Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report

California ranked first in a new site sustainability ranking, followed by Washington and Oregon, according to Site selection magazine.

The rankings include such factors as “LEED-certified buildings, EPA brownfield funding and leveraged funding since 1995, renewable energy generation, green incentives and new private-sector facility projects in ‘greentech’ fields such as solar and wind power and electric vehicles,” according to the magazine.

LEED refers to “Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design” or energy-efficient building design. Though not mentioned in the survey, an example in our area is the new BriarPatch Co-op store near Sierra College in Grass Valley.

Site Selection magazine focuses on corporate real estate strategy and area economic development.

Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

The California salmon fishing season is getting shorter and shorter, if at all. Here’s the latest update from my friend Eric Juell, owner of Nevada City Seafood:

“The local salmon season proved to be much less than productive. The very sad truth is there seems to be very little of a biomass of our beloved salmon left. Out of sixteen boats from the wharf, top boat caught eight fish.

“We are all aware of the practices that have led to the salmon depletion. If we are to see a return of the numbers from days gone by, it seems we will have to leave the species to propagate rather than harvest for a considerable period of time. Sad but true.

“We must pay the price for the seeds we have sown!”

When I was growing up in Southern California, we ate fresh local halibut and swordfish. But that’s getting fished out too. Yes, “we must pay the price for the seeds we have sown,” as Eric puts it.

Filed under: Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

I was enjoying a light-hearted column about foreign exchange students by The Union’s publisher on Tuesday (the ones he does best), then I came across this: “His father is a pilot for Air France and his mother is a stewardess.”

A “stewardess”? “Reflecting the social changes of the 1960s and ’70s, the term ‘stewardess’ evolved into gender-neutral ‘flight attendant,’” as the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. reminds us. “A conservative uniform style reappeared due to new laws that prohibited discrimination in hiring based on age, appearance and gender.”

I wrote about the airline business for years, so I’m probably more attuned than many. American Airlines hired its first female pilot in 1973.

We enjoy the small-town lifestyle but find that some of the social aspects are still stuck in the ’70s. This is not isolated, though a newspaper should know better. It’s changing, however.

We enjoyed hosting a foreign exchange student from near Oslo three summers ago — Jeff A.’s idea, in fact. We also showed the teen around San Francisco and Tahoe. We caught a Mackinaw trout and grilled it for dinner.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »