed for and inspired by women – which returns this season by popular demand.
Visitors to Northstar can purchase a season pass for the bike park or a day pass. This allows riders to take their bikes on the Gondola and on the chair lifts.
Truckee Bike Park
Sitting on 12 acres, the Truckee Bike Park is the largest bike park in the region. It was founded in 2011 by Brooks Mcmullin and Cortney Knudson. The park started as a pump track but after seeing its popularity, they began to expand.
With the help of their partners, Truckee Donner Recreation and Parks District, Truckee Sanitation District and the Truckee Tahoe Airport District, the park has grown into the massive park that it is today.
Truckee Bike Park Provided by Cortney Knudson
Located at Riverview Sports Park, the park has any and everything a biker could hope for. It offers beginner, intermediate and advanced pump tracks and jump zones, dual slalom, flow lines, progressive drop zones and so much more.
“We’re preparing everybody to become better riders,” said Mcmullin.
The 23 trails have been built by some of the top athletes and trail builders in the area.
“We want to project the highest standard and that’s what people can expect when they come to the bike park,” said Mcmullin.
The park is free to use, but fundraisers are held through the non-profit, Biking for a Better World. The funds are used for the 100 hours weekly to professionally maintain the trails.
Learn more at https://www.truckeebikepark.org/.
Incline Bike Park
The Incline Bike Park, officially named the Robert & Robin Holman Family Bike Park started in 2017 with just a small pump track.
The Incline Bike Project, which was formed by a group of Incline Village/Crystal Bay residents, in partnership with the Incline Tahoe Foundation, has continued to grow the park. The park, located at 980 Incline Way, now offers three flow lines, each one becoming progressively more difficult.
Incline Bike Park Provided / Elko James
“It’s a contained park in the beautiful setting of Incline Village,” said Elko James, Advisory Member of the Incline Tahoe Foundation.
The project is entering its second phase, which when completed will include a larger pump track. To learn more, visit https://www.yourtahoeplace.com/parks-rec/outdoor-recreation/incline-bike-park/.
Bijou Bike Park
The 5-acre bike park is located within the existing City-owned and operated Bijou Park, directly across from the Community College on Al Tahoe Blvd.
The bike park was the brainchild of TAMBA in 2011 and, with the help and support of the City of South Lake Tahoe, became a reality in 2015. A group of skilled riders and builders became the pro-builder volunteers and included Cory Dicks, Matt Stuck, Kris Morehead, and Adam Leman.
The park features three progressive slopestyle lines – man-made and natural jumps, ramps, and features, a large pump track, a small pump track that is strider-friendly, a BMX track and a loop trail.
The park is open from dawn to dusk and is free to use.
Learn more at https://bijoubikepark.org/.
Sky Tavern Bike Park
Just outside of the basin and down the hill from Mt. Rose is Sky Tavern which has spent the last six years building up its bike park.
There are a variety of trails that can be accessed from Sky Tavern leading into the Mt. Rose Wilderness Area. The bike park also offers a challenging dual slalom course, pump track, and a safe skills area for the little ones, including a strider-friendly pump track.
Sky TavernProvided / Sky Tavern
There are several flow trails from beginner up to expert, which features several big jumps and drops.
The park also boasts of its adaptive bike-friendly trails, which are wider than a normal single-track, giving hand-pedaled bikes more room.
Through the summer, Sky Tavern offers several races, camps and clinics. To learn more visit, https://www.skytavern.org/.
Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the 2025 Tahoe Bike and Recreation Guide.
LAKE TAHOE, Calif./Nev. – Regional stakeholders now have a bird’s eye perspective on where wildlife move in the Tahoe Basin and related road barriers after soaring above key locations in the early morning hours on Saturday, June 14.
A chill was in the air and the sun had barely risen when the first group of three boarded Centurion II, a six-seater plane—the ride made smoother thanks to Dramamine. The non-profit, EcoFlight, provided the plane and its pilot, Gary Kraft, manned the mission. EcoFlight utilizes their aircraft to provide aerial perspectives to strike up conversation, awareness and advocacy for land and water initiatives.
This mission covered five important areas in the Tahoe Basin in the span of an eye-opening half-hour flight. It brought into focus a macro-view of roads and developments that fragment wildlife habitat—exasperated by tourism—and create barriers to wildlife movement and survival.
These key areas, which would have taken hours to cover by vehicle, were identified through the Lake Tahoe Basin Connectivity Study, provided by Wildlands Network and Pathways for Wildlife with funding from the California Tahoe Conservancy.
The four-year study aims to identify where habitat linkages exist, what species rely on them, and how partners can enhance wildlife permeability on the landscape through infrastructure improvements such as new wildlife crossing structures, or improvements to existing bridges, culverts and underpasses.
“How can we make sure we’re not forgetting wildlife?” Wildlands Network’s California Program Director, Mari Galloway, said when it comes to development. Galloway and Gillian Roy, Wildlands Network’s California Program Coordinator, were the group’s tour guides, explaining specifics on each critical site throughout the flights.
The plane ride first went north-east from the South Tahoe Airport, flying over Stateline. As the sun beamed off the towering casinos, Spooner Summit came into view on Highway 50, the tour’s first key area.
Studies are just now getting underway on this Nevada portion of the highway, from Carson City to Lake Tahoe, but the section has already been identified within the Nevada Department of Transportation’s top priority areas for animal-road conflicts.
The high-speed road’s significance is also demonstrated by the fact that it is the only high-elevation north to south movement corridor on the eastern side of Lake Tahoe for wildlife. This region comprises the eastern limit of the Sierra Nevada range.
Modeling has also shown the area offers potential habitat suitable for the threatened wolverine, although it is unknown whether the species has utilized the area or would establish there. The Tahoe Rim Trail also passes through the summit road and may give reason for a multi-use crossing structure accomodating both humans and animals. However, the study will need to lend further insights as to the potential for that.
Centurion II then turned southwest, offering views of Emerald Bay. The study has identified the strip of Highway 89 from South Lake Tahoe and leading up to the landmark site as a wildlife-vehicle collision hotspot. The area has bridges and creeks that do not provide adequate banks for wildlife to cross, forcing them to instead directly cross the roadway.
Pilot Kraft then continued south, slanting east towards the expansive Hope Valley and flying over the next key study area, Luther Pass. Studies along this portion of Highway 89 have detected sensitive species, including the federally endangered Sierra Nevada red fox and U.S. Forest Service sensitive species, the American marten, as well as the regular movement of bears, deer, mountain lions and coyotes.
Galloway noted the correlation at Luther Pass between discovering sensitive species as distance increases from development. Improving failed culverts along this stretch could relieve wildlife-vehicle collisions.
A turn above Hope Valley placed the plane on a return path towards the airport, but touchdown didn’t occur before flying over the stretch of Highway 50 from south of Meyers to South Lake Tahoe and Pioneer Trail. These thoroughfares have seen bears, coyotes, porcupines, bobcats and deer crossings with a particularly high frequency on certain sections of Pioneer Trail. The study has located existing structures that can be upgraded to make wildlife movement safer and more effective in this region.
The connectivity study is now in its second year. It started in the South Lake Tahoe region with plans to cover west and north Tahoe in a staggered pattern. The west basin study has more recently gained momentum. Now, just midway through, the study has already churned out influential data from extensive tracking, roadkill, and camera surveys from experts, Ahíga Snyder and Tanya Diamond at Pathways for Wildlife. Read more about their work in the Tahoe Magazine article titled, Wildlife corridors: A new camera study paves the way for wildlife connectivity in Tahoe
The hard work, sometimes involving skiing to camera locations and early mornings for road kill surveys, has the goal of one day providing a full picture of wildlife movement in and through the Tahoe basin. This will offer insights on how Tahoe fits into the puzzle of Wildland Network’s overarching goal of connecting the entire Sierra Nevada range.
Connectivity improvements and structures have shown to reduce biodiversity loss, prevent local extinctions and reduce vehicle-wildlife collisions by more than 90%. It becomes all the more important as climate change sparks wildlife movement in order to find suitable habitat in response to extreme fires, droughts, and floods.
“The importance of protecting habitat linkages and increasing wildlife connectivity in the Tahoe basin cannot be overstated,” Roy said within a brief on the project.
Gabe passed unexpectedly on 3/11/25 and has left his family terribly saddened at the loss. He was a wonderful guy, with a big heart, whom everyone liked. He was a hard worker his entire life. He was born in Ketchikan, Alaska with his twin brother Jack. At age 4 moved to Santa Cruz CA. He then went to high school in South Lake Tahoe, and had lived there ever since. He was a good man, a loving father and friends to many.
