Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report

From: Mark Meckler
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Sent: Monday, May 20, 2013 2:18 PM
Subject: Class Action filed in OH Fed Crt. vs. IRS

Thought you might want to know about the class action which we assisted the NorCal Tea Party in filing against the IRS today in Federal Court in Ohio. More parties will be joining shortly.

If you’d like to talk with me, I am currently in-flight to DC for a press conference tomorrow, you can email me here, reach my office, or leave a message on my cell phone.

As Thomas Jefferson said, “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” We intend to put a healthy fear of the the people back into those who serve in our government. The American people will no longer play defense against the ever-expanding intrusions of the federal government on their liberties. Today, we go on offense.

Mark

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“The first time I talked to Mark Kleiman, a drug policy expert at U.C.L.A., was in 2002, and he explained why legalization of marijuana was a bad idea,” columnist Bill Keller writes in The New York Times.

“Sure, he said, the government should remove penalties for possession, use and cultivation of small amounts. He did not favor making outlaws of people for enjoying a drug that is less injurious than alcohol or tobacco. But he worried that a robust commercial marketplace would inevitably lead to much more consumption. You don’t have to be a prohibitionist to recognize that pot, especially in adolescents and very heavy users, can seriously mess with your brain.

“So I was interested to learn, 11 years later, that Kleiman is leading the team hired to advise Washington State as it designs something the modern world has never seen: a fully legal commercial market in cannabis. Washington is one of the first two states (Colorado is the other) to legalize the production, sale and consumption of marijuana as a recreational drug for consumers 21 and over. The marijuana debate has entered a new stage. Today the most interesting and important question is no longer whether marijuana will be legalized — eventually, bit by bit, it will be — but how.

“’At some point you have to say, a law that people don’t obey is a bad law,’ Kleiman told me when I asked how his views had evolved. He has not come to believe marijuana is harmless, but he suspects that the best hope of minimizing its harm may be a well-regulated market.”

The rest of the article is here.

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The Union’s Nevada-based parent Swift Communications is consolidating its western Colorado websites, just as it recently did in Truckee-Tahoe.

The websites are based in Glenwood Springs, Rifle and Grand Junction, Co. They previously were stand-alone community websites. The towns are located along Interstate 70 — but as far as 90 miles apart from one another, in their own unique communities.

“As of yesterday, if you visit the Telegram website, citizentelegram.com, it will look different. We, and all other Swift weekly newspapers, are now actually found on the site of a nearby Swift daily newspaper,” the Rifle Telegram editor wrote earlier this month. “In this case, the Glenwood Springs Post Independent. You can still get to all our Rifle news and features by typing in citizentelegram.com. You’ll just see a different page.

The Grand Junction Free Press, another Swift weekly, is also found on the Post Independent web site.” The Grand Junction’s explanation is here. “Don’t be shocked if you see the Post Independent linked to Free Press stories online! You are indeed on the right page,” it reads.

The combined website new features a banner ad for “Mountain Chevrolet” — an auto dealer in Glenwood Springs. Yet Grand Junction has its own Chevy dealer — Ed Bozarth Chevrolet Buick. So Grand Junction readers are being directed to an out-of-town Chevy dealership. Hmm.

Swift faces stiff competition in Grand Junction from the Daily Sentinel newspaper — western Colorado’s largest newspaper, with distribution in six counties. In July, 2009, the Daily Sentinel newspaper was sold to Kansas-based Seaton Publishing Co., and a new Grand Junction Media Co. was formed.

In Truckee, Swift’s Sierra Sun has faced intense competition from Moonshine Ink.

Swift recently shut down its Reno.com website, its pioneering foray onto the internet in the ’90s, as previously reported.

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More details and a video are here.

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I don’t get out often for long lunches, but I enjoyed lingering over a meal with Tom O’Toole at Trattoria Milano in Grass Valley. Tom, an “R” for life, brought along a gift: “Two if by Tea” from Rush Limbaugh. We didn’t talk much politics but reminisced about S.F., where he grew up.

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Our family is “going fishing” — literally, with our son — but kudos to The Center for the Arts for bringing Sandra Bernhard to town this weekend. Here’s a blast from the past:

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Editor’s note: Katz’s Deli in New York is legendary. Here’s an email I received from them:

We are so excited to announce Katz’s Delicatessen’s 125th Anniversary celebration weekend!

Friday May 31st- James Beard Award winner Danny Bowien of Mission Chinese Food, Bill Telepan of Telepan, Joey Campanaro of The Little Owl, Market Table, and Quality Clam, along with Pastry chef Sarabeth Levine will be the chefs interpreting Katz’s Delicatessen staples for a Shabbat dinner with all proceeds benefiting Henry Street Settlement!

For tickets, please CLICK HERE.

