Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report

Three Northern California companies, including ones in Grass Valley, Calaveras County and Galt, won federal broadband grants, according to the Obama administration:

SmarterBroadband $2,498,724
This $2.5 million award to SmarterBroadband will bring high-quality fixed wireless service to one of the more geographically challenging areas in California.

SmarterBroadband’s project stands to benefit more than 33,000 people, 3,500 businesses, and approximately 300 community institutions. In addition to the jobs this project will create upfront, it will help drive economic development and create jobs for decades to come.

The SmarterBroadband release is Press release 4Aug10 SmarterBroadband

Calaveras Telephone Company $4,086,976
This $4.1 million award to Calaveras Telephone Companywith an additional $2.3 million of outside capital will bring robust infrastructure of fiber-to-the-home technology to its existing customer footprint in Calaveras County.

Calaveras’ project stands to benefit approximately 1,000 people, and several businesses. In addition to the jobs this project will create upfront, it will help drive economic development and create jobs for decades to come.

Softcom Internet Communications Inc CA $6,758,835
This $6.8 million award to Softcom Internet Communications will provide 100 percent broadband availability to a large and underserved rural area. Softcom’s project stands to benefit approximately 14,000 people, 4,200 businesses, and several other community institutions. In addition to the jobs this project will create upfront, it will help drive economic development and create jobs for decades to come.

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In light of the judicial ruling to overturn Prop. 8, I wanted to remind readers how our county voted on the same-sex marriage initiative in Nov. 2009.

Nevada County voters supported Proposition 8 by just three votes, according to the final results.

The measure was approved by 27,617 (50 percent) Nevada County voters, while 27,614 (50 percent) voters voted against the measure.

The results in our county were closer than the statewide numbers where 52 percent (7 million) voted yes and 48 percent (6.4 million) voted no.

Interesting, huh?

Some background on Prop. 8 is here.

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Fox News is pointing to U.S. District Judge Vaugh Walker’s sexuality in the second sentence of its reporting on the ruling to overturn a California ban on same-sex marriage.

“The ruling by U.S. District Judge Vaugh Walker, one of three openly gay federal judges in the country, gave opponents of the controversial Proposition 8 ballot a major victory,” Fox reported.

It did not provide Walker’s rationale in his detailed 136-page ruling until halfway through the story:

“Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples,” the judge wrote in precise detail why the ban does not pass constitutional muster.”

The judge found that the gay marriage ban violates the Constitution’s due process and equal protection clauses.

Fox “fair and balanced”? You decide.

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Locals Michael Anderson and Steve Frisch present cogent arguments about the role of political moderates — something I’ve been talking about here for a while. They are here:

Michael:
It’s all about the moderates in American politics. Always has been, always will be.

I think this is a fact that a lot of tea party members are inconveniently forgetting. I don’t begrudge the tea party their venting platform any more than I begrudged the Ralph Naderites or the Green Party in 2000 their venting platforms. Without our fringes there really isn’t anything to discuss.

But at the end of the day, we have to vote for somebody. And that somebody is usually a moderate, someone who isn’t going to get all crazy-wiggy on us. Someone who isn’t going to jeopardize our livelihoods, someone who isn’t going to lead us into unnecessary wars, someone who isn’t going to suspend the US Constitution, someone who isn’t going to besmirch our trust by bagging interns.

Now that I’m older, I realize that American politics is actually as simple as a game of Yahtzee (a dice game for ages 8-and-up). It’s all about the middle and adding up the numbers. Jeff Pelline has been banging this drum all year, to his credit, and he’s been taking a beating for it. But he’s right.

Let’s hear what Chuck Schumer has to say about it: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/02/100802fa_fact_toobin

Chuck writes: “To do health care was a noble, good thing, and it will help America dramatically…[But] seventy-five per cent of Americans have health care that they are fundamentally–I wouldn’t say happy with, but not unhappy with it.”

Chuck is the ultimate pragmatist. He fought for the middle in 2006 and 2008, and the Dems will do so again in 2010. The tea party has yet to address this simple electoral fact.

Steve:
Michael, and Jeff, are dead on right on this. There may be some on the fringes that say that the middle of the road is the place to get hit, and they may revel in besmirching centrist positions as socialist, or centrist positions as corporatists for that matter, but the vast majority of Americans want predictable, centrist government.

In Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman we actually have two centrists. Meg is spending all of her time this summer rushing back to the middle on the environment, global warming, immigration, health care, economic stimulus and tax policy.

