Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report

From a tea party luncheon in June:

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From the July 9 Grass Valley planning commission agenda:

Development Review and Use Permit applications (12PLN-14) for Ionic
Enterprises to develop a 120-unit affordable senior housing project in two
phases. The 120 units include a density bonus request to allow 12 additional
dwelling units. Phase one includes a two-story building with 64 units, a two-story
building with 16 units, and a 3,300 sq. ft. community building. Phase two includes
an additional 40 unit two-story building. Use Permit (12PLN-14) for a density
bonus request for 12 additional dwelling units with very low income and low
income units in an affordable senior housing project. The 5.4 acre site is located
at 465, 475, 495 and 505 Bennett Street (APNs 09-261-11, 12, 13, 14, 22, 23, 24
and 09-560-03 and 09-250-11) in the NG-3 (Neighborhood General-3) Zoning
District. Environmental Determination: Mitigated Negative Declaration

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We enjoyed watching political satirist Will Durst at The Center for the Arts in Grass Valley last night. Though a progressive, he had some zingers for President Obama too, not just the GOPers.

And Durst pointed out, rightly so, that he would be viewed as more liberal in Wisconsin but more conservative in San Francisco. “You can’t make this stuff up,” he likes to say.

We all laughed out loud, in cool cabaret-style seating under a floodlight.

It got me thinking about Grass Valley’s “old guard” politics. Grass Valley likes to “go its own way,” as I’ve written before.

But that could change in the upcoming November elections. Three of the five City Council seats are up for grabs.

We’ve recently seen a shift toward the middle politically in some of our local “elected” posts — from the county supervisors to the judges to the supposedly “nonpartisan” positions.

It better reflects the diversity of our community — not just favoring one segment.

The Union newspaper publisher, who carried water for the tea party, global warming deniers and others with more extreme, minority political views — sometimes at the expense of the rest of the community — is gone. (“George Rebane, Greg Goodknight and Stan Meckler were there. Nancy Garcia and her hubby came to say goodby too,” as Todd Juvinall wrote on his blog). How sweet.

The City Council elections in Grass Valley come amid noticeable political change elsewhere in our community. It will be interesting to see if the city’s politics also begin to reflect that.

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From the SierraCulture.com blog:

Click here to read a digital copy of the Summer issue of our Sierra FoodWineArt magazine. We’re in the process of distributing the free quarterly publication to Reno, Truckee/Tahoe, the Foothills, Folsom/Rocklin/Roseville/Granite Bay, Sacramento area, Yuba City, Marysville, Chico and more. This summer we’re adding Davis, boosting circulation along the I-80 corridor. Our introduction promotes “geotourism” and the Sierra Nevada Geotourism website, along with GoNevadaCounty.com. Our own website is SierraCulture.com. There’s an article on the county Fairgrounds reinvigorating itself, Joanne Neft’s new “Real Foods” cookbook, gluten-free foods and the Tahoe Concours d’Elegance, among others. We’re also promoting local artists’ artwork throughout. Elizabeth Carmel’s “Fireworks at Donner Lake” photo on page 1 is cool.

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I was startled to see this discussion on The Union’s Facebook page:
“So much for being able to share news with our Facebook friends,” The Union wrote. “Posts from business pages aren’t shown any more to friends who have ‘liked’ the page. It doesn’t make sense for us to pay $30 for each post shown to our friends. In other words, FB is no different than any other commercial media now.”

1. Ironic comment, since The Union initiated building a big Facebook fan base, inviting subscribers to “like” them, rather than just grow it from grassroots. Then it bragged about its fan base. Now it is being critical of social media.

2. No, the pages still are shared with some of your Facebook fans, without charging. The fee service just allows you to reach more of them. Facebook still largely is a free service.

We have used the “promote” feature for our business — to promote Music in the Mountains this morning, in fact. And no, it’s not $30; it’s for as little as $5. It makes sense for our business to do this!

