Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report

May 28, Nevada City, Calif.:

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Editor’s note: In a press release, our Assemblyman Dan Logue said he is drafting legislation in coming weeks to deport illegal immigrants imprisoned in California to serve their sentences in their home countries.

SACRAMENTO – North State Assemblyman Dan Logue responded today to the ruling by the United States Supreme Court upholding the federal three-judge panel’s order to release tens of thousands of criminals from California’s prisons, announcing legislation to deport illegal immigrants currently imprisoned in California to serve their sentences in their home countries.

“The Court’s decision puts the public at risk and endangers the safety of communities across the state,” said Logue. “These prisoners are hardened criminals that have committed felonies and have not been deemed safe enough to release on early parole.”

In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal three-judge panel’s order for California to cut its prison population to within 137.5% of its designed capacity within two years, effectively ordering the early release of 46,000 convicted felons.

“If we just release 46,000 prisoners into the public, they will reoffend and many of these crimes will be violent,” commented Logue. “The safer thing to do is to deport the thousands of illegal immigrant criminals in our prisons so they serve their time in their home countries.”

Assemblyman Logue’s legislation is currently being drafted and will likely be heard in the coming weeks.

Assemblyman Logue represents the 3rd Assembly District in the California Legislature, which includes the communities of Butte, Lassen, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sierra and Yuba.

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Last month, I wrote how KVMR has given George Rebane a platform to spew more one-sided analysis in the AtPac vs. county/Diaz lawsuit — on the evening news hour, no less.

Assertions by Rebane on the news hour are going unchallenged, because KVMR offers no counterpoint. It should have let the Rood Center present its side, but that didn’t happen.

This error of judgment happened again this week. Rebane continued his rants here.

But he “forgot” to mention the most important elements of this case, instead claiming that the Rood Center is “deflecting inquiries”:

•The Rood Center reported at a public meeting this week that there is insurance protection for most of the claims. George didn’t mention that this week. Neither did The Union in its reporting from the meeting.

•AtPac has not shown that it suffered financial harm — the main point of the case. George ignores that.

•A pending lawsuit has kept the Rood Center from discussing details of the case — as is commonplace — though George suggests it’s somehow unusual.

•Rebane predicts an out-of-court settlement with details remaining “confidential.” That’s commonplace too.

KVMR owes its listeners a more balanced report of this case, and it’s just not happening. The Union has flubbed this case from the get-go, first ignoring that Clerk-Recorder Greg Diaz’ opponent had represented AtPac at one point. Whoops!

To me, this case is more of a personal vendetta against the winning Clerk Recorder candidate, and a battle of “manhood” for the losing side in the election. (It was one of the worst political drubbings in a long while).

And “we the people” are caught in the middle, with the information being filtered, thanks to KVMR.

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Editor’s note: This press release was emailed to our magazine from Kevin Minto of Wild Plum Home & Garden.

Coming Soon: The Grass Valley Arts Building

In the works now for over a year, the Grass Valley Arts Building is one step closer to becoming a reality. It all started with a vision to create an art-centered facility at 111-113 Mill Street that would become the anchor for the visual arts in downtown Grass Valley. The 9,000 sq. ft. building would feature two distinctive art galleries that would provide a showcase for regional artists to both local and out-of-town visitors. It would also provide a number of working artists’ studios and classroom space that could draw additional segments of our community to the downtown area. Included would be an in-house food venue that could be tapped for events, open houses, receptions, exhibitions and classes.

Phase one was to bring the visual arts back to historic downtown Grass Valley in the form of an art gallery that ended up being Artworks Gallery.

Phase two is the transformation of Wild Plum Home & Garden into The Gallery at Wild Plum that will begin this weekend with a clearance sale. This new co-op gallery will feature the work of local artists and include many types of visual art including painting, photography, jewelry and ceramic just to name a few. Set in an historic building that boasts maple floors, brick and wood walls and rustic ceilings, this distinctive gallery will be unlike any in our area. And like the Wild Plum of old, this new gallery will continue to feature the highly sought after floral art and will be infused with natural elements like branches, rocks and minerals which will give it a very unique look and feel.

This coupled with the soon-to-open food venue in the back featuring Gelato and Lazy Dog Confections will make this a favorite place to visit.

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Editor’s note: Here’s a budget message from County Executive Officer Rick Haffey in the Friday memo. It won’t come as a surprise to regular readers here and should be (another) call to arms about the need to diversify our economy beyond construction and real estate. “Hello”:

“As many people know, traditionally local governments track about 18 to 24 months behind a recovery from a national recession. Clearly, this downturn, the Great Recession, has been longer and deeper than previous economic declines and unlike anything since the 1930’s.

“It appears we are now bouncing along the bottom of this deep trough and will not see the light until at least 2014-2015 if not even later. The question is will we begin an upturn or will there be a double dip and further decline in the economy locally, regionally and nationally.

