Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report

Editor’s note: From the Friday memo:

You may have read in the news media that the FAA has closed down all “nonessential” operations. The FAA has been on numerous continuing budget resolutions since 2007.
Recently Congress failed to pass another continuing resolution causing the FAA shutdown. During the shutdown the FAA will not be processing grant and contract activities. As you know the Nevada County Airport is currently initiating major capital projects for erosion and drainage improvements and runway rehab & repair. These projects totaling approximately $2.4 M will be funded in large part by FAA grants which now have been placed on hold. Bids for the project have been submitted and are valid for 90 days and will expire on October 14. FAA personnel prior to their shut down have indicated that a grant award will take 3-4 weeks to process and depending how long the shut down lasts we may not be in a position to award a contract for the projects as we will not have approval on a grant.

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Editor’s note: This press release appeared in the county’s Friday Memo.

Nevada County Clerk-Recorder, Gregory J. Diaz, is pleased to announce that the California Secretary of State’s office has certified Nevada County Elections as an official Ballot Finisher, defined as an entity that “processes sheets or unfinished ballot cards to make ballot cards to be used in California elections.”

Certification requires:
• Knowledge of ballot creation and layout regulations
• Accurate inventory control forms and ballot security documentation
• Enforcing a high level of ballot security during the finishing (printing) process
• Ensuring finished ballots are securely transported from one location to another
• Voting System vendor testing and certification of ballot production quality
• On-site inspection

The rigorous certification process was a year-long endeavor, beginning with the creation of the ballot finishing program, requiring approval from the voting system vendor, and culminating in an on-site inspection of the facility and security measures by a representative from the Secretary of State’s office; Nevada County Elections staff successfully satisfied all these requirements.

Earning this certification allows the Nevada County Elections Office the opportunity to realize possible cost savings on ballot printing in upcoming elections. Printing ballots on demand eliminates the practice of estimating ballot inventory levels needed for an election, which will increase both efficiency and security going forward.

Special thanks to Assistant Clerk-Recorder, Gail Smith, and Clerk-Recorder Assistant I, Elise Strickler, for their hard work during the process and successful completion of Nevada County Elections’ Ballot Finishing Certification.

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“(Calaveras County) Supervisor Darren Spellman has tentatively withdrawn his congressional bid pending official confirmation that Rep. Tom McClintock will be the Republican candidate for the district,” according to the Calaveras Enterprise.

Spellman launched his short-lived campaign at a town hall meeting hosted by Rep. Dan Lungren in May. Spellman stated that he was running specifically to unseat Lungren and said his campaign now “depends on whether Dan Lungren intends to try to represent our area.”

“If Lungren knows what’s best for him, he won’t come poking around here,” Spellman added.

McClintock, who lives in Elk Grove, would not be a resident of the district, but his campaign manager, John Huey, confirmed he intends to run. He currently represents District 4, which encompasses Modoc, Lassen, Plumas, Sierra, Nevada, Placer and El Dorado counties.

“He’s one of the people that inspired me to run for politics when I saw him back in ’09 at the state Capitol,” Spellman said. “He would do a great job.”

The congressional district – titled Foothills with a number to come later – puts Calaveras in one district with other foothill counties instead of connecting it with Sacramento. The Foothills district would include Placer, El Dorado, Amador, Alpine, Calaveras, Tuolumne and Mariposa counties.

The rest of the article is here.

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This from Paul Krugman in the New York Times is worth noting:

“The facts of the crisis over the debt ceiling aren’t complicated. Republicans have, in effect, taken America hostage, threatening to undermine the economy and disrupt the essential business of government unless they get policy concessions they would never have been able to enact through legislation. And Democrats — who would have been justified in rejecting this extortion altogether — have, in fact, gone a long way toward meeting those Republican demands.

As I said, it’s not complicated. Yet many people in the news media apparently can’t bring themselves to acknowledge this simple reality. News reports portray the parties as equally intransigent; pundits fantasize about some kind of “centrist” uprising, as if the problem was too much partisanship on both sides.

