Advocates

By Andrew Doughman / Nevada News Bureau
SUN VALLEY, NEVADA – When Sara Weatherford teaches at Sun Valley Elementary, she says frequent power outages and rattling pipes interrupt her lessons.
The 52-year-old school is a hodgepodge of a half dozen buildings erected intermittently over the past five decades. Noise bleeds through the walls between classrooms, making it difficult to concentrate, she says.

A bill entered into the Nevada Legislature would withdrawal the state from the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency compact.

S.B. 271 was introduced on March 18, by State Senators John Lee, D-North Las Vegas, and James Settelmeyer, R-Gardnerville with joint Assembly sponsors Pat Hickey, R-Reno, Randy Kirner, R-Reno and Kelly Kite, R-Minden. The bill has been moved to the Committee on Government Affairs.

Click here to read the bill.

By Andrew Doughman / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – When Amanda Collins testified before a Senate committee, she recounted an emotional story of her brutal assault at University of Nevada, Reno campus.
Collins said she was defenseless when serial rapist and convicted murderer James Biela attacked her in a UNR parking garage.

The Nevada Student Alliance is a coalition of students from every institution in the Nevada System of Higher Education. Along with K-12 representatives, the alliance representatives and more than 1,000 college and university students will gather at the state’s legislature to advocate for the preservation of education in Nevada. Buses from multiple institutions will arrive in Carson City for the 10 a.m. rally on Monday, March 21.

In the spring of 2010, McCall Realty promised $20,000 in donations to be shared across five non-profit agencies benefitting the youth of South Shore. Included among the organizations is the South Lake Tahoe Women’s Center, dedicated to improving the emotional, social, and economic condition of women and families in our community through prevention, intervention and treatment programs and services that address domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse and basic needs.

By Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – Gov. Brian Sandoval is seeking significant changes to Nevada’s public employee pension plan in the 2011 legislative session to reduce the ongoing and long-term financial cost of the benefit to the state and taxpayers.
But if he wants fundamental change, he might look to the state university system’s retirement plan for faculty.

By Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – Gov. Brian Sandoval will propose a change to the retirement system for new state employees that would reduce their current pension benefits by one half and cut the long-term liability for taxpayers by the same amount, his chief of staff said today.

In 2010, McCall Realty of South Lake Tahoe pledged to donate $20,000 of annual profits to five non-profit organizations benefitting the youth of South Shore. Owner Thane McCall is fulfilling that promise by delivering final contributions to the South Lake Tahoe Police Activities League (PAL), which will use the funds for after-school programs including a boxing club, bike club, recreation outing group and various sports teams.

CARSON CITY – State Sen. Joe Hardy, R-Boulder City, told a Senate panel today the Legislature should move forward with repealing the state’s minimum wage law.

By Andrew Doughman / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – A bill from Sens. James Settelmeyer and John Lee would ease regulations for carrying a concealed semi-automatic weapon.

By Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – For Gov. Brian Sandoval, every penny counts as he tries to balance a two-year state budget with drastically reduced tax revenues.
At the Board of Examiners meeting today, Sandoval was able to eliminate a new vehicle purchase worth about $40,000 for the state dignitary protection program by finding a suitable vehicle in the state motor pool to fit the bill.

CARSON CITY – They speak of limbs hacked off, death and guts.
In a war of words, critics of Gov. Brian Sandoval’s $5.8 billion budget have lambasted his proposed cuts to K-12, higher education and health and human services.

By Andrew Doughman / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – The state may save more money by spending rather than cutting.
Advocates for mental health funding advanced that seemingly nonsensical argument in a plea to save the state’s mental health courts, which are designed to rehabilitate mentally-ill criminal offenders.

The Carson City Chamber of Commerce will hold its Tuesday Breakfast Club at Classy Seconds Thrift Store on Tuesday, Feb. 1 from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. The event is being hosted by the Advocates to End Domestic Violence.

