Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report

Ah, “progress.” In this case, a teleco is proposing to build a 90-foot fake pine tree, AKA communications tower — just 70 feet from an apartment building in Grass Valley. Four antennas also will be poking out toward the top, all towering over the neighborhood. This proposed “plant a metal tree” project — part of [...]

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The weather is warming up and trout fishing season is just around the corner in the Sierra and Sierra foothills. But a court order stemming from a 2006 lawsuit will prevent fish from being stocked in many lakes and rivers, including Scotts Flat, Bowman Reservoir, Spaulding Reservoir, Rollins Reservoir, Donner Lake, the North Fork of [...]

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The Sierra Sun in Truckee, Tahoe Daily Tribune in South Tahoe and Bonanza in Incline Village all will launch a weekend e-edition this spring that is mobile-friendly, shifting more effort online. The e-newsletters called iSun, iBonanza and iTrib will contain coverage of weekend news and events. “E-mails will go out on Mondays giving residents and [...]

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What do newspapers and automakers have in common? A lot. Both industries have broken business models, and the managements of both have dragged their feet to bring about meaningful change — resorting to the “band aid” approach instead. The U.S. government’s decision to reject the GM and Chrysler restructurings as inadequate on Monday, as well [...]

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The Arby’s in Grass Valley, across the street from the Pine(less) Creek Shopping Center, has closed. “Thank you, GV. We will miss you,” reads a sign. It’s a valuable asset, though: A retail space that *already* is zoned for a drive-through. The city has cast a weary eye on approving new drive-in locations: for a [...]

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In January 2007 Mount St. Mary Academy of Grass Valley, the oldest continually running Catholic school west of the Mississippi, faced closure because of declining enrollment. Now, however, it’s humming along, thanks to hard working and dedicated parents and parishioners. On Saturday night, the school held its 16th annual gala and fundraising auction. Despite the [...]

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Highlights from a newsy version of County Executive Officer Rick Haffey’s Friday memo, including a long-awaited dose of good economic news: •The county won a $300,000 grant to provide loans for expansion of businesses and job creation. The deal referred to businesses in unincorporated Nevada County. But as reported in November, grant money such as [...]

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Here’s an economic bright spot: I took a spin up to Colfax on Friday for a lunch appointment – convertible weather – and drove by a cool business that is opening on April Fool’s Day. Next to Goomba’s on Colfax Avenue, it’s called “We’ve Got Scrubs,” and will sell all colors and sizes of scrubs [...]

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I’ve blogged before about the boom in online coupons. Startups such as nevadacountymall.com and goldcountryonthecheap.com are tapping the market with Web sites. But a little-used feature in The Union also can let you clip coupons online – in this case ones that run in the print paper. On Friday, I “clipped” a coupon for a [...]

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Brit Hume of Fox News, of all people, is warning us that becasue of blogs, future news will be “more partisan.” In accepting an award the other night in D.C., Hume said: “We’re getting bloggers and Web sites and all sorts of individual entrepreneurs, and we have a vaster menu of choices today than we’ve [...]

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