He is survived by his mother Nancy, brother Jack, son Izsak and grandson Zander, Izsak’s mother Dezi, and numerous Aunts and Uncles. He will always be greatly missed.
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – On a beautiful afternoon filled with pride and celebration, South Tahoe Middle School (STMS) held its Eighth Grade Promotion Ceremony, marking a significant milestone for the Class of 2029 as they prepare to begin their high school journey at South Tahoe High School (STHS).
Families and friends gathered around the STMS track, beaming with excitement as students made their entrance and took their seats. Principal Cindy Martinez welcomed the crowd and expressed her appreciation for the community’s support. She acknowledged the presence of LTUSD Board of Trustees members, including Jon Hetherton, Val Mansfield, Bob Anderson, and Board President Lauri Kemper.
Eight grade promotion celebration. Provided
The ceremony featured heartfelt speeches from student leaders. The first speaker, Xavi Ruelas, delivered the class address, offering words of encouragement and reflection. He reminded his classmates that their accomplishments were made possible through mutual support and urged them to continue lifting each other as they face new challenges ahead.
Mr. Ruelas then introduced the second student speaker, Vita Flaherty, who shared a moving message about personal growth and development. She recalled the nervous anticipation the class felt as they transitioned from elementary school to STMS, and how life’s difficult moments—such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the Caldor Fire—proved their resilience. “Even when things are terrifying,” she said, “they can also be formative. We’ve made it through so much, and we can do anything.”
Principal Martinez reflected on the students’ three-year journey at STMS, emphasizing the lessons learned not just in the classroom but through involvement in clubs and sports. She encouraged students to embrace opportunities, celebrate their identities, and face the future with confidence. “You are ready. You are capable. Congratulations, Class of 2029!” she declared.
Following the speeches, students were presented with their promotion certificates by Principal Martinez and the STMS administrative team. STHS Principal Justin Zunino warmly accepted the class into their new school, offering advice on how to succeed at STHS. He also extended an invitation to the incoming freshmen to attend orientation on Friday, August 22, 2025, at STHS.
The celebration marked both an ending and a beginning, as the STMS community sent off its eighth graders with pride, optimism, and heartfelt encouragement.
GLENBROOK, Nev. – Due to elevated fire weather conditions and Red Flag Warning for Northern Nevada, NV Energy is issuing a Public Safety Outage Management (PSOM) WATCH for customers in the Glenbrook PSOM Zone.
If NV Energy needs to de-energize, it would begin at approximately 12 p.m. on Friday, June 20th, and last until approximately 11 a.m.on Saturday, June 21st.
PSOMs are preventive actions taken by NV Energy to prevent wildfires based on extreme weather criteria. The current fire weather forecasts for Glenbrook indicate that a PSOM is likely in these areas.
A WATCH means that certain weather conditions, including high winds, low humidity, and high temperatures, may require NV Energy to proactively de-energize equipment to ensure community safety and prevent potential wildfire ignition. This timeframe includes the duration of the weather event, and the time needed for NV Energy crews to inspect lines and other equipment for damage, vegetation, or debris to safely restore power.
Safety is NV Energy’s highest priority. PSOM is a key measure to help protect the community and environment from wildfires. During a PSOM event, power is shut off to prevent power lines, or debris blowing into power lines, and other equipment from causing a wildfire when certain environmental conditions are met.
Factors contributing to a PSOM event include weather conditions, vegetation levels that can fuel a fire, field observations, and guidance from local fire departments and other first responders. All impacted customers will be notified via phone, text, and email messages. NV Energy will also reach out to all Green Cross customers in the area to offer accommodation if a PSOM event is initiated.
NV Energy continues to monitor fire weather conditions and will provide regular updates to impacted customers regarding the status of the outage event. Based on past experience, wind conditions can escalate quickly without notice. A PSOM WATCH may be canceled if weather conditions improve.
For additional information, PSOM criteria, preparedness information, and PSOM Zone maps, please visit nvenergy.com/PSOM. FOR MEDIA UPDATES VISIT PSOM Updates | NV Energy
It’s summer festival season, but not all of them are about music or yoga or pop-up cities in the Black Rock Desert. There newest addition is called TrailCon, and it celebrates all things running outside on unpaved roads.
“We did an afternoon session last year that we called ‘A Taste of TrailCon’ to see if the concept had legs,” said Brendan Madigan, co-founder of TrailCon and owner of the outdoor-focused Alpenglow Sports in Tahoe City. “We found out very quickly that the interest was massive.”
TRAILCON provides a gathering place for human-to-human collaboration, networking, and innovation for the trail running world. Courtesy photo
The trial run’s success led to a full two-day event in 2025 taking place June 24 and 25 at Palisades Tahoe. The festival aims to fill a void in the trail-running world by providing a time-and-place focal point for the entire community of stakeholders, athletes, devotees, and fans; complete with interactive panels, brand activations, movement sessions, networking events, and, yes, trail runs. It will showcase the latest and greatest in gear and garb as well as leading voices and visionaries to spur industry-wide excitement, insight, and innovation.
The festival’s timing is strategic — bookended at Palisades Tahoe by the Broken Arrow Skyrace (June 19 to 22) and the Western States Endurance Run (June 28 and 29), two of the most iconic sub- and-ultra-marathon trail runs in the world — to maximize visibility and participation. “There is a 10-day window every June where Olympic Valley becomes the center of the trail running universe,” Madigan said.
The region may be witnessing an origin story in the making of North America’s premier trail-running festival, as TrailCon hopes to provide to the trail-running world what the Sea Otter Classic in Monterey has done for the cycling world — an open-to-the-public, one-stop industry mecca for the sport. Sea Otter has grown year over year into a four-day festival that draws over 1,000 brands and up to 74,000 athletes and attendees annually. With time, Madigan believes TrailCon can follow suit for foot strikers.
PACKED HOUSE: Trail-running stakeholders, athletes, devotees, and fans fill Palisades Tahoe’s Olympic Village Event Center in 2024. Courtesy photo
“There was no real gathering place for trail running,” Madigan said. “We think people want it and the industry needs it. There are bridges to be built from human-to-human collaboration.”
Trail running is a tangibly growing sector of the outdoor sports world, with races and run-clubs gaining in popularity and economic power. According to a May 2025 businessresearchinsights.com article, the market for trail-running shoes alone was approximately $4.11 billion in 2024 and projects to reach roughly $8.14 billion by 2033.
Madigan, a lifelong runner whose résumé also includes founding the Broken Arrow Skyrace, along with TrailCon co-founders Dylan Bowman, CEO of Freetrail, and Douglas Emslie, 30-plus-year trail running icon, have created a gravity that’s attracted the sport’s top athletes, minds, and brands; including all three with On, the festival’s primary sponsor.
Started on a shoestring by Olivier Bernhard in the Swiss Alps in 2010 — his first prototype for a new trail running shoe was created in part by gluing together cut-up pieces of garden hose — On is a gear-and-clothing brand that has grown to be worn by over 7 million athletes in 50 countries. The company’s mission is to ignite the human spirit through movement. At TrailCon, it will globally debut its new carbon-plated Cloud Ultra Pro, a unique trail running shoe that has been in development for over 5 years.
“It’s a real validation to have On as a partner for our first real year of the event,” Madigan said, noting that the official name of the festival is TrailCon Presented by On. “You can come and demo the shoe with On athletes, including some of the Kenyans racing at Broken Arrow.”
TrailCon’s vendor village will feature more than 60 brands with product demos and immersive activations (experiences), and a TrailCon Hall of Fame will be established to honor legends of the sport. Trail runs will be held each morning on ‘the escarpment’ (Mainline Pocket on the skier’s trail map), an area made famous in the running world by Western States. Athletes and fans may hike or run up for free, or opt for a tram ride to High Camp for a birds-eye view, where there will be a beat-dropping DJ and fresh-brewed coffee.
The festival will showcase over 20 interactive panels, with titles spanning from The Rise of Athlete Representation, to The Intersection of Trail Running & the Creator Economy, to The Future of Trail Races. On Wednesday, Catalonian-born Killian Jornet, widely recognized as the greatest trail runner in the world, will record a live podcast on the Western State’s stage at 2 p.m. As with all events at TrailCon, the recording is open to the public. Happy hours will also be held.
“There is something for everybody at the festival,” Madigan said, “even for non-runners. Tahoe is full of athletes, and at the end of the day all our sports have a common thread — the mountains, protecting sacred places, challenging ourselves physically. Really, there is something to be learned for everybody who wants to attend, from nutrition tips to public land issues.”
The festival is free to attend, be it one panel or the entire two-day’s worth of events. The only requisite is to pre-register at trailconference.com.
