Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report

KVMR, a well-respected model for a community radio station, is seriously considering a move to the Nevada City Tech Center from its cramped quarters in downtown Nevada City, according to my sources.

Nevada City-based KVMR has remained publicly tight lipped about its plans. But its interest in the Tech Center, already home to Grass Valley Group, is starting to leak out.

Though visibility might be a drawback, the Tech Center would be a good place for KVMR, started in 1978 with a growing volunteer group and loyal followers. The 44-acre office park has one-of-a-kind amenities such as fiber optic communications lines to each building, wireless internet access throughout the park and on-site cell tower.

It sits on one-half acre of permanent forested open space. Tech Center developer Robert Upton is well respected in the commercial real-estate business. The Tech Center’s tenants also include 2Wire, which makes broadband products.

The discussion about relocating has been a priority with KVMR’s board for some time. “Closed session at 8:00 p.m. to discuss real estate. The board concluded closed session 8:33 p.m.,” according to the minutes of the latest board meeting on March 22.

Over the years, KVMR moved from Banner Mountain to Miners Foundry in Nevada City. It moved to its present location at 401 Spring Street and expanded to all three floors.

“Today the building and technical capacity is woefully inadequate for the desired quality and scope of programming, services and community functions performed by KVMR,” according to a strategic planning document. “As KVMR moves beyond its 30th year of broadcasting, the need for a new facility is apparent.”

Though some business and civic leaders have worried KVMR might move out of Nevada City, its board, volunteers and listeners are strongly bonded to the city. Most of them are more worried about whether Grass Valley Group, which is up for sale, will stay put.

Historically, KVMR has always been a “people powered” community radio station. KVMR signed on the air with a handful of volunteers. Throughout the years, KVMR’s volunteer group has grown to more than 150 qualified broadcasters and more than 750 non-broadcast, community-based volunteers, according to the document.

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About eight years ago, a local environmental planning process known as NH 2020 split the community in half.

To be sure, the plan supported by slow-growth supervisors would have represented a shift of vision if fully implemented. But the discussion was clouded by charges of a global environmental conspiracy, vitriolic rhetoric and hyperbole.

Many people complained that the issue was never fully explained, and they placed much of the blame on the media for not fleshing it out.

“On a daily basis, letters to the editor appeared in the county’s largest newspaper, with headlines such as ‘NH 2020 is socialism,’ ‘Enviros after your property,’ ‘Pagan Greens control county,’ and ‘U.N. threat to our freedom,’” according to a lengthy report on the matter. “Opponents, often employing what were described by proponents as ‘tactics right out of the Wise Use movement’s handbook’ shouted down NH2020 leaders in public meetings, and some NH 2020.”

The Union ran full-page ads that declared the local plan was part of a U.N.-based conspiracy.

“Indeed, the experience with NH 2020 demonstrates the danger of simply dismissing claims of environmental conspiracy that arise in the local application of conservation science,” according to the report. “No matter how groundless, these claims can be effective in the political realm.”

Could it happen again? Well, this time around the county’s supervisors are set to discuss the question of AB811 implementation at Tuesday’s meeting. The background is here and here.

Assembly Bill 811 was signed into law by Governor Schwarzenegger in July 2008. It allows cities and counties to create AB 811 Assessment districts that provide the upfront cost of solar installations and energy efficient improvements through financing provided by the sale of bonds.

Loans are repaid by property owners over 20 years through a new line item on participants’ property tax bills.

The program could benefit homeowners, solar installers and contractors — a needed jump-start for our downtrodden economy.

But just like NH2020, some of the right-wing contingent here is working to frame AB811 as a “property rights” issue.

“In some case it is neighbors trees that would be blocking the sun,” writes very conservative blogger Russ Steele. “Trying to form a solar financing district could pit one neighbor against another. In the Bay Area this has produced law suits, forcing neighbors to cut down trees that have grown to shade the neighbors solar panels.”

