Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report

We attended the Lake Tahoe Wooden Boat Show (A.K.A. Concourse d’Elegance) near Tahoe City on Friday. It also will be held this weekend.

We’ve been going to the see the Tahoe “woodies” at the boat show for years. It’s a quintessential “old Tahoe” event. You can also see the boats tooling along the West Shore during the summer.

Though we are sailors, we know some of the longtime owners, including Ed Scott, whose father wrote a classic book on Lake Tahoe “Saga of Lake Tahoe” (circa 1957). Another longtime “woodie” owner was the late Alan Furth, president of the Southern Pacific railroad in San Francisco.

At the weekend boat show at the Sierra Boat Co., you can stroll the docks for an up close view of more than 80 beautifully and meticulously restored wooden boats. Each one is a work of art. For the first time, this year’s Concours also features vintage fiberglass boats. An article on the show is here.

On Friday, you also are entertained with live music, an open bar, and a gourmet lunch of grilled lamb chops, Ahi tuna, salads and fruit. They also offer boat rides. A Flip video that my son and I created is here:

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The county board of supervisors released its agenda for Tuesday’s meeting, which includes a memo from Blue Lead Mine appealing the planning commission’s unanimous decision to reject its “vested right” to mine.

The document, outlining Blue Lead Mine’s rational for the supervisors to reverse the decision, is here.

I wouldn’t expect the board to reverse the decision. And though the final votes aren’t counted, Terry Lamphier is expected to join the board, replacing John Spencer.

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Two Grass Valley members terms expire this year and are up for election on November 2.

The positions are held by Council Members Dan Miller and Chauncey Poston.

The city clerk will begin issuing nomination papers and candidates statements on July 12, and the process will end August 6.

The council is expected to adopt a resolution calling and giving notice of the election at Tuesday’s regularly scheduled meeting.

I don’t expect Poston to run again, but I predict Miller will.

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In Placer County, my sources are discussing whether somebody will ask Tom Hudson, the county’s Republican Central Committee chairman since early 2007, to step down early.

Hudson — considered “far right” — finished last in District 4′s election for the central committee last week. But he won’t leave his post until January under existing rules — unless persuaded to resign early.

Central committee member Tom Campbell is a possible successor to Hudson.

Placer’s central committee is running into the same criticism as the GOP central committee in our county — it is too far to the right, alienating moderate Republicans.

“They could put a rabid dog in, and it would do a better job,” Auburn City Council member and GOP’er Bill Kirby told the Auburn Journal. “What’s needed is a Barry Goldwater-style of Republicanism, not rightwing social-conservative lunatics. We need fiscal conservatives who are socially and environmentally responsible.”

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Though it was decades ago, I miss working with Herb Caen to pass along items for his “three dot” column. Here’s one:

The late Spring is bringing hungry squirrels out in force in the Sierra — digging up freshly planted flowers and the like.

At the Rainbow Lodge on Thursday, a Donner Lake resident mentioned during our meeting that she returned from work and found a squirrel in her — well — toilet.

She was a brave and enterprising soul, however, and managed to coax it out of the house — without harm to either one.

Herb (a pioneer “blogger” before the Internet) appreciated the items that I passed along (an “only in Marin” example is here). But he also rejected them summarily.

Once I excitedly told him how my wife and I woke up to a raccoon at our rented flat in North Beach, then it scampered up a ladder to the rooftop patio like a nimble human. “Jeff,” he responded sternly. “Raccoons are all over the city.”

Here’s a video of a man who struggled mightily to get the squirrel out of his toilet:

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