Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report

The Union’s response to writing about the proposal to build a resort in our county: “Loose talk;” “rumor and innuendo”; “a discussion among friends about how to attract tourists to our community.” “Some stories are relegated to the blogosphere for a reason.”

Are you sure about that? Here are some more facts:

•There is a detailed, 24-page document about this project that the City Administrator of Grass Valley, Dan Holler, has emailed to some public officials and business owners to review. Though preliminary, it is being more widely circulated too, because it has raised questions and concerns.

•Keith Davies, the author of the proposal, and Holler also plan meetings with business owners to discuss a “Visitor Center” for Grass Valley. Longtime locals might remember Davies as the owner of Framastanyl’s Restaurant in Nevada City in 1980-87.

•City Council Member Dan Miller and Keith Davies and Robin Galvan-Davies together attended a tourism workshop at the Stonehouse Restaurant. Miller and Davies have been longtime friends. Dan supports their idea.

The community needs to ask why The Union and its editor/publisher is sitting on this news. The Union should ask the City of Grass Valley for a copy of the proposal that is being circulated — not just being “discussed among friends.” Why isn’t there more transparency about this proposal/process involving Grass Valley City Hall for such a big project?

This is a good example of how The Union has been a “bottleneck of communications” in our community for years under the guise of publishing a “legitimate newspaper.” Is the editor/publisher trying to “control” how and when information is shared with the community? Is The Union being a watchdog — or a lapdog?

Here’s The Union’s response to a query raised on the “Town Talk” feature of its website:

“Thanks for your interest, but The Union is a legitimate newspaper that does not print rumor and innuendo. Some stories are relegated to the blogosphere for a reason. However, we in the newsroom have followed up and talked to multiple sources in the various public agencies about the possibility of the mega-resort and have been informed that the proposal is so preliminary that it is basically amounts to a discussion between friends about how to attract tourists to the region. “There is a lot of loose talk and little else,” said one public official asked about the proposal.

“If the proposal gains traction, and private investors display a willingness to put up the considerable capital necessary for such a project, it will have to be proposed to the Nevada County planning commission and proceed through a rigorous public process that would likely take a number of years. If and when that happens, you can be sure The Union will deliver timely and relevant factual information that is properly sourced. Thanks.

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This was posted on a friend’s Facebook page, but I couldn’t agree more.

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Editor’s note: Barry Pruett ran unsuccessfully for the nonpartisan post of clerk-recorder in our county. Now Barry is going to speak “on constitution violations of present administration,” according to a new post on the Nevada County Tea Party website.

Wednesday May 9th – PRE-LUNCH RED SHIRT GATHERING
10:30 am to 11:15 am – Gather at the downtown SAFEWAY parking lot.

Bring your signs and your enthusiasm!

Reserved preferential sitting at lunch!!

Wednesday May, 9th – LUNCH MEETING
Ponderosa Hall – N.C. Fairgrounds
Doors open at 11 am for an hour of visiting.
Program starts at 12:00 pm

Speaker: BARRY PRUETT – On Constitution violations of present administration.

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After losing his supervisor race to Terry Lampher in Grass Valley’s district, John Spencer joined the board of CABPRO and has been writing for the activist CABPRO newsletter (which I read on Anna Haynes’ NCVoices aggregation website).

This morning, John gives a pass to the county CEO and Board of Supervisors but blames the County Recorder — Gregory Diaz — for a recent Rood Center shutdown during a “snow day” that inconvenienced some title company workers.

The response and explanation from the Recorder seemed sound enough: The county CEO called it a “snow day” and the Recorder publicly apologized. Worker safety always in paramount in government — that’s not the clerk-recorder’s call.

John writes: “You might say ‘what is the reason for this diatribe?’ If no one brings these things to your attention, you won’t hear about it.”

Well, we did hear about it, because the media also was notified by the title-company individual who was put out by the “snow day,” and they all wrote about it.

The individual called all the supervisors and the Rood Center staff as well. In our little town, this became a front-page news story. (The Ingram family once owned The Union newspaper).

I would suggest the reason for this diatribe in the CABPRO newsletter is political activism: Clerk-Recorder Diaz has been the target of much of it since he was elected.

The hard-right campaigned heavily against him — and lost handily. Then they continued to campaign against him after he won. It has been relentless.

The hard right has politicized the clerk-recorder’s office going back to the days of Fran Freedle, who also writes for the CABPRO newsletter and is a longtime supporter.

Former Supervisor Spencer also should have disclosed in the CABPRO article that the person who complained about the “snow day” when title reports were due was none-other-than his wife, Patti Ingram-Spencer. If you’re going to launch into a diatribe, you might as well provide full disclosure to the readers.

Spencer also has been critical of the clerk-recorder for changing the policy for acquiring public information for land surveys — now charging a modest fee for some documents, just like many other counties. Spencer’s profession is a land surveyor.

The article is here.

This is small-town politics at its finest. As a community, we need to get past it.

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