Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report

With all the ongoing discussion about cutbacks in the local public schools, county resident Kasey Allen of KBA Geography has created an interactive map that shows enrollment trends in various elementary school districts in the western county.

The interactive map is here. You can roll your computer mouse over the district for more information.

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You read it here first: Nevada City Gas on South Pine St. in Nevada City, a stalwart “mom and pop” business, reopened late Wednesday after months of being closed for upgrades.

The independent gas station owned by locals is well known for providing old-fashioned service: They pump your gas and wipe your windshield. Honest, just like in the ’50s.

“We also have diesel now,” the attendant told me. The diesel sells for $2.89 gallon – and so does regular unleaded. The station is still cash only, appropriate for this “live within your means” era.

That’s less than the Chevron station down the street.

Nevada City Gas was closed to upgrade its pumps, which used to be the old-fashioned ones with the dials, to digital.

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Sacbee.com posts some cool interactive maps, as I’ve written before. One that ran this week shows which counties have the most people attending religious services.

I checked it out and found that 34 percent of the people regularly attend worship in Nevada County, according to a nationwide survey of congregations conducted by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies.

This is well below the 50 percent figure for San Francisco, according to the interactive map.

The results might come as a surprise to some conservative church-goers here. We like to attend the Easter Services at Grace Cathedral on Nob Hill in San Francisco when we’re in town. We also attended my former Chronicle colleague Herb Caen’s memorial service there.

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The Union is getting around to reporting about its own failings — much of it coming from the newspaper’s publisher/editor himself — in reporting and editorializing about the proposed high-school district teacher furloughs.

I called it a “bull in a china shop” approach.

• “Does teacher’s flap with The Union show a publisher that is ‘stale in the saddle’? is here.

•”How The Union’s “bull in china shop” approach offended teachers amid furlough negotiations is here.

•”Mixing news and opinion (again) at The Union is here.

•”Why teachers oppose proposed school cuts” is here.

The Union wrote this morning: “Drew also addressed editorials about the furlough negotiations published in The Union over the past few weeks.”

“It’s really, really unfortunate that some of those things were brought out about the teachers,’ he said.”

No kidding. How come the paper didn’t come out and report what Drew said on this blog: “Thanks Jeff for being an understanding journalist — there’s hope”? Or just apologize? Instead it wrote another “in your face” editorial.

As I wrote the first time: “A community newspaper plays an instrumental role in providing information to a community, as well as building credibility and trust. Providing only one side and showing personal biases only serves to polarize the debate, not bring about collaboration. Running a ‘poll’ on the front page of theunion.com for weeks that supposedly shows people ‘favoring’ the furloughs doesn’t seem constructive either. Most of all, it doesn’t seem to working, does it? Maybe it’s time for a fresh approach.”

Let’s hope for a fresh approach going forward.

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