In some ways, trail running in the Western World began with Pheidippides in 490 B.C., who, according to lore, ran the roughly 26.2 miles home from the battle of Marathon to inform Athens of its underdog victory against the invading Persian army. Though Pheidippides reportedly died from exhaustion directly after giving the news, trail running has lived on — and the center of its universe may be even further cemented in Olympic Valley with the rise of TrailCon.
Tahoe City Public Utility District (TCPUD) celebrated the completion of the North Shore Trail Reconstruction Project. Community members, partners, and local officials gathered to recognize the shared investment in a safer, more accessible trail system that connects neighborhoods, businesses, and the natural beauty of Lake Tahoe’s North Shore.
Originally constructed in 1973, the North Shore Trail is one of the oldest and most beloved segments of the region’s multi-use trail network and has served as a vital recreation and transportation corridor for more than five decades.
In recent years, the trail’s age and heavy use, with approximately 64,000 annual users, underscored the need for significant improvements. The North Shore Trail Reconstruction Project represented a $3.2 million investment to fully rebuild 2.2 miles of trail.
Enhancements included 42,000 square feet of new pavement, 125 new safety features such as signage, delineator poles, and painted crossings, and realignment of key segments to improve slope and accessibility.
For more information about TCPUD’s trail network and improvement projects, visit tcpud.org/trails.
~ Tahoe City Public Utility District press release
2025-29 Housing Action Plan Approved for 1,300 Achievable Housing Units
PLACER COUNTY
The Placer County Board of Supervisors took action on June 10 to approve the 2025-29 Housing Action Plan on a 4-0 vote (Board Chair Bonnie Gore was absent).
The plan calls for accelerated housing production in Placer County’s unincorporated area over the next 4 years with a mix of permanent affordable housing, local worker deed-restricted housing, and moderate-income housing.
The Housing Action Plan is designed to align with the 2021-29 Housing Element and state housing mandates. It also works in partnership with the county’s planning division and the long-range work plan, which allows staff to prioritize state-mandated and high-priority projects. Staff initially introduced a draft of the action plan to the board in March and the plan builds on the county’s first housing work program in 2017.
On June 10, staff outlined their plan to accelerate housing production, preserve affordability, and ensure a mix of housing types across income levels and communities.
The action plan is centered on four goals:
Increase the supply of achievable housing, which the county considers to be all deed restricted housing, including lower and moderate incomes, local worker designations, and naturally affordable housing types.
Preserve housing stability.
Strengthen partnerships, collaboration, and community engagement.
Build county capacity to secure sustainable funding.
Each goal includes unique strategies and tactics to help the county facilitate the development of 1,300 achievable units by mid 2029.
Evacuation and Emergency Preparedness Town Hall, Open House
KINGS BEACH
Placer County District 5 Supervisor Cindy Gustafson is inviting the community to a town hall and open house event June 17 to hear from local agencies regarding evacuations and emergency preparedness in North Lake Tahoe.
The event is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. at the North Tahoe Event Center (8318 N. Lake Blvd.) in Kings Beach and will be live-streamed on Zoom for those not able to attend in person.
Gustafson will be joined by representatives from Cal Fire/Placer County Fire Department, Placer County Sheriff’s Office, and Placer County’s Office of Emergency Services. Local officials will share important updates regarding the Lake Tahoe Regional Evacuation Plan, new emergency protocols across the Lake Tahoe Basin, agency roles in emergencies, and the public’s role in preparedness and planning.
Following introductions from the panelists, a joint presentation will be provided by Cal Fire/Placer County Fire Department, the sheriff’s office, and the office of emergency Services. A Q&A session will be held after the presentations, including questions from the audience on Zoom. Once completed, attendees will be able to engage directly with county and partner booths inside the event center and speak with the presenters directly.
Learn more about the event and visit the calendar here.
~ Placer County press release
Explore Tahoe on Two Wheels: New Bike Destination Website Launches
LAKE TAHOE
A Tahoe bicycle destination website launched during Tahoe Bike Month. It is a redesign of the popular Bike Tahoe website made possible with grants from the City of South Lake Tahoe, Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority, and the Tahoe Community Foundation.
The website is an outcome from many inquiries over the years from bicyclists throughout the country and internationally, wanting to know where to go and what to do in Tahoe.
The new design assists local and visiting bicyclists, or would-be cyclists, of all skill levels looking to enjoy Tahoe via mountain biking, road and gravel cycling, or riding leisurely on a bike path.
BIKE TAHOE website compiles bike trails of Tahoe. Photo courtesy Bike Tahoe
Bicyclists can now plan their visit or their day with more ease using the addition of two regional destination hubs: South Tahoe Destination Hub and the North Tahoe Destination Hub. Each hub hosts a comprehensive directory of resources a bicyclist is commonly interested in: bike shops and rentals, shuttle service, restaurants, brew pubs, beaches, campgrounds, and lively entertainment for when the day’s ride winds down.
Helping bicyclists plan their visits and activities is the new Bike Tahoe Event Calendar. Knowing there are events throughout the summer months can help bicyclists plan their trips with friends, look forward to meeting new ones, build new riding skills, or raise valuable dollars for important causes while enjoying their rides. Increasing event awareness also helps support the sustainability of event organizers, and they can post their events by going to the website’s event calendar submission page.
Multi-Agency Effort to Reduce Brake Fires Along Interstate 80
PLACER COUNTY
In a proactive step to reduce the risk of brake-related fires along Interstate 80, Placer County District 5 Supervisor Cindy Gustafson has brought together key public safety and transportation partners to address this growing concern and protect foothill and mountain communities along the heavily traveled corridor.
A series of collaborative meetings have been held over the past 9 months with the California Highway Patrol, Caltrans, the California Trucking Association, Cal Fire/Placer County Fire Department, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Placer Sierra Firesafe Council. The effort aims to improve brake safety awareness and reduce the frequency of dangerous brake fires, which threaten communities nestled along I-80.
Several small mountain communities dot the landscape along I-80 between Colfax and Truckee including Emigrant Gap, Blue Canyon, Cisco Grove, Soda Spings, Dutch Flat, and Alta. A wildfire that threatened Dutch Flat in October 2024 brought the concern over brake-related fires to the forefront and spurred Gustafson’s office to initiate the muti-agency partnership.
According to reports from the California Highway Patrol out of Gold Run, there were 60 truck/vehicle fires in 2024 that were primarily located on westbound I-80 on the descending grade from Emigrant Gap to Colfax.
In parallel with the brake safety efforts, Gustafson has strongly advocated for additional fuel reduction along I-80, a major concern as California enters the height of wildfire season. Not only do brake-fires threaten local communities and the Sierra but they also cause significant economic loss when the corridor is shut down and truck deliveries are delayed.
~ Placer County press release
New Memoir Launch: RISK Explores Life of a Whitewater Champion
LAKE TAHOE
Former world whitewater champion and South Lake Tahoe resident Susan Norman releases her powerful memoir, RISK: A Life Saved by the River. This fast-paced, deeply personal narrative flows between the adrenaline of elite river racing and the unforeseen currents of becoming a first-time mom after menopause and raising an at-risk child.
Both heart-pounding and heart-opening, RISK explores the emotional terrain of parenting and healing past trauma through nature and adventure.
RISK explores multiple themes ranging from Norman’s unique experiences as a female pioneer in whitewater river exploration and competition, as well as the power of outdoor adventure to build resilience and manage the impacts of emotional childhood trauma, aging, and the challenges of unexpected motherhood.
~ Susan Norman press release
Celebrate Free Adventure Day June 14
NEVADA
The Nevada Division of State Parks invites all residents and visitors to celebrate Free Adventure Day on Saturday, June 14. In honor of Nevada’s great outdoors, entrance fees will be waived at all state parks across the Silver State.
Free Adventure Day coincides with the Nevada Department of Wildlife’s Free Fishing Day, when anyone can fish in Nevada’s waters without a fishing license. This unique collaboration gives park visitors a perfect opportunity to cast a line and enjoy Nevada’s fisheries while exploring the beauty of state parks.
In addition to free entrance, some parks are hosting special events and activities to celebrate, including Pioneer Heritage Day and Kids’ Fishing Derby.
Visitors are encouraged to check the state parks events calendar for a full list of events happening across the state.
As always, guests should recreate responsibly by bringing plenty of water, wearing sunscreen, dressing in layers, and following Leave No Trace principles. While entrance fees are waived on June 14, camping, reservation, and all other fees still apply.
Small Business Webinar on Tariffs and How Local Businesses Can Mitigate Their Impact
PLACER COUNTY
Placer County’s Economic Development Division is hosting a tariff webinar Tuesday, June 24, starting at 5 p.m. to help small businesses navigate the changing tariff landscape and find local solutions.