Saturday June 1st- 125th Anniversary Community Celebration continues, stop by and see live music from our stage inside Katz’s, with festivities that will run all day

Sunday June 2nd- we will be participating in the DayLife Festival on Orchard Street between East Houston and Stanton Street for another fun filled day of events. Come watch or enter the first ever Katz’s Delicatessen World Pastrami Eating Championship! There are 3 amateur spots to fill, if you think you can do it, sign up now!

If you want to eat ALOT of pastrami enter our eating championship HERE.

Follow us on these NOW, and all anniversary weekend to keep in the loop!
Facebook- Katz’s Delicatessen
Twitter- @katzsdeli, #katzs125
Instagram- Katzsdeli

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My wife and I watched the public hearing on Measure L expenditures in Nevada City between the Giants’-Colorado baseball game. We are NCTV regulars.

The meeting was “nearly deserted,” as The Union accurately stated. There will be no citizen’s oversight committee on Measure L was the bottom line. The Council will handle that; after all, that’s why they were elected (or in the case of two of the five, appointed) was the rationale.

The City Manager reiterated his spending recommendations, and the Finance Director got up and spoke A LOT.

The Council managed to interject our name — “The Pellines” — into the conversation a few times (we wondered if it was “code” or something), because we happily hosted a meeting of some neighbors who were concerned about Measure L with some City Hall folks.

One of them was at the meeting, and he was well spoken, noting that Grass Valley formed a citizen’s oversight committee for its sales-tax measure. The City Hall folks couldn’t remember the other neighbor’s name, though she has lived here for years. Still, it was a respectful discussion last night.

The issue all along has never been whether to support a sales tax; it has been whether a tax that isn’t targeted toward certain expenditures is prudent public policy. (We were big boosters of the street-repair tax).

Sure enough, it looks like Measure L is going to be a “piggy-bank” for a lot of causes — from a courthouse study to more ergonomic chairs at City Hall. I hope it works out for all of us, and the money is spent wisely. The good news is that it can build up the city’s dwindling general fund reserve.

Thanks to my neighbor Wally and the owner of J.J. Jackson’s for showing up. (She was well spoken about somehow reinvesting into the businesses that generated the sales tax — something my wife brought up as we discussed our own ideas before the meeting).

I wondered about a new downtown parking structure, something that’s been discussed off-and-on for years, or money for tourism (that’s what Grass Valley did), but none of that came up.

Meanwhile, in another world, the Giants rallied to beat the Rockies after being down 6-0, an exciting comeback. Matt Cain got the win.

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One thing I enjoy about our community is that people live happily in “parallel universes.” It happens all the time — in business, social settings and politics.

In January 2012, we pointed out how social media in our community got the jump on the Humpty Dumpty fire in GV. The nighttime fire was reported in real time on Facebook, generating more than 200 comments, including first-hand video and photos from “citizen journalists.” It was a watershed in local social media reporting. The write-up is here.

Yet at the same time, in a parallel universe, The Union proudly announced today an in-house award from its Nevada-based parent, Swift, for, guess what? “Best breaking news coverage” among newspapers in the chain for coverage of the Humpty Dumpty fire.

Good going to both!

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This is on the agenda for the Grass Valley Planning Commission on Tuesday, May 21:

Subject: A proposed amendment to the General Plan Circulation Element, to add a policy that specifies that Level of Service (LOS) E is acceptable for six intersections in the historic downtown area

Location: 1) Mill and Neal Streets; 2) West Main and Mill Streets; 3) West Main and Church Streets; 4) West Main and School Streets; 5) Bank and South Auburn Streets; 6) State Route 20/49 Southbound ramp and Bennett Street
Applicant: City of Grass Valley
Zoning/General Plan: Various
Environmental Status: Reliance of two previously certified Environmental Impact
Reports

The proposed project is an amendment to the General Plan Circulation Element. The
specific amendment is the addition of one new policy which implements Circulation Element Implementation Program 7-CI (IP7-CI). IP7-CI allows the City Council to adjust the level of service standard at certain intersections after the City performs an analysis of the factors listed in the program. As part of this project, the City performed the analysis with respect to Implementation Program 7-CI and found it is necessary to relax the LOS standard at the six intersections listed in the following proposed policy:

The staff report is here.

Background:
Level of service (LOS) is a measure used by traffic engineers to determine the effectiveness of elements of transportation infrastructure.

Level-of-Service E describes operations at capacity. Flow becomes irregular and speed varies rapidly because there are virtually no usable gaps to maneuver in the traffic stream and speeds rarely reach the posted limit. Vehicle spacing is about 6 car lengths, however speeds are still at or above 50 mi/h(80 km/h). Any disruption to traffic flow, such as merging ramp traffic or lane changes, will create a shock wave affecting traffic upstream. Any incident will create serious delays. Driver’s level of comfort become poor.[1] LOS E is a common standard in larger urban areas, where some roadway congestion is inevitable.

More information is here.

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