Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report

The Union’s omission that clerk-recorder candidate Barry Pruitt represented AtPac in a bid for a county contract, the same company that is now suing his opponent in the race Greg Diaz, is sad in its own right. It shows the lack of editorial oversight at our community newspaper under the current Editor.

Equally sad are some of the comments on The Union’s website under the story. If the bar got any lower, we’d have to do the limbo.

-Martin Light, the longtime CABPRO guy, doesn’t even know when the election is being held. He thinks it’s in November; in fact, it’s in June.

-Another dude “T3″ argues it’s probably the best The Union could do under deadline. Really? Papers are supposed to have editors with institutional knowledge – or ones who aren’t overtly biased, in this case, a Tea Party Patriot supporter just like Barry.

Not only that, but Google is the best crutch any paper could have in this day and age. If you type AtPac and Barry Pruett, you find the minutes of the supervisor meeting where he spoke as a representative of the firm. That’s not exactly Woodward-Bernstein journalism.

In addition, there was no comment from Greg. Why not? The paper already was three days late with the story, because the suit was filed on Wednesday. It could have waited.

In short, this is bush-league journalism. This is the same paper that took three days to report allegations of a Brown Act violation at a public meeting.

-Then in the cheapest shot of all some guy named “dittoman” mentions that Greg’s daughter works at the paper and alleges she is responsible for what letters and Other Voices run in the paper. “The fox guarding the henhouse,” he claims. Not only is this false, it also has nothing to do with the matter.

Any reasonable person would have to wonder about the timing of this lawsuit that named Diaz, not just the county. Why wasn’t the suit filed soon after AtPac lost the bid? The county attorney said he was surprised, too, noting that discussions about any concerns were ongoing.

You can spin it however you want, but you’d have to be awfully gulible not to wonder. It’s a newspaper’s job to raise these kind of issues.

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George Rebane has a posting over on his blog that he is returning to radio, this time providing commentary for KVMR.

I wonder if the management, board and listeners know about the dustup over on Russ Steele’s blog where Rebane called Muslims “ragheads” – a derogatory term to be sure.

The discussion is here.

Even George’s pal Russ Steele called George’s choice of words “unfortunate.” Indeed. Some readers called it racist.

The commentary bench must not be very deep around here. LOL.

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The Union has a front-page story titled “Federal lawsuit filed against county clerk-recorder.”

The suit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Sacramento, alleges Nevada County and Clerk-Recorder Gregory Diaz broke a contract between the county and AtPac, the Auburn firm that provided software and consulting services for a decade to the Clerk-Recorder’s Office.

But there’s a glaring omission: What the story failed to mention is that the attorney representing AtPac in the bidding process was none other than Barry Pruett, who is Diaz’ opponent in the race for clerk-recorder.

It only says: “Diaz is seeking election to the post he was appointed to in 2007. Grass Valley lawyer Barry Pruett also has announced plans to run for the clerk-recorder post.”

How could The Union make such a major omission? You have to wonder.

The background is here. (Scroll down to discussion at page 197).

“Mr. Barry Pruett, Attorney for AtPac, stated that he submitted a written statement,” as the minutes of the Nov. 2008 county supervisors point out. “He noted that Aptitude Solutions is a Florida corporation and to date is not authorized to conduct business in California.”

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