Attendees will hear from three experts covering tariffs on traded goods and services, offering strategies to help mitigate some of these impacts, and help finding local options for businesses.
A question-and-answer session for attendees will follow the hour-long panel discussion.
The webinar panel features Isabelle Icso, executive director of international policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; Barbara Weg, supply chain consultant for California Manufacturing Technology Consulting (CMTC); and Kevin Mather, international program manager at Northern California World Trade Center.
Registration is available on Zoom, but space is limited. A portion of the session will be recorded and available for re-watch. Attendees or those interested may submit questions to brcinfo@placer.ca.gov prior to the start of the webinar.
On July 5, the Sierra Nevada Alliance, its team of youth Lake Tahoe Ambassadors, and the League to Save Lake Tahoe are hosting a special beach cleanup. This is a part of the league’s 12th annual “keep Tahoe red, white, and blue” yearly event with cleanups all around the lake. The event calls for members of the community to come join this important effort.
The cleanup will take place on July 5 from 8 to 11:30 a.m. at Skylandia Beach in Tahoe City. All cleanup supplies will be provided. Music, refreshments, and a raffle will also be provided!
Interested attendees can RSVP here to be emailed more details.
~ Sierra Nevada Alliance press release
Moving In, Moving On, Moving Up
Excellence in Education Announces New Executive Director
TRUCKEE
The Excellence in Education Foundation is thrilled to announce the appointment of Anna Yarbrough as its new executive director.
ANNA YARBROUGH appointed executive director of Excellence in Education Foundation. Photo courtesy Excellence in Education Foundation
With over 2 decades of experience in education — as a teacher, administrator, consultant, and PTO President — Yarbrough brings a deep commitment to student success and a strong connection to the Tahoe Truckee Unified School District (TTUSD). A parent of four children attending three different TTUSD schools, Yarbrough has also spent the last 5 years serving in leadership roles with the Glenshire Elementary PTO. Her personal and professional experiences give her a unique perspective on the opportunities and challenges facing local schools.
As executive director, Yarbrough will lead efforts to strengthen community partnerships, expand donor support, and champion investments that make a lasting impact in local classrooms.
The organization also extends its heartfelt thanks to Amy Macosko for her dedicated service as interim executive director. Yarbrough will continue her involvement by rejoining the Excellence in Education Board of Directors.
To learn more about Excellence in Education, visit exined.org.
~ Excellence in Education Foundation press release
Washoe County Manager Eric Brown Announces Retirement
RENO
Washoe County Manager Eric Brown announced his plans to retire at the end of June to pursue other opportunities. During his county manager’s announcements, he outlined achievements that he feels place the county in a strong position for the future.
His achievements include:
Guiding the region through the Covid-19 pandemic, innovating the county workforce to minimize layoffs and maintain expected levels of service to residents.
Achieving the highest-ever employee satisfaction rating at Washoe County.
Assuming the lead on regional homelessness and completing construction of the Nevada Cares Campus. The final phase of construction is a 50-unit permanent supportive housing facility that will open this summer.
Expanding broadband internet to Gerlach residents.
Allocating $91 million in ARPA funds through the Community Reinvestment Program.
Implementing the regionalized Computer Aided Dispatch Platform for Consolidated EMS/Dispatch/Fire Operations
Washoe County hiring its first-ever Environmental Sustainability Manager who worked quickly to develop a Climate Action Plan.
During the board meeting on June 17, the board will consider an agenda item outlining the forthcoming steps in the county manager recruitment process.
If you were fortunate enough to live under a rock, perhaps you missed news of the two massive fires that struck the Los Angeles area in January. The Eaton Fire destroyed over 9,000 structures, burned 14,021 acres, and killed 18 people; the Palisades Fire was equally destructive. It wiped out 6,837 structures across 23,448 acres and left 12 people dead.
With all the news in our political and economic world, those not directly impacted can’t be blamed for moving on from the horrific loss of lives, homes, and livelihoods a few hundred miles away. But history tells us this is a mistake. Here in the Truckee/Tahoe area, we have always been exposed to the danger of catastrophic fire and conflagration.
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THE 2021 CALDOR FIRE in South Lake Tahoe burned more than 221,000 acres and 1,000 structures and forced the evacuation of 20,000 residents. One reason the city was saved was because part of the forest had been thinned and undergone prescribed burns. Photos courtesy CalFire
THE 2021 CALDOR FIRE in South Lake Tahoe burned more than 221,000 acres and 1,000 structures and forced the evacuation of 20,000 residents. One reason the city was saved was because part of the forest had been thinned and undergone prescribed burns. Photos courtesy CalFire
THE 2021 CALDOR FIRE in South Lake Tahoe burned more than 221,000 acres and 1,000 structures and forced the evacuation of 20,000 residents. One reason the city was saved was because part of the forest had been thinned and undergone prescribed burns. Photos courtesy CalFire
History of Fire Suppression
In the 1800s and for centuries before, fire was a normal event in the Sierra forests caused by natural occurrences such as lightning, as well as from Native American forest management practices. These fires were usually small and slow-burning and rarely caused human death or property destruction because there were only minor, usually nomadic populations and few permanent structures. This began to change as immigrants from Europe and elsewhere began to move west. With this expansion, it was common for fires to level entire towns because of construction methods of the time.
Our predominantly pine and fir forests provided lumber quickly and cheaply. Bricks and stonemasons were not common, thus most buildings were built of wood. Heating, cooking, and light were provided by open flame and were a frequent cause of fires. The lack of building codes and fire departments, and the proximity of wood buildings, meant fires moved quickly from building to building, often consuming city blocks or entire towns.
In July 1868, 50 buildings in what is now Commercial Row in Truckee burned in an accidental fire. This happened somewhat routinely until taxes were finally gathered for a steam-powered fire wagon purchased from nearby Virginia City and local volunteers worked to attack fires before they could grow in size. This and the use of the Central Pacific Railroad’s fire train Samson kept most fires contained to just a few city blocks or less until Truckee established the Truckee Fire Protection District in 1894.
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THE AFTERMATH of a fire in Truckee’s Commercial Row in 1871. Photos courtesy Truckee Donner Historical Society
TRUCKEE FIRE: Firefighters attempt to put out a structure fire on Front Street, now Donner Pass Road, in 1922.
In 1910, the Big Burn Fire or Big Blowup scorched over 3 million acres and killed 85 people in Idaho and Montana. Erratic, gusty, 70-mile-per hour winds drove the fire through small towns, and embers were carried over 50 miles from the head of the blaze. This fire led the U.S. Forest Service to become a firefighting agency, and in 1935 USFS leadership instituted the 10 a.m. policy, which dictated that any fire spotted must be controlled by 10 a.m. the following morning.
Tahoe was not exempt from large, damaging fires, though the year-round population was relatively small until after World War II. In 1937, a suspicious fire destroyed the Tahoe Mercantile, the U.S. Post Office, and the Women’s Club along with some remaining railroad buildings and the commercial wharf in the Commons Beach area of Tahoe City. The lone fire engine responded from the Truckee Ranger station and, fortunately, the lack of wind kept the fire from taking the entire town.
As motor-driven fire engines and organized fire departments and districts became more common, conflagrations became less so. Rapid reporting and volunteer fire response kept most structure fires to the building or area of origin, and wildland fires were kept out of towns.
In the early 1970s, however, wildland fires raged in Southern California, which resulted in many deaths, loss of homes, and serious property and forest loss. Fire agencies and the Forest Service joined forces and implemented a system of mutual aid so fire departments could more easily communicate and use common language, radios, and equipment to assist each other to combat these wind-driven fires. The California Incident Command System (ICS) became the standard throughout the west and was later adopted by the federal government as the National Incident Management System (NIMS).
Consequences
Later into the 20th century, it became obvious that by banning fire from federal forests and adjoining lands, we had created a monster. The western forests of massive pines with wide spaces of low shrubs between them described by John Muir were gone, clearcut for the mines and towns of the Gold Rush in the mid-1800s through the 1900s.
The fast-growing and beetle-prone white firs, one of the species that grew back after the pines were cut, are now dying off. Bark beetle attacks have stressed trees, such as those weakened by drought. Excessive white fir die-off has impacted other species as well, and the large swaths of dead and dying fir and pine trees in the Basin are a critical problem. Sierra tree mortality spiked to an unprecedented level beginning in 2016 and has continued.
