Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report

As we all know by now, Barry Pruett lost his race for clerk-recorder against incumbent Greg Diaz back in June. In fact, he lost in every precinct, one of the biggest drubbings in county political history.

But I wonder if Barry got the memo that the race is over. He still sounds angry about it.

On Thursday, he accused the Clerk Recorder’s office of an election that was “conducted improperly” because of a delay in ballots.

The report was erroneous and misleading.

As it turns out, Barry didn’t contact the Clerk Recorder’s office to get the real information, nor did his wife, Kim, who works for Tom McClintock. She called a supervisor instead (who told her to call the Elections Office).

“I do not know anyone that has received their ballots yet,” Barry wrote on the blog post.

Then he wrote: “Currently, there are Nevada County military personnel in Germany who have been calling around, because they have not received their ballots yet.”

“Exit Question: If Nevada County did not mail out the ballots yet, did they send them to the overseas voters by September 18th as required by the MOVE Act?” it added.

Huh? The Clerk Recorder’s office issued a press release last Friday that said the ballots were mailed out. It is here.

Barry apparently got some of the information from Kim, McClintock’s field representative. McClintock, you will recall, said it was time to vote out the “left wing” clerk-recorder at a political rally earlier this year.

I’m surprised this constituent information was released on a blog.

Barry’s blogging pal Russ Steele said later that he received a ballot, so Barry “updated” his blog with that information. But no more.

I checked with the Clerk-Recorder’s office for the facts:

•Military ballots were sent out on Sept. 13, a long time ago. In fact, 37 of the 282 sent out so far have been returned.

•Some 40,864 ballots were issued in our county.

The Union newspaper also has some responsibility here. I noticed that the press release they ran, and that Barry was citing, had been modified to exclude the information that the ballots had been mailed out on Friday. It is here. Oops.

Except for me, it seems people are treating the Pruetts like “sacred cows,” apparently because of their connection to McClintock.

It’s time that one of our electeds or an official at the Rood Center sets them straight! The Pruetts owe the Clerk Recorder’s office a public apology.

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Is Tom McClintock campaigning from the couch in his district? McClintock could wind up skipping another candidates forum in his district — just after he missed the one in our county in recent weeks.

Tonight, McClintock was invited to join Clint Curtis and Ben Emery at the Town Hall Theatre in Quincy, Plumas County, for a candidate forum of the League of Women Voters.

“This debate is an opportunity for Plumas County residents to hear what the candidates have to say, how they respond to questions and how they respond to each other. It is also an opportunity to reinforce civil discourse by practicing it,” according to the League. It has been promoted on PlumasNews.com.

I checked with the organizer. She told me that Curtis and Emery had RSVP’ed but Tom hadn’t answered at all. She was disappointed and planned to pass this onto the crowd tonight.

The Chico Enterprise has raised similar concerns about Wally Herger in the neighboring Congressional district. Like McClintock, Herger has a safe seat, at least for now.

As the Enterprise writes about Herger:

“What a farce. Candidates should talk to the voters, not just rely on vanilla websites designed by political operatives and written statements crafted by PR majors.

“That’s where we’re headed. If there’s ever a good argument why voters should pass Proposition 20, which would take drawing congressional districts out of the politicians’ hands, this is it.

“Safe seats mean politicians don’t have to engage voters. And when politicians don’t have to campaign, the political system starts to sound more like the old Soviet Union than the United States.”

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A meeting is planned on Thursday at the Grass Valley Police Department to address the “delinquent youth problem,” which I’ve written about here repeatedly.

The seminar is open to all business owners. “Come be part of the solution,” the note from the Grass Valley Downtown Association reads.

I’m looking forward to hearing what comes out of the meeting.

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We’re a small town, and smaller still when it comes to newsgathering in our local newspaper.

On Wednesday, reporters of The Union — who sit next to each other in the same newsroom — are writing about each other’s parents in news articles.

In one article Michelle Rindels writes about her colleague Greyson Howard’s parents in an article titled “Letter stalls council’s B&B decision.” Howard’s parents are seeking to buy the B&B in question.

In another story, Howard writes about Rindel’s father, Pastor Mark Rindels, who is advocating for showing more messages on an electric sign at the First Baptist Church.

I’m sure glad the reporters are not writing about their own parents!

I did, however, detect some sympathy for each one’s plight in each of the stories — and some reporting “holes” that might have better balanced that impression.

In the church sign story, for example, I wanted to know how frequently the electronic messages would appear beyond “emergencies.” That’s an important detail in siding with the Pastor or the majority of the City Council.

In the B&B story, I wondered how likely it was that escrow would not be extended, since it is extended regularly under many circumstances. That’s also key in sympathizing with the Howard’s plight.

I would be interested in reading a column in The Union about how it handles potential “conflicts” like this in the newsroom — rather than another weekly rant against government, catering to retired print subscribers.

I’m sure the people on the other side of the issues would appreciate that too.

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The talk about issues got personal in the debate between Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown on Wednesday.

You would have thought it was being held in our county, not in Marin.

As the Sacramento Bee reported: “Brown, the state’s attorney general and former governor, fired the first rhetorical volley by slamming Whitman’s proposal to eliminate the state capital gains tax, saying it would force the state to cut education spending.

“He then faced Whitman onstage and said, ‘I’d like to ask you: How much money will you save if this tax break goes into effect this year or last year?’

Brown’s supporters in the audience cheered, and Whitman responded, ‘I’m an investor, and investors will benefit from this and so will job creators, and I was a job creator.’

She then shot back, ‘My business is creating jobs. Your business is politics. You’ve been doing this for 40 years, and you have been part of the war on jobs in this state for 40 years.’”

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Our Congressman Tom McClintock was a “no show” at a League of Women Voters candidate forum in our county the other day with his opponents, Clint Curtis and Ben Emery.

This debate was an opportunity — in McClintock’s case, a missed one — for residents to hear what the candidates have to say, how they respond to questions and how they respond to each other in his district.

The Union reported that McClintock did not attend “because of his voting duties in Congress.” But had it dug deeper it would have found that Congress had just begun a recess for, well, campaigning. Oops.

That’s not to say Tom isn’t campaigning during the recess, which ends Nov. 15. It’s just not here.

He’s going to be a keynote speaker later this week at a conference in Newport Beach in Orange County titled “Catch the Wave, Conservatives” of the Western Conservative Political Action Conference.

He will speak at the WCPAC opening reception on Friday, sponsored by the “National Organization for Marriage.” (See video below). NOM is strongly opposed to same-sex marriage — though Prop. 8 passed in our county by only three votes. Yes, just three votes out of more than 55,000.

Other speakers at the conservative gathering include political pollster Scott Rasmussen of Rasmussen Reports, a keynote sponsored by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

There will be panels on “immigration” and the “truth about Jerry Brown,” among others. The agenda is here.

Newport Beach is “McClintock territory.” In fact, it is the top “zip code” (92660) for his political contributions by geography, according to campaign finance data. Sacramento ranks 8th on the list.

Top donors for Tom’s 2010 campaign finance cycle were Los Angeles-Long Beach ($84,887); Orange County ($75,575); and then Sacramento ($72,250), according to campaign finance data. The background is here.

Here’s the video about the National Organization for Marriage:

Exit question: Does Tom McClintock represent the “middle of the road” values in our county or more extreme ones? Hint: Prop. 8 won in our county by a narrower margin than in the state as a whole.

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