Some of us have long complained about the cult of “balance,” the insistence on portraying both parties as equally wrong and equally at fault on any issue, never mind the facts. I joked long ago that if one party declared that the earth was flat, the headlines would read “Views Differ on Shape of Planet.” But would that cult still rule in a situation as stark as the one we now face, in which one party is clearly engaged in blackmail and the other is dickering over the size of the ransom?

The answer, it turns out, is yes. And this is no laughing matter: The cult of balance has played an important role in bringing us to the edge of disaster. For when reporting on political disputes always implies that both sides are to blame, there is no penalty for extremism. Voters won’t punish you for outrageous behavior if all they ever hear is that both sides are at fault.

The rest of the article is here.

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A real estate subsidiary of Newmont Mine closed escrow on the appromimate 740-acre North Star parcel in Grass Valley this week, sources said.

The price is about $2.3 million or $2.4 million, the sources said.

Newmont previously had announced a court settlement with Grass Valley to build a wastewater treatment plant to handle runoff from one of the company’s old mines.

A foreclosure sale on the Grass Valley/North Star LLC property, origanally planned as a housing development, has been postponed for years, according to Citizens Bank.

Developer Sandy Sanderson’s North Star/Grass Valley LLC filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2008.

What will Newmont do? spin off part of the property?

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This is a new exhibit at Legoland:

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“Democrats and Republicans may not be able to get together on a deal to raise the debt ceiling, but there’s one thing lawmakers in both parties seem able to agree on: They need cash,” according to Politico.

“As Washington and Wall Street scramble to avoid default, a credit downgrade and economic chaos, lawmakers and interest groups — everyone from fiscal conservatives like Rand Paul to House Democrats like Martin Heinrich and party committees — have tried to capitalize on the debt crisis to fill their campaign coffers and help their like-minded allies.

“The fundraising pitches also point to the larger problem infecting Washington — the tone of the messages are sharply partisan, and campaign donors often don’t want their lawmakers to compromise, a dynamic that plays into the stalemate facing Congress as it tries to avoid an economy-shaking default next week.

“No phony deals,” wrote Paul, a tea party favorite.

“Deals are being cut or discussed nearly every day in Washington. Deals that will bring us more debt and economic destruction. Deals that abdicate congressional authority over spending and debt,” the Kentucky Republican wrote in a missive on behalf of the Campaign for Liberty.”

The rest of the article is here.

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The Grass Valley Planning Commission voted 5-0 to approve a permanent shelter for Hospitality House at the north end of Sutton Way, local Tom Durkin reported on Facebook.

“This time it feels for real,” Tom added.

“It’s a good day,” added Hospitality House Executive Director Cindy Maple.

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From the truth is stranger than fiction department:

“Senate proposal to lift the legal limit on the national debt would slice $2.2 trillion from the federal deficit over the next decade, short of its $2.7 trillion target but far more than a rival debt-ceiling package drafted by House Speaker John A. Boehner, congressional budget analysts said Wednesday,” the Washington Post is reporting.

“The estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found the measure drafted by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) would cut about $840 billion from agency budgets through 2021, roughly the same as the proposal by Boehner (R-Ohio). But Reid also claims significant savings from winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The CBO found that those savings account for more than $1.1 trillion, making up more than half of Reid’s debt-reduction package.

“The new CBO report comes barely 12 hours after a similar report led House leaders to scuttle a Wednesday vote on their measure and sent them scrambling to find more savings or to reduce the $900 billion debt-limit increase included in the House bill. Boehner has demanded that spending cuts exceed any increase in the debt limit. Senate leaders, too, were expected to make adjustments to meet the dollar-for-dollar target.

“While the Senate package would reduce spending more overall, by the CBO’s accounting, it would also cut more deeply next year. The House bill would reduce next year’s budget deficit by only about $5 billion, the CBO said, while the Senate bill would trim $30 billion from a one-year deficit expected to approach $1.1 trillion.

“The CBO’s analysis Tuesday dealt Boehner’s measure a potentially devastating setback. It said spending cuts included in the House bill would save only about $850 billion over the next decade — far less than the $1.2 trillion advertised.”

The rest of the article is here.

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