Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report

It’s cool that the AMGEN bike race is going to start here, as I’ve said all along.

We can all hope that the national TV and out-of-town media exposure causes people to come back and visit. A visit here from Fox News during the Victorian Christmas caused a bump.

But it’s the end of a race, not the start, that generates the most dollars in a town. People hang around to celebrate.

Local marketing for the race is being handled by a former marketing guy at The Union.

But The Union circulates in a “cul de sac,” so he’ll need to reach out to markets in Reno, Tahoe/Truckee, Chico, Marysville and Yuba City to bring people here. I hope he’s up to it.

We suffer from a lot of provincialism, even “clanishness,” around here. I experienced that in my AMGEN bike race “scoops” on this blog. Yoo-hoo: We are supposed to publicize the race in other mediums besides the ones we’re most used to. Communications is changing. Lance Armstrong uses Twitter.

In addition, the first leg of the race ends in Sacramento, so the “flatlanders” will stay put.

If the area can remain a “fixture” on the AMGEN race route, this would be a plus for raising our visibility. There’s a good chance for that, because AMGEN wants to expand the race into the Sierra foothills. That’s why it is starting the race in May instead of earlier in the year.

It’s going to be a bang-up weekend when the race comes to town, with visitors filling restaurants, shops and stores. Many merchants already are planning to sell bike race-related products or name their ice cream after the cyclists.

But the key to success will be measured in the residual effect from the bike race and our ability to market outside the “cul de sac” we call home. It also will be measured by our ability to think “out of the box.” Can we do that?

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Bezau, where we’re staying, is about the same size and altitude of Nevada City. It is a “sustainable” economy here, according to the locals. As a result, it has avoided much of the economic problems of neighboring Germany, not to mention the United States.

Much like our community, it is dependent on tourism. But it also has lumber mills and other light manfacturing to supply much of its needs. Much of the food is grown locally. It is sold at Farmer’s Markets like ours in the summer. In the winter, vegetables are grown in “hot houses.” This is a cheese growing region, and it is exported out of the area, too.

People work in and around the region, known as Bregenzerwald. It’s an idyllic lifestyle.

Here’s a “Flip” video that our son and I put together on Tuesday morning. I’m a big fan of the Austrian and Swiss dairy cows, which are in the video. They live in town in the winter and head for the hills in summer. One day, I hope to watch the cows being paraded into the mountains. It’s a festive event.

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Last week, I observed how The Union’s editor/publisher wrote a front-page news story about proposed high-school district cutbacks, including furloughs, without any comment whatsoever from teachers or the teachers union. None.

It was a glaring omission in a “news” story.

As I observed: “The Union largely is siding with the administration in its ‘reporting’ — while it bashes public unions over on the editorial page.”

Sure enough, like a Swiss cuckoo clock, that same Editor/Pubisher wrote a column on Tuesday stating – guess what – that teachers must accept the furloughs.

Mixing news and opinion at The Union is becoming more and more commonplace, whether it’s for marijuana dispensaries, the mine, political races or furloughs at the school. It’s insulting to the community.

And if the outcome so far on issues such as the mine and marijuana dispensaries is any indication, an opinion from the Editor/Publisher in The Union doesn’t carry much weight among decision makers and many others in the community.

School board trustees and administrators might hope for another “torchbearer.” If I were a teacher, many of whom also live in our community, I’d be pretty ticked off.

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Facebook isn’t just for teenagers: It can help you “connect the dots” when it comes to business and politics, too.

Here’s just one example: Clerk-recorder candidate Barry Pruett links to his Facebook site on his candidacy website, so I checked it out.

This past weekend, on his Facebook page, Barry posted a link to The Union’s story about the AtPack lawsuit against his opponent, Greg Diaz, and the county. You know, the one that omitted Barry’s involvement with AtPac, as well as its contributions to his campaign. (For the record, The Union has since been chasing down both key details – but only after they appeared on this blog first).

“Wow!!!” Barry wrote about the initial (and incomplete) article from The Union, which he posted on his Facebook page.

Then a guy named “Shamus Brown” weighed in with an “I like that” message. If you don’t know, Shamus Brown is the well-know sales guy from Grass Valley known as “Shameless Shamus Brown.”

I wrote about him once before on this blog because of his gigantic number of Twitter followers.

Brown is a professional sales coach who helps both businesses and private individuals increase their sales. His motto: Sales training to “crush the competition.” His blog is here.

But that’s not all, according to Listorious, a directory of Twitter lists.

“Shameless Shamus is the bad-ass conservative sales dude defending right-thinking and helping you put more bux in your pocket with his irreverent sales advice,” according to Listorious, a directory of Twitter lists.

One of Shamus’ favorite Facebook pages: “Telling Nancy Pelosi she’s full of crap.”

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I thought the clerk-recorder race was supposed to be nonpartisan. Gadzooks!

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