But as Steve Frisch of the Sierra Business Council puts it: “It is voluntary, individual and at no risk to other taxpayers. Denying someone the ability to utilize this financing, as enacted under state law, is essentially denying them a property right.”

We’ll see how this shakes out, but let’s hope the local media jumps on board with this story. The background is here.

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A journalist who blogs in Kansas City, Jim Fitzpatrick, has come across a speech by Arthur (Punch) Sulzberger, chairman of the New York Times and father of the current chief executive that shows why newspapers are struggling now.

It is from 1994, just before I went to CNET, where we published news online in real time and linked to our competitor’s content — the latter of which the sacbee.com started doing this month with Sacramento Connect. Foothills’ papers, such as The Union and Auburn Journal, aren’t even doing that yet.

As for the Times, they were bragging about buying the Boston Globe, rather than investing in new-media technology. The speech is here and highlights include:

•“Who needs that elusive interactive information superhighway of communications?

•”James Batten, CEO of Knight-Ridder, owners of the ill-fated Viewtron Information System, recently was quoted in Business Week as saying Knight-Ridder still remembered and wasn’t ready at this time to take any mega-multimedia gambles. . . . Like Knight-Ridder, we see no clear path at this time which calls for a major commitment to a single technology.

•We have renewed our faith in the written word by acquiring for more than a billion dollars in stock one of the country’s great newspapers – The Boston Globe.

• “A computer can easily assemble…information from many sources. But this compilation is a far cry from a newspaper…. Raw news will do just fine if you’re a computer buff and want to play editor. But I, for one, would rather let a professional take the first raw cut at history and spend my leisure time fishing.”

As for the Globe, last year the Times was furiously shashing costs and looking for a buyer that never materialized. Then it threatened to close the paper all together without labor concessions. And last I checked, newspapers executives had little time to go fishing. Many of them are working weekends, figuring out how to play “catch up” and hang onto their jobs.

(The account from “Reflections of a newsosaur” is here.)

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Jim Gates, owner of Nevada County Free Range Beef, invited us to his annual picnic and barbeque — a family gathering that has grown to friends and family.

Jim is a longtime rancher here, whose grass-fed beef business has grown to 120 Shorthorn, Red Angus and other cows grazing on separate parcels comprising 2,240 acres near Rough and Ready. Jim is a modern-day cowboy. “Cows are essentially recycled grass,” he states. He sells his beef at BriarPatch and SPD, as well as direct.

The picnic is at Trabucco Ranch, which neighbors Jim’s property. You might recall the Trabucco’s prevailed in a conservation easement lawsuit in 2008.

The ranch land is comprised of rolling hills and oak trees, with cattle grazing throughout. It was a perfect day and Jim had set up “camp” on a knoll overlooking the snow-capped Sierra, with picnic tables and chairs.

His flat-bed truck was decked out with homemade salads and deserts. Jim fired up a grill for beef ribs and oysters (fresh from Bodega Bay). After eating, the children went to a nearby pond with plastic cups to catch tadpoles.

It was a classic picnic in the foothills, a reminder of our laid-back lifestyle.

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Sierra FoodWineArt was a sponsor of the downtown car show this weekend, so we showed up to judge the British cars. We chose this ’63 Jaguar, with a cool all-wood interior. Best of all, it still had the original owner, a guy who retired here and used to work for Walt Disney and run the San Francisco Film Festival.

We chatted about Herb Caen, who also owned a white Jag, how U.S. automakers ruined some famous foreign brands and the longrunning film festival — you know, some “San Francisco values.” Our son liked the drop-down wooden trays in the car’s backseat, used to entertain long before iPods.

The runner-up was a ’67 Morgan, a British roadster with a leather hood strap.

The show was packed, with thousands of attendees wandering the streets that were closed to traffic. Many of the merchants registers were ringing, and the streets were freshly power washed, thanks to our friends at Blu Sky Window cleaning. (No gum, Jeff, she told me).

The weather cooperated too, though rain is expected to return in the middle of the week.

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