Conservatives, like our friends who populate some other blogs, are stuck in the uncomfortable position of accepting and championing a moderate, or sticking with their hyper-conservative principles. That’s why the Tea Party movement will ultimately be a detriment to their preferred political party, which although they claim bi-partisan support, is truly the Republican party.

The hot position of shouted protest is a good political tool during times of stress, and in the heat of early political organizing, but in the end, American voters reject the heat of a protest movement for the wisdom of the one who proves they can GOVERN.

The economy will slowly recover. Innovation in the American economy will spur new industries. Protest will diminish. The kookiness of the Tea Party movement will slowly be recognized for what it is– irrational, unfocused, unrealistic protest against a sense of disempowerment and disenfranchisement that comes from economic dislocation.

Then the Tea Party movement will be a liability, and the Republican party will suffer the consequences.

I just hope they accelerate the process and nominate Sarah Palin for President in 2012.

Just keep saying “President Sarah Palin”.

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The other day I wrote that Jerry Brown once owned land here.

“Had a number of Jerry sightings around here in the ’80s after he was Governor,” a “citizen journalist” responded. “He and Linda (Ronstadt) were at the Willo a few times. It seemed like kinda his hideout back then.”

A Newsweek article about Jerry and Linda from 1979 is here.

Like others, the Willo steakhouse at 16898 State Hwy. 49 outside of Nevada City is a favorite of ours. The steaks are grilled over an open flame. The background is here.

We like to eat at the tables in the bar and listen to the jukebox. Our son is fascinated with playing a jukebox.

“Once you park and start to walk inside, you will notice a sign near the left hand door that finally tells you that this is a steak house. Walking in, you are in a different world, with dark paneling, cedar walls, pictures hanging in some kind of random order and a picture of the Bay Bridge with lights flashing on the wall,” according to a review on nevadacounty.com.

“How did the Willo get its name instead of the Willow? What happened to the W on the end? Well, it’s a combination of one of the prior owners names, Frank Williams last name and his wife’s first name Lola,” it added.

circa 1947

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Try as they may, newspapers face challenges in being reliable sources for real estate information: They depend too heavily on real estate ads, so there’s always a tendency to see the glass as “half full” or to be “weak kneed.”

In The Union this morning, a realtor tries to see the bright side in our area, observing that equity and short sales are gaining ground, and it’s presented as a one-source news story.

Short sales, however, are still loans that are “upside down.” Equity sales are growing modestly again, but you have to wonder at what price range and whether it’s sustainable. I would suspect the lower range.

Here’s the real killer: Sales of distressed properties make up nearly half of all sales in the western county in the first half of 2010. That’s a lot. It’s also occurring against a backdrop of double-digit unemployment here.

It shows how heated our local market became in the “go-go” days with real estate speculators — many of them real estate agents — rather than people who merely wanted to buy a home to live in.

It shows the weak underpinnings of our local economy, having failed to diversify beyond real estate and construction, making us vulnerable to “boom and bust” economic cycles.

Here’s some of the reality:

•Grandmere’s Inn — a landmark home and B&B in downtown Nevada City— was auctioned off for barely $600,000 — after being listed at $849,000. It previously sold for higher than that.

•The Holbrooke Hotel — a landmark hotel in downtown Grass Valley — is in foreclosure proceedings, with an auction set for Aug. 23. It is listed at $1.4 million, down from $4.4 million in 2008, as I reported. It sold for $2.35 million in 2005.

There are many other example of prominent properties around here being sold as distressed properties — both commercial and residential.

Another is Villaggio di Vigneto — a bank-owned “Tuscany” in Penn Valley — which I reported previously. It supposedly is in escrow.

They all pull down the median price for commercial and residential properties — often used as a bargaining chip in sales.

“If the asking price for the Holbrooke has dropped by $3 million in less than two years, consider for a moment the ripple effect it will have on local commercial real estate,” as former Nevada City Mayor Steve Cottrell wrote on this blog.

From a consumer’s view, having no or little equity in your home is not going to help jump-start consumer spending. It makes you feel “poor.”

People who borrowed against what equity they did have during the recession to expand their business remain at risk.

We also have an aging, declining population, and many retirees will need to sell their home in coming years to get into assisted living as they become elderly.

Our local governments, meanwhile, depend on property tax receipts to pay for services. The county depends on property tax more than sales tax.

In short, we’re in a very precarious situation in our local economy.

If there’s a bright spot in “resetting” the value of our real estate, it’s that homes are more affordable for young families. But we’ll need to create some better paying jobs to go along with them or it won’t matter.

We will have to wait until year-end to get a better grasp of how far we have to go to get out of the real estate hole in our western county, some of it self inflicted.

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