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THE 2007 ANGORA FIRE in El Dorado County was one of the first major fires to hit Tahoe this century. Photos courtesy Cal Fire
THE 2007 ANGORA FIRE in El Dorado County was one of the first major fires to hit Tahoe this century. Photos courtesy Cal Fire
The Present
A wind-driven fire that has moved from the ground into the canopy, or treetops, referred to by firefighters as a crown fire, can be impossible to stop until it runs out of fuel. Man-made fuel breaks or areas of barren rock are often the only way firefighters can get the upper hand. Many fires are only contained when the weather changes, the wind calms down, or rain or snow finally slows progress.
The Donner Ridge Fire in 1960 raged from what is now the Tahoe Donner community almost into Reno, burning over 45,000 acres and causing power outages in Reno that lasted weeks. Few homes were destroyed because there were almost none there. Today, there are thousands of homes and businesses in that fire’s footprint.
In June of 2007, conflagration returned to Lake Tahoe in the form of the Angora Fire in El Dorado County. An illegal campfire was whipped by winds of over 30 miles per hour, driving embers into communities and destroying 254 structures. Thankfully, no lives were lost.
In 2021, South Lake Tahoe and Meyers were hit hard by the Caldor Fire, which burned 221,835 acres and 1,005 structures. It would have become a catastrophic inferno with a potentially great loss of life but for the fact that it ran into a forest that had been a treatment area in which mechanical thinning and low intensity prescribed burns had reduced fuels. When a crown or tree canopy fire hits a treated area, it stumbles and slows, dropping to the ground where firefighters, dozers, and aircraft can attack it and contain it.
The Caldor Fire required the sudden evacuation of over 20,000 people from South Lake Tahoe, Meyers, and other towns and subdivisions in the Tahoe Basin. Though slow and filled with mishaps, the people made it out as firefighters held the blaze at the treatment areas. Earlier in the fire, the people of Grizzly Flats, just 62 miles from Meyers, had not been as fortunate. Though a treatment plan by the Forest Service for the immediate area had been in the works for over a decade, it was never completed, due in part to objections from the John Muir Project and budget issues. Over 400 of the 600 homes and businesses in town were destroyed.
Firefighters try to direct such fires away from populated areas, but when the fire becomes deadly, more effort is directed at saving lives. This was the case with the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California, that left 85 dead, 153,336 acres burned, and 18,804 structures destroyed; Lahaina, Hawaii, in 2023 (2,170 acres burned and over 2,200 structures consumed with 102 dead); and Pacific Palisades and Altadena, among so many others, where entire blocks of homes were burning and the wind was blowing at 90 miles per hour.
TROUBLE IN PARADISE: The 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California, was a horrific inferno that caught many residents off guard, leaving 85 dead. It was the deadliest wildfire in California history at the time.
Water & Warnings
Much was made by the media and others of the lack of water from hydrants during the fires in the LA area. It appears that the water agency had its largest water reservoir offline for repair during those incidents. There was limited capacity in tanks that were simply run dry by the firefight and by the thousands of broken water lines running open in homes damaged by fire.
In our area, as in most towns and cities, water systems are designed to provide safe drinking water and water for fire protection. The same clean, treated water that comes from your tap is the water piped to fire hydrants that fire engines use to combat a house or structure fire. The systems were never designed for the sudden, huge-volume demand of dozens or even hundreds of fire engines, fire sprinkler systems, and garden hoses attempting to hold back a fire driven by hurricane-force winds in a neighborhood of closely-built wooden homes.
In addition, much of Tahoe/Truckee’s water systems were developed over time from small, often spring-fed systems intended to supply a few vacation cabins with drinking water. Though some of these systems have been taken over by local municipal water companies, upgrades to larger underground pipes and large capacity tanks are still taking place, and there remain many private water companies that are not required to upgrade.
North Tahoe Fire Protection District Chief Steve Leighton, a veteran of over 30 years of firefighting in the Sierra, is confident in the local municipal water companies’ ability to provide water to fight structure fires for which the water systems were designed. “Though the fire district does not own the hydrants, we have a great working relationship with the public utility districts to ensure the 2,000-plus hydrants in our district are in service,” he said.
Our local fire agencies consistently train together to attack large, wind-driven fires. The engines they use are capable of drafting water for their on-board tanks from lakes or other water sources, and many local fire districts also have large capacity water tender trucks that respond to strategic locations to provide firefighting water shuttles if no fire hydrants are available.
A concern that may have cost Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley her job after the Palisades and Eaton fires was the lack of additional Red Flag Warning staffing. While an investigation is ongoing, it seems that up to 1,000 firefighters going off duty that might have been kept on the job were not, though wind gusts were predicted to be close to 100 miles per hour.
Chief Steve Leighton says his district, as well as CalFire and most of the neighboring districts, have a policy to increase staffing during Red Flag Warnings and other predicted weather emergencies. “My ongoing concerns are budgeting for sufficient firefighter staffing, and also enough prevention staff to inspect and reinspect for compliance with defensible space regulations,” he said. “Another concern is that there is little or no funding for residents that are unable to physically perform defensible space work and cannot afford to have that work done.”
Evacuations
State and county agencies will advise when it’s time to evacuate during a dangerous fire. Our responsibility is to heed that advice. There are two evacuation levels. An evacuation warning is issued when a fire is approaching and/or conditions are worsening. That is your cue to leave. This gives you and your family time to gather pets and a few valuables, documents, and your go bag so you can leave in a calm, orderly manner.
Agencies may later issue an evacuation order that might include law enforcement patrolling neighborhoods to compel people to head out. This is potentially chaotic, as it was in South Shore during the Caldor Fire. To see how fellow drivers might behave during an evacuation with a fire in sight and smoke filling the air, watch a video of the Tunnel Fire evacuation of the Oakland Hills in 1991. Chaos and panic led to collisions and blocked escape routes. Twenty-five people were killed, and almost 800 homes and businesses in Oakland were destroyed.
LA FIRES: This year’s Palisades Fire began burning in the Santa Monica Mountains of Los Angeles County in early January and destroyed large areas of Pacific Palisades, Topanga, and Malibu before it was fully contained 24 days later. It was the most destructive fire to occur in the history of the city of Los Angeles.
Take Action
We once had healthy western forests where trees were widely spaced, and undergrowth was controlled so fires stayed low and slow. Can we get there again? The answer is yes, but it will be an investment. A tiny percentage of tax money would enable the Forest Service and the states to perform thinning projects in our national and state forests, clearing undergrowth and removing dead and dying trees. The number of forestry jobs created could revitalize communities and offer opportunities that were once a staple in western mill towns.
Now, when rapid, aggressive, and expensive action is needed to restore our forests, we have competing agencies and regulations fighting over what and how and who pays for forest management. Thinning projects take years to obtain permits for and are often stopped by lawsuits before they can start.
Forests that have been thinned to a more natural balance can then be maintained over decades using prescribed fire as recommended by scientists, foresters, and Native Americans.
The potential savings far outweigh the investment. We currently allow mega wildland fires to take lives, destroy towns, wreck businesses, and prevent home ownership by enabling insurance companies to refuse to insure homes. CalFire says it’s not if, but when, a large wildland fire will strike anywhere in the state. The various agencies and environmental groups will then have only blackened stumps and smoking foundations to argue over.
The decision is ours. You can make your choice heard by telling your elected leaders how to spend our tax dollars to make our communities safer from wildfires.
Fire agencies recommend that you:
1. Do your defensible space work and home hardening. Many homes are destroyed because of embers, which can travel great distances.
2. Understand what a Red Flag Warning is and how to find out if one is issued for today or tomorrow. It indicates a high risk of wildfire due to a combination of warm temperatures, low humidity, and strong winds. This warning from the National Weather Service is designed to tell you and fire agencies when conditions are favorable for a fire to get out of control. Our area usually has at least 6 to 10 Red Flag days per year, mostly, but not always, between May and December. The majority of conflagrations has occurred on Red Flag days.
3. Sign up for Placer Alert (Placer County), CodeRED (Nevada County, Town of Truckee), RAVE (El Dorado County, Washoe County), or whatever early warning system your county uses to notify you of an emergency using your smart phone. If you are a second homeowner, it’s best to install the app for each county in which you own a home.
3. Get the Watch Duty app to enable notifications of wildland fires in your area.
4. Be prepared to evacuate so it’s not a panicked, chaotic run-around when, not if, you have to go. Leave at issuance of the warning, don’t wait for the order.
4. Phone and write your federal representatives and demand that they spend some of our tax dollars to return western forests to a more natural state.
The Town of Truckee has received its first-ever report card.
A trio of reports recently wrapped up — a community opinion survey, the much discussed Baker Tilly townwide organizational assessment, and a review on development services — each focused on analyzing the town’s function from internal and/or external perspectives.
The results are both humbling and encouraging, painting a complex picture of the 32-year-old jurisdiction. Viewpoints vary: Residents want to preserve the natural beauty and small-town feel of Truckee, town staff is burnt out, and processual issues and mistrust are creating division across stakeholder groups, to name a few.
A promising result of this process is a growing consensus on concerns where there have long been arguments. Many have remarked on a sense of validation over the results, including the urgent need for further transparency and consistency, and the heavy amount of work spread across not-enough staff.
“[For] maybe the first time since I’ve been town manager, [I] feel like we’re sitting at like a round table and all together versus who is at the head,” said Truckee town manager Jen Callaway.
“Jen hired three different completely independent sources to use three completely different methodologies to come to findings, and those findings were largely in sync. I think because of that, we have now put to bed the situation,” echoed David Diamond, who worked as a consultant to create one of those reports, Truckee Development Process Findings and Recommendations. “If you still think this is not the situation we have, come forward and argue why all three sources, methodologies, were inaccurate or led to findings that were not legitimate.
“If we accept that three completely unique, independent sources have come to similar results, we’re at square zero. Now let’s focus on improvements here so we can stop arguing where we stand.”
The plan to address the collective 113 recommendations for improvement will take 10 or more years, Callaway estimates (multiple people have urged a faster timeline). But critical solutions are already underway, such as a permit-tracking software solution for the planning department.
“That’s a big lift,” Callaway said at the May 13 council meeting, at which the report results were presented. “That’s not an easy implementation. By the time we go out to identify the right solution, map out our processes, and implement them, that in and of itself is probably a year-long process. I think we need to acknowledge this [Baker Tilly] report’s going to be very valuable. It’s not going to sit on a shelf, and nothing happens from it, but it’s going to take time for the recommendations to move forward.”
Eleven other recommendations are also being actively addressed. Afternoon planning appointments are an example, with town planners now making themselves available to meet with the public Monday through Thursday from 1 to 3:30 p.m.
At the mid-May council meeting, council members were only asked to accept the results. A more specific action plan will be presented later this summer.
All said, there seems to be an atmosphere of positivity and encouragement over what’s to come, even with the Contractors Association of Truckee Tahoe. As reported earlier this year by Moonshine, CATT and the town have been at odds over the release of the Baker Tilly report results. CATT Executive Director Edward Vento said during public comment at the May 13 council meeting, addressing Community Development Director Denyelle Nishimori, who was present, “Denyelle, we believe in you.” Nishimori has been pointed to by many developers as the chokepoint for project success in the town.
Regarding the findings, Vento told the Ink he and CATT members feel validated: “You don’t want to say I told you so, but all the findings are what we’ve been saying for almost 20, 15 years; definitely since I’ve been here … But the important thing is, what do we do about it? How do we go about fixing it? And how can we engage constructively with the town to do this?”
Perfecting the process
As Callaway has said many times, the basis for the town organizational assessment performed by Baker Tilly was always to get a holistic sense of how the jurisdiction’s staff, services, and operations are functioning. Baker Tilly did indeed return with a comprehensive study, which highlighted severe understaffing (20 new full-time positions were recommended, though none in the planning department), over-communication, and appreciation for the town manager’s collaborative style and police and public works operations.
Others outside the town were vocal about their hopes for the assessment to address problems within the planning division, such as complicated steps, expensive fees, and predetermined bias for projects.
“We’re not looking for high-speed approvals where we’re cutting corners and we’re skipping things,” Vento said. “We still care about safety, and we still care about the community. What we’re looking for is just transparency, consistency, and customer service, good customer service. That’s what we’re looking for. And we haven’t had that.”
This discontent was a standout in the Baker Tilly analysis, with the consultant noting in the final report the “clear consensus” among both internal and external stakeholders that “the biggest organizational/operational challenge facing the town is its land development processes.” Also mentioned was the deep distrust and palpable anger among business community members of Truckee’s planning process, and “the perception of an adversarial relationship.”
Pete Gonda, Baker Tilly project manager, told council in May, “We feel the town would be best served by placing an emphasis on prospectively addressing negative perceptions around land development … At this point, perception is reality and rather than setting up a potential he said/she said situation about what number might be correct or might not be correct, the focus really should be prospectively on solution; how do we improve the situation?”
If we accept that three completely unique, independent sources have come to similar results, we’re at square zero. Now let’s focus on improvements here so we can stop arguing where we stand.”
~ David Diamond, AirDiamond Creative Consulting
Baker Tilly’s recommendations for addressing this area ranged from establishing performance standards for customer communication to holding a planning workshop focused on streamlining improvements to conducting comprehensive reviews of the development code and fee methodologies.
“There is some validation in terms of the amount of work and the constant feeling like we’re either putting out fire or we’re not able to be proactive,” Callaway said. “On the flip side of that, particularly in development services, that’s the one area there’s no staffing recommendations for. So that seems counterintuitive, right? I’ve got all this stuff to do, but we don’t get any staff to do it. I think that’s been frustrating.”
Diamond, through AirDiamond Consulting, was brought on in January 2025 for a more detail-oriented look: to draft high-level recommendations for improving the town’s planning process. This decision, to the tune of $49,200, ruffled CATT’s and others’ feathers in the name of transparency and redundancy — to the point that legal action was threatened, as reported in The Waiting Game: Delayed Town Report Fuels Contractor Concerns (read at moonshineink.com).
Hindsight has soothed the frayed emotions. Vento now calls the hiring of Diamond “a great move” by Callaway. “I thought she was smart in doing it. Wish she would’ve communicated a little better with us when she did it … It kind of caught us by surprise. But I think how she did it, great job to her. She deserves all the credit. That was really well done and really professional how she handled that. I know it costs extra money, but at end of the day, a plus for her, how she put all that together.”
Diamond held 80 in-depth interviews with developers, town staff, homeowners, and others to understand areas for improvement related to the planning, permitting, building, and code management processes.
“I’d met with staff, and I’d met with developers, and I’d met with commissioners and [council members], and I started thinking, I’m still looking for the bad guys. I’m still looking into this and there’s no bad guys here,” Diamond said. “And I’m thinking, okay, so this is pointing more and more toward process … This is where the failure is. It’s in the connectivity of these different stakeholder groups, their understanding of one another, their expectations of one another.”
This process issue revealed itself in multiple ways, including a lack of communication between parties — councilmembers not realizing they should stay involved with their appointed planning commissioners; the perception that applicants couldn’t speak with a planner until an application was submitted; to a lack of set priorities and heavy workload asks from elected officials.
One of the most significant process pain points brought up by Diamond was the determination of where discretion lives. Discretion allows certain parties to, within the confines of general legal principles, make their own judgment. As an example, town staff has “discretion over a number of design decisions,” Diamond wrote in his report, “based on personal interpretations of code and Objective Design Standards. While expected of their positions, this practice has been characterized by some developers as staff members pushing through only what they like. It has also led to what some developers see as inconsistency of decision between planners, and ‘behind closed doors’ decision-making that can significantly impact project costs.”
On the other hand, regarding approvals, the planning commission only determines whether an application checks the appropriate code and regulation boxes; the commissioners are interpreting policy, not defining it. They do not have discretion.
“The less discretion [planners] have, the better they feel because then they’re not put in these awkward situations,” Callaway said, reflecting. “But taking away some of that discretion also means the code probably becomes even more complicated and more prescriptive, which probably makes the process more predictable, and the code is clear, but it also makes it more onerous. So that doesn’t feel better, either. I don’t know that I have a balance in mind for that yet.”
Diamond recommended creating an independent design authority, similar but more expansive than the current Historic Preservation Advisory Commission, to review all town design decisions, thus increasing consistency of decisions.
What residents want
The first report presented the night of May 13 was the Community Opinion Survey, conducted by True North Research. Six hundred Truckee residents were randomly selected and contacted during the first week of April 2025, then asked a series of questions regarding their satisfaction, priorities, and concerns related to the Town of Truckee.
Residents, in general, have a high level of satisfaction of the town’s performance. Key factors those surveyed wanted to see the local government preserve are natural beauty, limited growth/development, and the small-town feeling (see figure 2 below).
SURVEY SAYS: A community opinion survey asked 600 Truckee residents their views on town operations. This chart represents responses for preservation. Courtesy graphic
“The overall theme … really flows down to residents being focused on maintaining rather than changing the character of Truckee,” Callaway pointed out at the council meeting. This is something long referenced by town staff regarding planning department complaints: We’re doing what the community wants us to do.
At the same time, there’s a recognized need for more workforce housing and economic variety from those same constituents (see figure 3 below).