“The evidence so far is mixed at best. On the positive side, there has been a halt in the decline and a very modest return of sales tax locally and statewide.

“While sales tax is showing a very mild uptick, real estate is still struggling here in Nevada County and in many parts of the state and nation. Property taxes are the County’s number one source of revenue for the general fund. They have averaged a 5.5% increase during the past 2 decades.

“[But there has been an] extraordinary decline of property taxes over the last few years and our projected zero growth in property taxes for the fiscal year beginning July 1, which is an uptick from the negative growth this year.”

The rest of the document is 2011 – 5-27-11 CEO Friday Memo-2

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A former loan officer with Citizens Bank was sentenced to 33 months in prison after pleading guilty to embezzlement, as reported earlier this week.

Now I’ve learned that the FDIC also has kept a close watch on the outcome of the case.

“Melvin Rohs is hereby, without the prior written approval of the FDIC and the appropriate Federal financial institutions regulatory agency, (a) participating in any manner in the conduct of the affairs of any financial institution,” according to an order dated April 27.

“The FDIC considered the matter and determined it had reason to believe that:
(a) Respondent has engaged or participated in unsafe or unsound banking practices and/or breaches of fiduciary duty as an institution-affiliated party of Citizens Bank of Northern California, Nevada City, California;
(b) By reason of such practices and/or breaches of fiduciary duty, the Bank has suffered or will probably suffer financial loss or other damage, the interests of the Bank’s depositors have been or could be prejudiced, and/or Respondent received financial gain or other benefit; and
(c) Such practices and/or breaches of fiduciary duty involve personal dishonesty on the part of the Respondent or demonstrate Respondent’s willful and/or continuing disregard for the safety or soundness of the Bank.”

The full document is here.

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All along, I’ve proposed keeping the Nevada County courthouse on its original site, having written the first commentary about it last May. It’s a “no brainer” when you look at the big picture, not just through the narrow lens of court administrators.

Not enough people were listening back then, but they slowly have jumped on the bandwagon. I’m glad the supervisors are on board now. The Union editorial page also is supporting the plan now that it’s “safe” to do so. (The same thing happened on the “save the library effort.” After Sierra Voices and others did the early legwork, the “which way is the wind blowing” crowd jumped on board).

Trouble is, in the case of the courthouse, now we have to jump through some mighty big hoops to keep it on its existing site, such as securing funds from other agencies. This is no easy task when money is tight.

Could this extra legwork have been avoided? I think so.

In “Bombshell: State admits to “grave error” in Nevada City courthouse report” I wrote last June: “The county was never asked whether it wanted to relinquish space in the existing building, which would facilitate a new courthouse on the existing site.”

It continued: ““Unfortunately, there is a grave mistake in your project feasibility report,” the county letter reads. “The county was never contacted by your staff and asked if we would be open to relinquishing our space in the court house. In fact, this statement is very confusing as this was our desire and repeated request through the previous court house transfer process and negotiations.

“The county is still interested in discussing with the (state) both parties’ equity positions in the Nevada City and Truckee court houses.”

The Administrative Office of the Courts responded with an apology. All along I felt the Administrative Office of the Courts was applying a “cookie cutter” mindset to rebuilding aging courthouses, rather than considering the historic or economic issues.

The “my bad” by the Administrative Office of the Courts is a case study in how our government bureaucracies need to work more closely together from the get-go, a recurring issue.

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Editor’s note: Is Tom McClintock for real? Check this out:

Over the email transom: Vote Notes from Tom McClintock’s Office.

Russ Steele

HR 1540 – National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012: NO.

I have one over-riding objection to this measure, which authorizes the Defense budget for the coming year: Section 1034 of the bill provides an unconstitutional and open-ended delegation of authority to the President to initiate hostilities with any country he alone determines is “associated” with al-Qaeda or the Taliban. The Constitution is explicit that only Congress has the authority to declare war, and the American Founders were quite clear that so monumental a decision should be reserved to the representatives of all the people and never left to a single individual.”

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A real, honest-to-goodness barbecue joint has opened on Hwy. 49 in North Auburn this past weekend — just in time for summer.

Hank’s Meat & Potatoes — “home of the finger-suckin’ good stuff” — offers ribs, chicken, pulled pork and tri-tips, as well as wood-grilled rib-eye steaks and burgers. A pulled-pork sandwich with a side goes for $6. Sides include potatoes hand cut the old-fashioned way into french fries (with the potato skin intact), as well as fresh cole slaw, baked beans and other items.

The smoker out front is custom-made. Hank’s is on Hwy. 49 at 25005 Shale Ridge Rd. in Auburn. Here’s a quick iPhone shot of the owner Jared and his smoker. (Hank, the restaurant’s namesake, “is in the car seat,” Jared told me).

Smokey’s Kitchen in Truckee also is a good rib house.

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