Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report

  My routine is to get up early, light up the red wood-burning stove in the kitchen and read several newspapers online, except the New York Times, which Whiskey fetches from the walkway. Today’s The Union is a gem — stories about complex but relevant *issues* to our community — not “filler,” “fluff” or “advertorial.” [...]

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  Hearst Corp., owner of the San Francisco Chronicle, plans to begin charging for some of its Web content. It’s about time! I predict others will follow suit later this year. I’ve advocated this for a long time, for papers ranging from The Chronicle to The Union. In a small local market such as ours, [...]

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Nevada County has received word that almost $2.1 million is on its way for road improvements, including $1.4 million for the county, $341,000 for Truckee, $273,000 for Grass Valley and $65,000 for Nevada City as part of the Fed’s stimulus package, county executive officer Rick Haffey said in his Friday memo to the rank and [...]

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On the landmark Holbrooke Hotel in Grass Valley closing, the owners of the partnership also included a prominent local real-estate agent, Cheryl Rellstab, and longtimer Michael Nudelman, among others. Rellstab et al. first listed the hotel for $4.4 million in October, according to Craigslist and Loopnet.com, and she was the listing agent. At first the group [...]

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I read in The Union on Thursday where two residents of a local halfway house remain in county jail after one of them allegedly stole an ATM card to buy drugs. Another day in Grass Valley. But if you dig deeper, you notice one of them was named Ian Seefelt, 26 — who’s been a [...]

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Here’s audacity for you: On the same day the Rocky Mountain News closes just shy of its 150th anniversary, Google is adding advertisements to Google News searches. Google doesn’t pay to create the content, mind you;  for-profit news organizations do. But Google will get money from the ads that go beside the stories. “Trust me [...]

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Here’s the letter sent to union newsroom workers this week at The Chronicle, Northern California’s largest circulation newspaper. The highlights: •Guild committed to keeping paper open.  •At least 50 Guild-represented job cuts are proposed. “Other proposals include removal of some advertising sales people from Guild coverage and protection, the right to outsource — specifically mentioning Ad [...]

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This is news I’ve been waiting for: The Obamas are close to getting the dog they had promised their daughters during the election, and the breed is . . . a Portuguese water dog. OK. “Known for centuries along Portugal’s coast and prized for its strength, spirit and soundness, the Portuguese Water Dog is a [...]

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  Here’s a bargain during the deepening recession: get a newspaper subscription. I just got an offer from the Wall Street Journal for $99 for a full year. A pitchman for The Union was offering the paper for just $39 a year in front of Raley’s on Wednesday. The Bee is offering six months for [...]

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I’ve been reminiscing about The Chronicle this week. So many fond memories. I worked there from the mid-’80s through mid-’90s, writing and editing about energy and natural resource companies, the buyout of S.F. stalwarts such as Crown Zelllerbach, airlines such as PSA and United and the IPOs of Yahoo, Ebay and others in Silicon Valley. [...]

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