3. The Union’s misinformed post generated 70 comments from readers, many of them critical. One example: “Can’t believe that for such a small town, The Union wants us to pay to read online local news, and now at the local stores you guys want a 1.00 for a paper, Very disappointed. Guess I will just get my news from kcra 3 because it IS free.”

Or “I wonder if I will read about this post in tomorrow’s Auburn Journal…..no charge!”

4. A new publisher who “makes nice” with the community rather than alienating some of it will no doubt begin to make a “paywall” model more successful. At least it’s a first step. Improving the quality of the content will help justify a “paywall” too. There’s just too much competition, even in a small town.

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I’m not a huge fan of Nancy Pelosi, but this photo – circulating on Facebook – made me laugh. One of the problems with the right “wingnuts” (including our local crew) is that they alienate the moderates like myself with their nastiness. Whatever former Supe and CABPRO founder Todd Juvinall says, I do the opposite. LOL!:

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Editor’s note: Music in the Mountains is being revitalized, as we’re reported previously. This weekend, we’re going to the Cirque de la Symphonie performance. It’s going to be a blast, picnicking on the lawn at the county Fairgrounds while listening to the orchestra and watching a troupe of acrobats. I told our son it’s even more cool than the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus (which I first saw at the L.A. Sports Arena in the ’60s)!

Here’s MIM’s weekend lineup:

Cirque de la Symphonie takes the stage on June 30 when the orchestra teams up with an amazing troupe of acrobats, aerialists and clowns.

On July 1, piano virtuoso Xiayin Wang tackles the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto #1. This gifted young pianist has been hailed as “nuanced, dazzling, and spirited” by critics and audiences alike.

As per tradition, the season concludes with MIM’s July 3rd Happy Birthday USA concert.

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We hope you’re enjoying the Giants recent resurgence as much as we are. The team is now in first place in its division and has extended its shutout streak.

“Nothing lasts forever. It only seems as if the Giants’ pitchers’ streak of nothing has lasted forever,” as the S.F. Chronicle is reporting. “Actually, make it 36 scoreless innings and four consecutive shutouts after Madison Bumgarner one-hit Cincinnati in the Giants’ 5-0 waltz at AT&T Park on Thursday night, which put the Giants in sole possession of first place for the first time in 2012. In the 130 seasons of Giants baseball, this is the first time they have thrown four shutouts in a row.”

“‘Amazing. It really is,’ Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. ‘I’ve never seen it. … It shows you how good these guys can be when they’re locked in.’

The rest of the article is here. A video is here:

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While we are certainly disappointed in this morning’s Supreme Court decision upholding Obamacare, it should serve as a rallying cry for all Americans that cherish individual freedom and responsibility. Elections have consequences! This health insurance law (it is anything but a healthcare law) was passed in March of 2010, little over a year after voters in the U.S. handed complete control of our federal government over to the Democrat party — the presidency, majority control of the House, and filibuster-proof control of the Senate. Frankly, it’s remarkable that the 2009-2010 Congress didn’t implement a number of other laws further extending government control over our lives and limiting our personal freedoms. The Democrats are claiming victory, with little regard (and frankly zero concern) for the fiscal calamity that Obamacare will cause. How anyone can believe that adding 30 million uninsured people to the healthcare system will somehow reduce costs is living in the same economic fantasyland in which our president has lived his entire life.
 
We have the opportunity and the obligation to do something about it. We can do everything in our power to elect Mitt Romney as our next president. We can retain and expand our majority in the House, and we can take back the Senate. It’ll be difficult to secure a filibuster-proof majority (60 seats) in the Senate, but we can certainly halt the path toward statism on which the progressives are taking us. We’ll need volunteers for our fair booth; we need riders and walkers for our July 4th parade entry; we need donors so that we can better market our philosophy to Nevada County voters, and we need HQ volunteers to register voters, make phone calls and get out the Republican vote this November. Send an e-mail to John Fuller — fuller5@aol.com, and sign up for HQ duties. But even more importantly, recruit your neighbors and friends to help us in “Taking Back America with Boots on the Ground”!  I know that we can do it!

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