Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report

Editor’s note: Former county supervisor John Spencer, a land surveyor by trade and now a CABPRO director, penned this article in the July CABPRO newsletter. While blaming regulations for our local woes, he largely ignores the other factors at play in his “analysis”: lots of home foreclosures, banks unwilling to lend, an aging and declining population, not diversifying our economy beyond construction and real estate, and so on.

Instead, he paints a broad brush: “The regulatory bar: in regulation we include State, Federal, local, EPA, CARB, OSHA, building regulations, Air Board, Water Board, waste discharge permits, appointed commissions, and some 1700+ new laws that are enacted each and every year without fail.”

I never understood why we elected ideologues — from the left or the right — to local office when so many of our problems are non-partisan and more pragmatic. You can see why the local contractor’s association and vocal, locals such as Russ Steele, George Rebane and Todd Juvinall loved John (and are PO’ed that Terry Lamphier, of all people, defeated him), but it doesn’t change the complexity of the factors that are at play. We need to face the whole truth, not just rely on the anti-government soundbites.

Click here and go to page 4 to read the article and charts.

Before I left office (Nevada County Supervisor) January 2011, I gathered up some information on development in this County since 1970. What it showed was somewhat interesting and explains what was happening during a less regulatory system. Chances are other counties have the same sort of history.

The graph below shows the total number of subdivision maps that were recorded in Nevada County during the following years. Parcel Maps (the taller bars) create 4 or fewer parcels; Subdivision maps (the really short ones) create more than 4 parcels. As you can see the late 70′s were the boom years where commerce, jobs, and housing were moving forward. There was no problem with finding work.

This set the stage for creating
activity in the home construction market. In 1995 Nevada County took delivery of a new General Plan that made it much more difficult to create anything new or develop business.

This is not a scientific graph; it is only representative of what appears to be going on. In early 2008 (and several years before) there was plenty of money in the system, wages were up and although the regulatory bar was tall there was enough money for us to get over the regulatory hump to create things, commerce, jobs & housing.

As the economy took a nose-dive almost one half of the wealth was lost on Wall Street. While the wealth was taken from the system the regulatory bar continued to get taller, it does even today. From the crash, wages started their trend downward as well. Wealth is coming back but very slowly. With reduced wealth, wages, and a very slow economic recovery it gets much more difficult to get over the regulatory bar, thus no commerce.”

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American flags along the streets of downtown Grass Valley were taken after the Fourth of July, according to the Grass Valley Downtown Association, the latest sign of unacceptable behavior in our towns.

The group allegedly boasted about their acts at the Nevada Club, according to Julia Jordan of the Downtown Association. “Where’s your sense of pride and patriotism? I’m saddened at the behavior,” Julia added.

The group supposedly was bragging about taking them from the Downtown Association, but as Julia points out, they are from a Grass Valley Schools program.

“Flags over the Foothills,” formed in 2003 by a group of parents, benefits the Grass Valley Schools Foundation for Arts and Science to raise funds to support and enhance curriculum.

In subscribing to Flags Over the Foothills, members pay a yearly fee ($40/one flag or $100/three flags) to sponsor a flag to display in downtown Grass Valley or at their residence.

Flags are installed at dawn and removed at dusk at four national holidays — Memorial Day, Flag Day, the Fourth of July and Veterans’ Day. In the past few years, the foundation has raised and donated thousands of dollars to Grass Valley schools.

This incident comes after complaints of teenagers yelling racial slurs at Condon Park, according to visitors. The city apologized. The details are here.

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“Following Horace Greeley’s advice, Rick Perry has gone West to harvest political gold,” as the Houston Chronicle puts it. “Greeley lost a presidential race to Ulysses S. Grant in 1872. Perry is contemplating a similar path.”

The Chronicle points to the most enthusiastic Perry aficionado as our Assemblyman Dan Logue, whom it describes as the “state (legislator) who led the unsuccessful effort to suspend California’s law to reduce climate-altering pollution.”

It adds: “Logue’s 2010 ballot proposition to suspend the state’s climate law fell short, but not for lack of fiscal resources. The effort was backed by two San Antonio-based oil companies, Valero and Tesoro. Valero also has contributed to Perry’s political campaigns.”

Let’s not forget that Logue also has received campaign contributions from the same Texas oil refiners who backed Prop. 23. The background is here.

Perhaps Logue will name them “Businesses of the Year,” as he did with the Territorial Dispatch, a right-wing newspaper in his district.

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“With newspaper ad sales falling at an unexpectedly abrupt rate, many publishers at mid-year were laying off staff, requiring unpaid furloughs, consolidating plants and taking other measures to buttress their bottom lines,” writes Alan Mutter in Reflections of a Newsosaur.

“Although some analysts have interpreted these expense-cutting tactics as a repudiation of the print newspaper business by publishing companies, they are anything but. Publishers have undertaken these measures in an effort to keep their traditional businesses as strong as possible to fund the transition to digital publishing.

“But they have a long way to go. Fifteen years after the commercial debut of the Internet, publishers on average still depend on print advertising and circulation for 90% of their revenues. Stop the presses and newspaper companies are out of business. It’s just that simple.”

The rest of the article is here.

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I received this press release:

“TEDxGrassValley, a regional version of the popular TED conference, returns Wednesday, July 13, 2011 to the Miners Foundry Cultural Center, 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. The independently produced event, operated under license from TED, is organized around the TEDGlobal 2011 conference, on July 12-15, in Edinburgh, Scotland.

“What is life? And how can it be better lived? From the secrets of the biological processes that take place in our body, to the cultural constructs that take place in our society; from the technologies and resources that make life possible and enjoyable, to the themes that define our humanity — or threaten it: TEDGlobal 2011 will be a celebration of life, in all its forms.

“TEDxGrassValley will feature live streaming of Day 2 of TEDGlobal 2011. These talks include the world’s leading scientists, economists, activists, researchers, artists, and more including historian Niall Ferguson, political economist Yasheng Huang, comedian Robin Ince, anti-hunger leader Josette Sheeran, geneticist Svante Paabo, cancer researcher Elizabeth Murchison, biochemist Cynthia Kenyon, sand artist Joe Castillo, underworld investigator Misha Glenny, movement expert Daniel Wolpert, and roboticist Peter Fankhauser among others.

“TEDxGrassValley will also feature a handful of regional speakers to address “What is Life?” in our community.”

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“A major problem for state governments right now is that they fund themselves through sales taxes but those sales taxes typically don’t apply to online retailers without substantial operational bases in the state,” according to Ezra Klein in the Washington Post. “So as more purchases move online, tax revenues drop. Compounding the problem is that the brick-and-mortar stores who do have to pay sales taxes are at a price disadvantage, which encourages consumers to abandon them and move their purchases online.

“California, which is facing a massive budget deficit, is trying to recoup some of that revenue by charging large online retailers sales taxes. But they can only do that to retailers with some workers, facilities or offices in the states. So Amazon is pulling out.

“Let’s be clear: Amazon opposes this bill because it wipes out a price advantage they currently have against their competitors. And, as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has explained at length, their other arguments simply don’t add up. Now, Amazon is a business, and so you can’t fault it for playing hardball in an effort to retain a competitive advantage. But this is bad policy that they’re trying to protect — it’s starving states, killing brick-and-mortar stores and encouraging a race to the bottom among states who want to attract the offices of online retailers. Brown is right and Amazon is wrong.”

The rest of the article is here.

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