Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report

A sculpture of a Nisenan Indian dancer by North Auburn artist Douglas Van Howd is now the focal point of Downtown Auburn’s Central Square.

The statue is installed on a brick base and finishing touches, including the addition of bronze oak leaves at the dancer’s feet, are in place.

Here’s a photo that I hired foothills photographer Ben Furtado to capture for the official Placer County Welcome Guide, coming out next month. Some background on the Nevada City Rancheria and its Tribe of Nisenan Indians is here.

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“For the first time, racial minorities now represent more than half of the children born in the U.S., according to new census figures,” Politico writes.

“African-Americans, Hispanics and other minorities made up 50.4 percent of U.S. births in the year ending July 2011, accounting for 2.02 million births, up from 37 percent in 1990, according to The Associated Press.

“During that time period, there were 1.99 million white births, 1.05 million Hispanic births, 0.61 million black births, 0.25 million births that were classified “two or more races,” 0.19 million Asian births, 0.07 million Native American births and 0.01 million Pacific Islander births.

“’This is an important landmark,’ Roderick Harrison, a former head of racial statistics at the Census Bureau, told the wire service. ‘This generation is growing up much more accustomed to diversity than its elders.”’

The rest of the article is here.

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“The wait for tables is getting longer at Buck’s, a popular breakfast spot for the tech elite and a weather vane for the Silicon Valley economy. Here, like everywhere else, Facebook is the talk of the town,” according to the L.A. Times

‘”Charles Schwab was in the restaurant the other day, and I asked him to hook me up with some Facebook shares,’ said Jamis MacNiven, owner of Buck’s, in the wealthy suburban enclave of Woodside. “He told me even he can’t get Facebook shares.”

“The social media company’s projected $100-billion valuation heralds a new era of prosperity in a region famous for minting fortunes. (Facebook goes public on Friday).

“Luxury cars are flying off dealers’ lots. In San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties combined, luxury vehicles accounted for nearly 21% of new car registrations from April 2011 to March 2012. That’s almost double the national average, according to automotive research firm Polk.

“Although the Bay Area has yet to fully recover the ground it lost since its July 2007 peak, home prices in some of the most desirable parts of San Francisco and Silicon Valley are rivaling the bubble years.

“In Palo Alto, not far from Facebook’s headquarters, the median home price in the 94306 Zip Code hit a record $1,606,750 in the first quarter, according to DataQuick, a residential real estate information firm in San Diego.

The rest of the article is here.

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