David Hughes' Blog: Reno Happenings

A national survey that measures the involvement of students in advanced placement courses ranked 11 Washoe county high schools in the top 5 percent. What this means is the students here in the Reno Sparks area are better prepared for College. There are currently 27,000 high schools nation wide, Newsweek takes the top 1358 schools and ranks them by the number of advanced placement courses and international baccalaureate programs that are being taken by our students. Here are our schools and how they rank in the top 5% nationwide in advanced placement classes and testing:

• Wooster at 371
• McQueen at 639
• Galena at 722
• Sparks at 725
• Reno at 781
• Incline Village at 856
• North Valleys at 936
• Hug at 949
• Damonte Ranch at…

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West Street Market is set to open for business this October. Tenants include an italian restaurant, wine bar, grocery store and a bakery. It will occupy 8500 square feet on West Street between First and Second street and beginning in July there will be 50 outdoor vendors selling their goods 3 days a week. Ralph Merenda went to Italy to attend cooking school and will be cooking in the Green Room Bar as well as Nikos Theologitis who will feature home style Greek food. The concept behind the market is to feature local products (up to 150 miles away) including produce that will change with the season and be picked that morning and sold that day in a farmers market style setting. There will be lots of California fruits and vegetables from the Sierra… Read Full Post

Did I mention that we have a river running through the middle of town? The Reno Sparks Convention Authority has set its focus on the downtown corridor and the mighty Truckee River. This years Reno River Festival is expected to attract over 40,000 people, up from 14,000 just a couple of years ago. This is the 5th year and is America's premier whitewater event in the heart of Reno at the Truckee River white water park. In addition to attracting the top white water athletes in the country there is a also a Run Amuck fun run that is a down and dirty obstacle course through the streets of downtown Reno. The event runs from May 9-11 and after enjoying the water events you can stroll to Wingfield park and view the outdoor expo and lots of great music and brews.… Read Full Post

Galena 3 will be dedicated next Monday, it is the newest geothermal plant at the Steamboat complex on the Mt. Rose highway. This is one of Ormat Technologies 7 geothermal plants that could power the needs of all of Reno's residential needs. Nevada has a vast amount of geothermal fields and the hot springs at Steamboat was tapped decades ago by competing interest but has been acquired in the last 5 years by Ormat technologies, a publicly traded independent power producer.

Galena 3 can produce 100 megawatts of power with one megawatt being able to supply 800 homes. The steam is sitting 1000 to 2000 ft. below the surface with the water currently at 300 degrees. Right now there is a good balance of using the water and returning it to the steam fields at 200…

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With over 300 earth quakes in the last 60 days, you can see why the residents of Reno and Sparks are a little on edge. The swarm of quakes has been centered on the west end of town in the Mogul - Somersett area. So far the biggest one was a 4.7 last Friday night, wreaking havoc on the shelf items in grocery stores. One of the biggest hit was Whispering Vine wine shop in Somersett.  They lost over 300 bottles of wine.

Most residents did experience some varying degree of damage from pictures falling to a lot of cracks in sheet rock. The concern with the pattern of these quakes is that they are steadily getting larger, whereas most large quakes will be followed by smaller after shocks.   Residents have been warned to be prepared for a larger one, while… Read Full Post

Can you say the largest public works project in the history of the City of Sparks? The cost of this park is $30 million dollars and is on 140 acres.  Sparks again is proving itself not to be riding on the coat tails of its big brother Reno. As the old saying goes “Reno is so close to Hell you can see Sparks”. Well my friend, Sparks is a force to be reckoned with, and this new park is another notch in little brothers belt.

It has 1.4 million square feet of synthetic turf, the largest amount in the world, and is located just past the gates of Wingfield Springs on Vista Blvd. This will help the lagging Sparks Real Estate market and will be a shot in the arm to the Sparks economy. The park features 6 softball fields, 2 baseball fields and 3 multi purpose… Read Full Post

Infosearch International conducted a phone survey of 700 residents and about 80% feel traffic and congestion have increased over the last couple of years in the Reno area. The majority of this traffic is at the spaghetti bowl, 395 and Pyramid Highway. With a 5.2 billion dollar shortfall over the next 30 years, over 60% of the respondents would vote for increased registration fees for developers and an increase in sales tax. Gee, I wonder if they would pass that fee along to the consumers when they buy houses.

I agree with the developers having to shoulder some of this burden, but what about those big buildings with all the lights that make money from that big vice called gambling?  I’m sure they would like nice roads for their customers to drive on so… Read Full Post