“Bring Trader Joe’s to Grass Valley!” reads a Facebook page that popped up this month.
“As much as I love our local suppliers, I just cannot afford to feed my family at those prices! Please come, please come, please come!” one of 227 fans writes.
“We should have a Trader Joe’s and not a Walgreen’s,” writes another.
Well, whether you like it or not, our demographics — an aging and declining population — are more suited to drug stores. It’s what happens when you fail to diversify your economy beyond “boom-and-bust” real estate and construction.
Over in Auburn, meanwhile, Trader Joe’s appears more serious about opening a store. The grocery chain has negotiated a lease, though it still hasn’t been signed, my sources said this week.
Auburn residents have their own Facebook page — with 1,091 members. “Far better to have a TJ’s than a WalMart,” said one resident. “Stop the Bohemia development!”
The “flatlanders” are marching into Auburn:
•Costco is scouting out locations there, but no deal is imminent.
•Max’s Diner, a longtime Bay Area restaurant chain, will open next to the Holiday Inn Express in July.
•The relatively new Home Depot and Dutch Bros. Coffee, a fast-growing Oregon franchise, are busy.
Meanwhile, can you hear that sucking sound in western Nevada County?
“Enough is enough: Open the gold mine!” writes the co-owner of B&C Hardware, as I wrote previously.
What else though? For starters we can support the independent grocery stores here that offer organic and local produce. This includes SPD Markets, Briar Patch Market and California Organics, among others.
In our county, tax receipts from agriculture-related businesses are growing — bucking a trend of overall decline.
We need to work harder to diversify our economy beyond the mainstay businesses that got us here. It will require us to embrace change, however — something we don’t do very well.
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