Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report

Not long after our community’s very conservative blogger Russ Steele (and the Former Union Columnist) said he was going to join Sacramento Connect, I noticed that The Union — of all businesses — began advertising on the new blogging network. The Union, as I’ve reported previously, also is now distributing the print editions of the Bee in our neck of the woods.

I couldn’t help but remember this recent comment on my blog from “jackerman@theunion.com”: ” I will, for example, be contacting the Bee to see if it really is their intent to help promote your ugly diatribes against this company and the good people in it. We have a great relationship with the Bee and I suspect they’d like to maintain it.”

Look, I’m sure all of this is just a coincidence, but I just wanted to let you know. We should all stay tuned. I’ve been in journalism for 30 years, and we’re charting new territory, at least in the print world. Am I going to be the ham in somebody’s sandwich? Stay tuned.

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The local Tea Party Patriots contingent is complaining that not enough people paid a $5 donation to watch a candidate’s forum that it sponsored along with The Union and KNCO.

“With approximately 325 citizens in attendance, the $5 donation to cover the cost of putting on this terrific event should have added up to approximately $1,600. In fact, only $1,075 was collected,” the Tea Party treasurer complains in a letter that The Union chose to publish.

“I thought that TEA stood for taxed enough already,” said one commenter. “Now the treasurer of the Tea party is complaining about people not ponying up cash to attend a tea party function. How ironic.”

Added another: “It was a donation, not a mandatory entrance fee. Big difference.”

As I said all along, it showed poor judgment by The Union and KNCO to sponsor a Tea Party event because the group is not “nonpartisan,” as it claims. In fact, some of the candidates at the forum were big Tea Party supporters.

The League of Women Voter forums that are being held since are free.

Perhaps the Tea Party, The Union and KNCO ought to rethink whether this event was so “terrific” after all, since many residents viewed it as a partisan political rally for the Tea Party and its candidates. They just don’t “get it.”

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Still no word in the local media, but Nevada County is set to discuss the question of AB811 implementation at next Tuesday’s supervisors meeting, a program meant to help accomplish the goals of the state’s global warming act, as I reported previously.

Though already adopted in neighboring Placer County, discussion of the energy conservation loan program is likely to set up a contentious debate in our county. While many people are in strong support of the program, some more extreme camps deny that human-caused global warming exists. Expect a vocal turnout on both sides.

“Assembly Bill 811, signed into law in 2008, authorizes local governments to create benefit assessment districts to finance the installation of energy conservation improvements on existing residential, commercial, industrial and other real property,” according to a memo from Chairman Nate Beason, who will introduce the discussion.

Sonoma County’s program serves as a model for Placer’s “mPower” program and for others that are being developed throughout the state.

“Board members have begun to receive constituent inquiries about whether we are planning to offer this type of program in Nevada County,” Beason writes. “Depending on the outcome of the discussion, we may direct the Treasurer-Tax Collector and County Executive Officer to take appropriate follow up actions.”

The document is here: Document-648492

California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, or AB 32, is known throughout the nation as being the landmark state legislation that addresses climate change.

P.S. —

To me, it’s a “no brainer” to explore this financing program further. I’m more interested to see if we can move forward as a community rather than be held hostage by the vocal extremists who only serve to polarize us.

It will take some courage and leadership on the part of electeds, civic and business people to plow ahead — something that has largely been missing in the past.

Thanks to Beason, a moderate Republican, for introducing this. Nate, I’ve heard, has taken some barbs from the more extreme conservatives around here lately. As I’ve written before, there’s a power struggle going on among our county’s conservatives when it comes to a unified (and constructive) approach.

Speaking of “leadership,” I would argue Congressman Tom McClintock’s inflexible posturing and rhetoric — including some allegedly inflammatory comments about our county’s clerk-recorder’s race, for example — are contributing to the local GOP identity crisis.

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The more than $1 million civil lawsuit filed by Jeff Ackerman, the editor/publisher of The Union, against Jim Knight, the golf pro of Lake Wildwood, alleging “bodily injury and emotional distress” is expected to go to private mediation in Sacramento by this summer, according to Knight’s lawyer.

Knight’s lawyer, Brad Thomas, said he deposed Ackerman earlier this week. Knight will be deposed later.

Under private mediation, the proceedings, including any possible settlement, can be kept private, Thomas said.

The exorbitant monetary claim “adds insult to injury” of a grieving father, Knight’s lawyer had told me, adding that a column Ackerman wrote about the death of his daughter on Oct. 20 “caused and contributed to the happening of the incident.”

“This is a small town and you hear things. It’s tough to keep a 17-year-old’s death by heroin overdose a secret, try as some might to put a pretty picture on it,” the column said in part. (There was no attribution to this statement in Ackerman’s column or use of any qualifying word, such as “alleged”).

The actual amount of damages will be according to proof. The District Attorney’s Office has not filed criminal charges in the case.

The Union waited for months to write about the case after it was filed.

Warning to commenters: This is a sensitive topic. Please be sensitive in your comments. Thanks.

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