SURVEY SAYS: A community opinion survey asked 600 Truckee residents their views on town operations. This chart represents responses for improvements. Courtesy graphic
“It’s important to recognize when you look at the results, what you figure out is you have people on both sides of this issue,” Timothy McLarney, president of True North, said to council. “You have some people who are very pro-housing, very pro-economic development; they want to see the development process streamlined. Then you have others who are at the other end of the scale. They are anti-development, they really want to limit growth and keep Truckee the way it is, and/or they have concerns about the type of development that is occurring …
“As a town, you’re stuck in the middle of these to some degree opposing views. Whichever way you slide, you’re making one group happier while making another group a little more disgruntled. It’s a challenging thing. You’re never going to keep everybody satisfied when it comes to issues of managing growth and development.”
Diamond doesn’t consider the situation as either/or. “We don’t want to atrophy, as I put in the report,” he said. “So, what we are doing, while we want it to be measured and we want it to be very carefully scrutinized … We want it to be efficient. This is not a binary situation where it’s like, because the townspeople are concerned about overgrowth, that we should not improve that process.”
He continued, saying that given an opportunity to oppose a new development, residents will; but look at the example of two grocery stores, Raley’s and Grocery Outlet, that were initially opposed and are now embraced by the community.
“You have to grow at least a little,” Diamond said, “because you have to account for when a business fails … Tahoe City has dealt with a lot of this. There is so much opposition to development that a business can leave a freestanding thing and nobody wants to move into it because it’s not ‘appropriate.’ Yet nobody wants to tear it down and build something because that feels like we’re going in the wrong direction. But then it’s like you start to lose the fabric of a vibrant community there.
“I think there’s a lot of development that Truckee would benefit from, that would not pull away from the character of Truckee, both in the commercial space and also in the residential space.”
Potential straws
A late-hour comment made by council member David Polivy at the May 13 council meeting portrays one of the possible hurdles with improvements to come: conflicting personalities.
Polivy spoke to what he sees as a deteriorating communication by CATT since Vento became its head 2 years ago. In previous reporting, Moonshine Ink included portions of a sharp-toned email Polivy wrote to Vento and CATT members earlier this year. In response to the council member’s comments from the dais, Vento began to walk out of the meeting, calling for any CATT attendees to join him. No one ended up leaving, though there was a clear tension among council members’ deliberation that followed.
“Personality issues really have the potential to derail this more than anything else,” Diamond said. “And one could argue that the reason we are where we are is because of personality issues.”
THE BAKER TILLY REPS at the May 13 Town of Truckee council meeting, Pete Gonda and Al Zelinka, provided a detailed recommendation of where the town’s most urgent staffing needs were. In order, the top three departments were: the police (six full-time additional positions recommended), town manager, and administrative services. Photo by Alex Hoeft/Moonshine Ink
Both Polivy and Vento shared that they’ve remained open to communication with each other. The two met on June 3 to begin bridging gaps, which “went well,” Vento said.
Council member Anna Klovstad said she appreciated Diamond’s “brutal honesty” over the town and CATT’s relationship. “It was calling us out and the contractors association out as contributing to the challenges that we’ve been facing lately,” she said. “He even said it during his presentation, ‘Town, you have some work to do. You have some processes to clean up and we all need to participate. Contractors Association of Truckee Tahoe, this isn’t your mess to clean up on their internal processes — that’s the town, but how you either support or distract from that is going to make a big impact.’”
Klovstad also met with CATT during the first week of June.
“Right now, it’s kind of like after a breakup when you’re getting reacquainted,” Vento said. “That’s what we’re in the middle of doing, rebuilding that trust and assessing where the strengths are and where they need help. The framework will be built later … The only thing that could kill this [is] if some people start digging in their heels, [or] the town council [doesn’t prioritize its need].”
On the action-oriented front, next steps are being planned out, with council approval of a work plan to come in August or September. Callaway is creating a small stakeholder team to prioritize recommendations in short periods of time. For example, in the next 6 months, the town will focus on a few select issues; then the group will reconvene to determine the next projects.
There will be at least two CATT representatives, but aside from that, stakeholder membership is not yet finalized.
Diamond is putting together a second scope of work for the town to map out the implementation of his recommendations, though that partnership is not yet fleshed out. This is one of the ways Callaway is looking to add support for planning staff, so they don’t burn out from addressing recommendations and processing applications.
“There was some magic in how it ended up all coming together because it worked out that [the reports] all supported each other in some common themes,” Callaway said. “But it’s also coinciding with [the town adopting an already completed Fiscal Year 2025/26 budget], which makes it more challenging to incorporate things. We do have a number of positions proposed in the next fiscal year budget, and then we’ll have to figure out for the remaining positions what our priorities are and how we can phase and fund those.”
Farm-to-table dining has been a popular concept for a while now, but Everline Resort & Spa in Olympic Valley has developed a fun twist on the idea with what they have dubbed “Trout to Table.”
DINNER’S ON: Joyce is all smiles as she displays her catch. Photo by Tim Hauserman
The process is simple: You go to the resort, they set you up with a fishing pole and tackle, you stroll over to their stocked pond, and enjoy an awesome view while you fish for a couple hours. When you’re done the resort takes your catch, and about an hour later you’re sitting down to a succulent and hearty trout meal.
You don’t need a rod and reel or a fishing license, and you don’t even need to take on the less-than-savory task of cleaning your fish.
You just get to do the fun parts — go fish and then eat.
Last fall, my partner Joyce and I headed over to Everline to take in the full Trout-to-Table experience. Joyce was a bit reticent because she hadn’t fished since she was a young girl, but once we were set up with all we needed we headed over to the edge of the pond and started casting. We quickly felt like we were kids again, casting well out into the pond.
It didn’t take long before some nice-sized rainbows and cutthroats were chomping down on our lures. I caught two big beauties, and Joyce caught four. She quickly decided that this was pretty cool and that kicking my butt in the fish count was an extra bonus. It was quite serene out there at the grassy edge of the pond in the sunshine as we cast away our afternoon. The view stretched over the golf course and across the valley all the way up to the top peaks of Palisades Tahoe.
CASTING AWAY the afternoon at Everline Resort’s fishpond in the Olympic Valley meadow. Photo by Tim Hauserman
We were joined at pond’s edge by a young couple whose four-year-old daughter was beyond tickled to grab the net and capture her dad’s catch. Joyce and I thought the resort’s activity was the perfect way to introduce children to fishing — easy access to the water and with the number of fish in it, pretty unlikely you’d ever get skunked. An experienced fishing guide was even available to help out if needed, although for the most part he just sat back and let us have fun.
Each fisher can catch as many fish as they want as long as they only keep one, returning all the rest back to the water to be caught by the next group of folks to cast their line. (Or, as we were told that since bears sometimes come to the pond to dine, perhaps your releases may become bruin food.)
The tough part when you catch a fish is making your judgment call, asking yourself, “Is this going to be Walter the Big Fish, or should I throw it back and hope that the next one is the true Walter?”
Joyce and I fished for two hours and then our fresh catch was taken up to Sandy’s Pub for preparation and cooking while we lounged on the patio enjoying the view. In time, we headed to the restaurant for a truly delicious — and fresh — meal. The fish was sautéed ina subtle lemon and herb sauce, which was a good approach: Let the freshness of the fish not be overwhelmed by the sauce. It was accompanied by tasty rice and a side of broccolini. But for us, the highlight of the meal was the knowledge that we were eating what we had caught just an hour earlier.
The Scoop: Everline offers Trout to Table Thursday through Monday starting mid-June. everlineresort.com
Time: Fishing from 1-3 p.m. with dining starting at 4.
Price: $50 | Includes having your fish delicately prepared and served with rice and vegetable.
Always wanted to learn to fly-fish, but heard it’s challenging?
Well, at the same pond as Everline’s Trout to Table, Matt Heron Flyfishing can teach you all the tricks. Heron says that “For the beginner wanting the best of both worlds, it’s hard to beat the ‘Pond and River’ package.” It’s a nice, three-hour intro to fly-fishing on the private, stocked pond, followed by a chance to try your new skills on the Truckee River.
To Moonshine’s photographer, Wade Snider, it has seemed for quite some time that prices have been wild, and he has been living quite frugally in his van and holding off on spending. In light of tariffs having been imposed and lifted and reinstated and softened on repeat, he asked the community this month, Have the new tariffs affected you? If so, how?
Molly Murtaugh, Incline Village UX Designer
Only in my mind.
Tyler Copeland, Reno Owner, TEC Communications
I submitted proposals pre-tariff and now my cost has gone up. My contracts don’t cover the unforeseen price increase so now I’m losing profit. Products are on back-order as manufacturers are holding deliveries as the tariffs keep changing. Plus time wasted calling my suppliers and reps to see when products will be in stock.
