Reader disappointed by coverage of alpine team

I am writing to express my disappointment with your paper’s coverage of high school sports this past year. Yes, I am a parent of a high school athlete and yes, my child was one of the slighted, in my opinion.

With that said, I have been approached (as recently as this weekend), by friends in the community who wondered about my daughter’s participation in the high school sports’ programs because they saw so little coverage of these sports in the paper. One person even wondered whether there was a high school alpine race team until they saw the past few articles this week. I think that is a sad commentary on a local, small town newspaper’s treatment of children of its community.

The final straw for me was the Saturday coverage of the all-league winners for this past season’s high school alpine race season. The writer did include the overall list of winners but chose to exclude two South Tahoe High athletes from the names he/she wrote about in the article. Katie Sears, my daughter, was excluded as was Grant Swift from the mention of the boys winners. Why the random exclusion? And while I’m ranting, Katie is not Katie “Spears” as she was referred to in one of the few other articles that was written about the high school season. (I had someone ask me if there was another Katie on the team, which should tell you that people do care about the kids in our community.)

Whether your mistakes/omissions are corrected or not is of little concern to me. I’m writing primarily to give you some food for thought. Your paper is a topic of discussion in the community, and the discussion is not favorable.

Beth Sears

Stop the Loop Road

Tallac Historic Site. No, this is not about the loop road proposed for Stateline. This loop road is planned by the Forest Service to be built in the open field at the Tallac Historic Site on the north or lake side of Highway 89.

The plan was released for public comment by the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit March 7. There was an article Monday March 17 describing the Forest Service’s perception of the good things that would come from the plan.

There are good things in the plan. However, the plan proposes major road changes including the construction of a new road that would start across from the Camp Richardson Corral, run approximately parallel to Highway 89 and end at the Taylor Creek Visitor Center.

This loop road is unnecessary. It will seriously affect the scenic landscape of the historic Baldwin, Pope and Heller (Valhalla) estates. These three estates comprise the Tallac Historic Site. The concentration of vehicles on the road will pull the urban interface north and west toward the homes, all on the Register of Historic Places. Instead of building the loop road, the addition of left turn and merge lanes on 89 would aid the ingress and egress to Valhalla, Tallac and the Visitor Center.

Public comment period ends April 6. Opponents of the loop road ask you to write to Nancy Gibson, Forest Supervisor, asking her to reject the construction of the new road. Her address is: Forest Supervisor, Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, 35 College Dr., South Lake Tahoe CA 96150.

John Shilling

retired director of recreation, heritage and wilderness management for the National Forests in California.