Come join your fellow members for French toast, sausage, yogurt granola parfaits, fruit, scones, juice and coffee. The cost: $5 for members and $15 for non members

Classy Seconds is located at 411 Hot Springs Road in Carson City.

By Andrew Doughman / Nevada News Bureau
RENO – When Gov. Brian Sandoval’s staff reduced funding for the Sierra Regional Center in the governor’s proposed budget, he may not have known what that would mean to the Stangelands.

CARSON CITY – It’s a rare occurrence that a governor calls a federal law “unconstitutional” one minute and advocates implementing that same law a minute later.

But that’s what happened earlier this week when Gov. Brian Sandoval called for Nevada to move forward with creating the Nevada Health Insurance Exchange, one of the mandates under the Obama administration’s 2010 health care bill.

By Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – Nevada policy makers remain divided over the need to make a fundamental change to the public employees’ retirement system following the release last week of a report showing significant costs to move to a defined contribution plan.

By Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – The panel that oversees Nevada’s public employee retirement system was told today it would cost about $1.2 billion over the next two years to change from the current defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan for new state and local government workers.

The Carson City Democratic Womens Club will actively support the Advocates Against Domestic Violence Annual Food Drive at the Governors Mansion. All registered Democratic Women are welcome to help. Please meet at Headquarters; 111 W. Telegraph Street at 11:30 AM to carpool to the mansion. Bring donations of food and help assist the workers until 2 PM. For information call Joan at 882-5704.

With Nevada having the worst murder rate in the nation when it comes to domestic violence against women by men, the state's attorney general said the issue is a top priority for her office.

A Carson City man faces a felony domestic battery charge after he allegedly punched his girlfriend in the face and later told authorities it was her fault that he did it.

Joshua Dean Harrah, 23, is being held on $5,000 bail after being arrested on Sunday at 12:20 in the afternoon in north Carson City.

Officers were dispatched to 20 College Parkway after a report that a woman had been hit in the nose, suffering a fracture. The suspect, Harrah, had left the scene after the incident.

CARSON CITY –  The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada today asked the FBI’s Las Vegas field office to turn over records related to the agency’s collection and use of race and ethnicity data in local communities.

A new program designed to end elder abuse will be launched by the Carson City District Attorney's Office and Victim Witness Services.
Citizens are encouraged to attend the unveiling of the Stop Abuse of the Vulnerable and Elderly Program, or S.A.V.E on Monday, July 26, from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Carson City Senior Center, 911 Beverly Drive

At least one Carson City School District official is troubled by the outcome of Friday's misdemeanor driving under the influence guilty plea by Carson Middle School Principal Sam Santillo.
School board trustee president Norm Scoggin said he's "amazed" that a misdemeanor charge of possession of less than an ounce of marijuana was dropped by the Washoe County District Attorney's Office.

Lisa Lee from Advocates to End Domestic Violence talks about the Taste of Downtown event.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-VnHBJXo0U

CARSON CITY – The Nevada Council for the Prevention of Domestic Violence is seeking new members. The application is brief and submissions will be accepted now through July 31.

If it seemed somewhat dark walking down Carson Street following a Taste of Downtown, that's because it was.
Lisa Lee, executive director of the Advocates to End Domestic Violence and coordinator of Taste of Downtown wanted to know why the rustic-looking street lights along Carson, Curry and Musser streets went dim as festivities wound down on Saturday night.
"It was very dark as people were walking. I got a lot of complaints," she said.

The 17th Annual Taste of Downtown winners are:

The 17th Taste of Downtown brought Carson City citizens together again, celebrating what makes the community rich in spirit despite the hard economic times. The annual event brought people of all ages and backgrounds together to celebrate and give to a temendously worthwhile and much-supported organization, Advocates to End Domestic Violence.

The Appeal has a story this morning about Mom & Pop's owner Doug Cramer being pushed out of the Fridays@3rd Street event he started nine years ago.

I've been talking with Doug about this situation, and there are a few interesting things left out of this story.