Risa Matsumura, Truckee Tahoe City Kayak
Some of our inventory is back-ordered for 2-3 months minimum. The 12 paddle boards we were banking on for our rental fleet this season were all given to personal order people, leaving a lot of smaller sized companies without any paddle boards. And the shipping for any boat is almost the same price as the kayak itself!
Huxley, Truckee Good Boy
Taruffs? I have not heard of such things, although I have heard whispers of frustration over rising costs. Perhaps this coincides with lack of toys being bought for myself. Now that I have learned this word, taruffs, I will exhume what knowledge I can from the dirt and sniff out a stance that I, myself, can identify with.
Ryan Swanson, Sacramento/Tahoe Plant Salesman, Bird Specialist
Tariffs have made everyday essentials more expensive — especially imported produce we can’t grow here in the U.S. year-round. We rely on global trade, and these added costs hit everyone. It’s a reminder that isolationist policies don’t work in a global economy where cooperation keeps prices fair and shelves stocked..
The staff at Moonshine Ink never knows what kind of responses it will receive in its Do Tell! column, and in last month’s replies to “What is your most memorable wildlife experience?” one answer greatly piqued everyone’s interest. Jeff Stoike from Tahoe City recalled a strange encounter with a highly unsightly bug swimming in Lake Tahoe.
As described to me on the phone, Stoike said of his experience: “The bug looked like it could have been five inches long!” and then he detailed how it first attached itself to his daughter’s wakeboard, then to her jacket, and lastly to the wakeboard handle. At one point, the bug, which seemed like it should be crawling on land like a beetle, was actually swimming in the water! After Stoike caught it, he squashed it — because, you know, bugs can be creepy: “It was a responsive reaction,” he said. “What was most amazing was its blood; it was bright green!”
So, an alien insect has entered the waters of Tahoe? According to some sightings, that’s what it sounds like.
Water bugs, aka toe-biters, commonly two inches long but sometimes as big as four-and-a-half, crawl (and apparently swim) in slowly moving streams, creek bottoms, ponds, and lakes in search of food: other insects, tadpoles, sometimes even small fish. Will Richardson, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Tahoe Institute for Natural Science (TINS), has observed these water bugs in Sagehen Creek, Taylor Creek, and the pond along Bliss Creek near Whale Beach (between Sand Harbor and Spooner). “They’re probably in a lot of areas around Tahoe. I see them mainly in shallow water,” he said.
THE UNDERBELLY of the unique and sometimes scary six-legged “true bug” known as “the toe-biter.” Will Richardson for scale. Photo by Will Richardson
While they are mostly considered aquatic, the toe-biter does need to surface to breathe, but strangely enough not through its mouth. Instead, the animal raises its backside slightly above water, then sucks in air through its “air straps,” which act like rear-end snorkels. The bug’s unique anatomy also provides a small space under its wings that holds air in the form of a bubble-like scuba tank. While underwater, the bubble slowly diffuses air into the body to help oxygenate.
“They fly too,” said Pete Oboyski, Executive Director of the Essig Museum of Entomology in Berkeley. “It’s how they disperse and probably how the toe-biter got to Tahoe. Our data shows they have been identified in Sierra County in the Sattley area.” Richardson added that their attraction to lights at night, street lights and lights near water, makes them easier to see and to identify.
The toe-biter happens to be the largest aquatic insect in the order Hemiptera, commonly called “true bugs.” What makes an insect a bug is simply a straw-like mouthpiece that pierces its prey in order to suck out bodily juices. “While all bugs are insects, not all insects are bugs,” Oboyski explained.
As shown by a KQED Deep Look Series episode entitled “Don’t Go Chasing Water Bugs,” one of the most interesting facts of this ‘true bug’ is the male’s role in its evolution. It begins with a lot of bouncing; the male rising up and down as if engaged in pushups as it tries to attract females. If a female is sufficiently lured by his erotic action, they mate and she lays her freshly fertilized eggs on his back — as if filling up a backpack, which he then totes around for a couple of weeks. During that time, the male oxygenates the eggs by frequently swimming up to the surface and then back down to the water’s floor, with the eggs on his back looking like rows of pearl-colored ticks or rounded rice kernels.
Once they are hatched, the nymphs detach from the father’s back and swim away to grow into adulthood.
Another source tells of the toe-biters’ role in “regulating the population of other aquatic insects and small vertebrates, making them important components of freshwater food webs” (roundglass sustain, Femi Ezhuthupallickal Benny). This article goes on to add that in several cultures ofSoutheast Asia these bugs are a culinary delicacy, cooked in soups along with other aquatic insects.
What is not so savored is the bug’s bite (thus its name). Its hook-like claws deftly grasp prey while its rostrum — the long needle-like part in its mouth that makes it a “true bug” — injects venom to paralyze its prey as digestive enzymes break down the insides for consumption. Oboyski conceptualizes the rostrum this way: “[It] pierces its pray and then, as if with a short straw, sucks up the liquefied material of the prey’s body as if it were a smoothy.”
While a bite is lethal to the toe-biter’s prey, it’s not fatal to humans, which is good to know. But still, the thought of that bite! Richardson eased my trepidation, though, by clarifying, “It tends to bite if disturbed, so if you leave it alone it won’t bother you.”
Bites aside, there is a softer note to this seemingly chilling bug, which involves the renowned naturalist and illustrator John Muir Laws. While Laws was enrolled in the Conservation and Resource Studies program at the University of California, Berkeley, he collected insects to study in an Aquatic Entomology course. Unlike the other students, however, and because Laws was averse to killing living organisms and pinning them to a board for observation, the professor granted him permission to study them alive. When it came time to release his little toe-biter friend (in the Belostomatidae family) back into the wild, he called on his mother whom he had lost touch with. In the middle of winter in her warm winter jacket and warm winter boots and with her son by her side, they took a little road trip up to the Sierra to release the toe-biter into a mountain stream.“It was because of that trip and the uninterrupted time we had together,” Laws said, “that I found my mom again.” Whenever his mother would want a moment to reconnect with Laws, she’d say to him, “We need some Belostomatic time.”
But back to the bright green blood Stoike referred to? Oboyski explained it this way: “Insects do not have veins and blood like we do that contains hemoglobin (which carries oxygen and makes our blood red). Instead, they have hemolymph, which has a similar function to blood but a different composition. I am not sure where the bright green comes from, but the color of insect hemolymph varies from group to group.”
A reader recently wrote in, wondering what exactly happens between flushing our waste down the toilet and its discharge into the Truckee River. Don’t worry, quite a bit of treatment happens, as Jason Hays with the Tahoe-Truckee Sanitation Agency (TTSA) explains below.
~ AH
How does the TTSA handle our waste? How does the treatment process work? Is the by-product discharged into the river/environment and if so, where?
Wastewater generated in the Tahoe/Truckee region is collected and conveyed by the five member agencies of the Tahoe-Truckee Sanitation Agency (TTSA): Truckee Sanitary District, Tahoe City Public Utility District, North Tahoe Public Utility District, Olympic Valley Public Service District, and Alpine Springs County Water District. Each agency discharges into TTSA’s Truckee River Interceptor (TRI), a major sewer line generally aligned with Highway 89, which transports flow to the TTSA Wastewater Treatment Plant in Martis Valley.
At the treatment facility, TTSA employs advanced physical, biological, and chemical processes to remove harmful compounds and pathogens from the wastewater. These engineered systems are designed to replicate and accelerate natural treatment processes, ensuring that treated water meets some of the most stringent discharge limits in the country.
A primary focus of treatment is the removal of nutrients — carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus — which, if left untreated, can degrade water quality, harm aquatic life, and cause ecological imbalances such as eutrophication.
Carbon, found in organic material, fuels microbial growth that can deplete oxygen levels in water, impacting fish and aquatic ecosystems.
Nitrogen, primarily in the form of ammonia, can be acutely toxic to aquatic life and contributes to excessive plant and algae growth.
Phosphorus, present in food waste, detergents, and human waste, promotes algae blooms that block sunlight and disrupt aquatic food chains.
Treatment begins with the removal of solids through screening and settling processes. Solids are further treated in anaerobic digesters, then dried and composted for beneficial land application. Biological processes follow, where specialized microorganisms consume nutrients in carefully controlled environments. The resulting biosolids are also digested and prepared for reuse. Chemical treatment steps include nutrient precipitation and disinfection with sodium hypochlorite (a concentrated bleach), ensuring the final effluent is free of pathogens.
The treated water is then discharged to the underlying aquifer using injection pumps. The unique geology of Martis Valley allows natural subsurface filtration over approximately 45 days before the water reaches the confluence between the Truckee River and Martis Creek.
TTSA continuously monitors treated effluent, groundwater, and local surface waters to ensure compliance with regulatory standards and to protect public health and the environment.
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