Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report

“Some senior engineers at Tokyo Electric Power Co. knew for years that five of its nuclear reactors in Fukushima prefecture had a potentially dangerous design flaw, but the company didn’t fully upgrade them, dooming them to failure when the earthquake hit, a Wall Street Journal examination of the disaster shows. “The company used two different [...]

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Editor’s note: Blogging is a tough job, so I was pleased to receive kudos from Robert Speer, editor of the Chico News & Review, for questioning our Assemblyman Dan Logue’s ethics in naming a campaign contributer as his “Business of the Year.” Over the years, I’ve pointed to some sage reporting by the CN&R myself, [...]

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I’ve enjoyed the entrepreneurial spirit of Amazon.com over the years. I was one of the first in the media to interview founder Jeff Bezos while at CNET. I bought (and sold) some Amazon stock a few years ago for our son’s education account — in this case, at least, a well-timed and profitable transaction. It [...]

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The fallout from our aging, declining population in the foothills:

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The best part of the longrunning AtPac v. Aptitude Solutions copyright infringement lawsuit is the “story within a story,” as I’ve mentioned previously. I’ve been interested in how certain information about the case, which also mentions clerk-recorder Greg Diaz as a defendant, gets leaked and why. It can help shine a light on whether there [...]

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Trustee Aaron Klein is trolling the comments of SacBee.com to defend the hire of Willy Duncan as president — and a salary that calls for built-in annual raises during the budget crunch. “Retiring Sierra College President Leo Chavez fondly called his successor ‘the new guy,’ before telling a room full of administrators, trustees and donors [...]

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Editor’s note: Moonshine Ink has a cool article about “new blood” that is helping to revitalize Tahoe City. “Tahoe City residents have been beaten over the head, time and time again, with all that is struggling in their town — commercial vacancies, population declines, high real estate values,” according to Moonshine Ink. “Most everyone can [...]

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The sendoff for Nevada City manager Gene Albaugh, who is retiring, was on Tuesday. Details here. Peter Van Zant posted photos of the event on his Facebook page. Social media is changing how we communicate in small towns:

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“Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann claimed Wednesday that the media is rooting for a catfight between her and Sarah Palin,” according to CNN. “‘They want to see two girls come together and have a mud wrestling fight, and I am not going to give that to them,” Bachmann told a voter Wednesday who asked about her [...]

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The biggest component of the new state budget is a $4 billion assumption of higher revenues in 2011-12, as the Sacramento Bee points out. The “trigger” cuts are essentially in three tiers, based on how much of the extra $4 billion is collected. Tier 0: If the state gets $3 billion to $4 billion of [...]

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