NC Media Watch

ERC Board Meeting Notes

Russ Steele

I went to the ERC Board meeting this morning and here are some items I found interesting in my incomplete notes.

Management Changes

• The ERC Board Chair, Dawn Whitmore, left Nevada County for a job in Texas.
• The Chair Elected, Rolf Kleinhans resigned before sitting in the chair.
• Lisa Swarthout, GV City Council, was appointed as the new Chairperson
• Kimberly Parker, SNMH Foundation, was appointed to replace Rolf Kleinhans as Chair Elect.

Economic Development

•  A medical device company employing six people is planning a move to Grass Valley from Mountain View.
• ERC wants to get a better handle on home business, there seem to be a lot of them in NC.
• Fudge Bar company looking for investors
• Creative Coops a backyard chicken coop manufacture looking for investors
• Telestream expected to double work force, not all in Nevada County, as recruiting is an issue for seasoned people, need jobs for partners. 
• Aja Video has hired 25-30 engineers
•  Nevada County Business Association is looking to start a business incubator, to bring together mentors and entrepreneurs. They are responding to outside interests willing to invest in vetted opportunities. Will be patterned after one in Chico.

Other Items

• Contractors Association is still working on home business zoning regulations that impact contractor equipment storage at home. Regulation back on Planning Commission table.
• Newmont Mining Corporation has bought the North Star property and the City of Grass Valley has no clue of how they are going to use the property, according to Lisa Swarthout. The city was planning in them buying 20 acres for the mandated water processing plant, and have a Sacramento buy the rest to develop business and residential parks, but Newmont surprised everyone by buying the whole property.   
• Nevada County has $85K block grant to help the homeless,submit your grant requests to County
• EDD has developed a jobs profile for Nevada County industries with recommendations for farther growth, including green jobs. [I have requested a copy from Alison Lehman at the County]
• Housing prices are still declining, land for sale inventory increasing, housing inventory decreasing. If you do not have 20% to put down not much chance of buying with a loan.
• Penn Valley residence are seeking bus service to Yuba City for shopping trips and medical visits, efforts being made to cut this effort off at the pass.

If you have any questions, please post them in the comments.

Could we have more than one GOLD mine in Grass Valley?

Russ Steele

My Uncle Fred Whitford was a mining engineer at the Empire Mine before it closed in the 1950s. The mine closed due to the low price of gold and the high cost of operations. According to my Uncle, there was still a lot of gold to be mined under Grass Valley when the Empire closed down.  That was in the 1950s. Now the price of gold is soaring and the gold still in the ground under Grass Valley grows more valuable every day.

Our local liberal blogger just announced that the Newmont Mining Corporation has closed escrow on the 740-acre North Star parcel this week Why would a mining company buy the North Star Property?   Not to build houses? According to the Newmont webpage:

Newmont Mining Corporation is primarily a gold producer, with significant assets or operations in the United States, Australia, Peru, Indonesia, Ghana, Canada, New Zealand and Mexico. Founded in 1921 and publicly traded since 1925, Newmont is one of the world’s largest gold producers and is the only gold company included in the S&P 500 Index and Fortune 500. Headquartered near Denver, Colorado, the company has over 34,000 employees and contractors worldwide.

Newmont recently acquired several gold mines in Nevada from an Canadian company.  In April Newmont  acquired Vancouver-based Fronteer Gold for roughly $2.3 billion, expanding their development opportunities in Nevada according to the company webpage:

Fronteer holds interests in three Nevada gold projects, which currently have 5.7 million ounces of measured, indicated and inferred resource. Its flagship property, Long Canyon, is located on a gold trend that is similar to the Carlin Trend in terms of its characteristics and potential. Based on exploration potential, the current 2.2 million ounces of measured, indicated and inferred resource at Long Canyon could double or triple in size.

The North Star property was originally being developed by Sandy Sanderson’s North Star/Grass Valley LLC which filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2008. Sanderson was planning a housing development.

One has to wonder if maybe Newmont has their eye on another Canadian Mining company that holds the Idaho Maryland Mine property.  There is plenty of room on the North Star property to establish a mining operation, and access the gold still under the Idaho Maryland property. More space that is avilable to IMM.

As the price of gold soars, the value of gold under Grass Valley soars as well. It is not if that gold will be mine, only when and by whom.  It may be the Newmont Mining Corporation.

Exit Question:  Did Newmont buy the property to build houses?

Note:  Comments are closed, too many stupid off topic comments. If your comment vanished, you know why!

Prop 23 Update: Skilled Immigrants Skipping Silicon Valley

Russ Steele

During the debate over Prop 23 we were told that Silicon Valley green job were going to lead California into the states economic future. We were told that Silicon Valley was a magnet for skilled immigrants, a creative engine who would bring forth the next generation of "must have" products and ignite our economy.  It is not happening.

According to a study by the Brookings Institutute usiing Census data the rust-belt cities of Pittsburgh, Cleveland and St. Louis are all drawing a higher proportion of highly skilled immigrants than Silicon Valley according to a story in The Bay Citizen: Skilled Immigrants Skipping Silicon Valley - Heading to Rust Belt

"We don't think of these areas as high-tech hubs, but they have been really active in trying to recruit and encourage the welcoming of foreign workers into their industries to rejuvenate their economy," said the think tank's Matthew Hall.

Those cities also have a lower cost of living than San Francisco or San Jose, where companies and government expect highly educated immigrants to gravitate, according to Brookings.

"Pittsburgh is an easier place to afford to live the American dream and get your foot in the door. That might sound like a pretty good option to a lot of people," Hall said.

Brookings findings represent "a danger sign" for the Bay Area's tech sector, said Russell Hancock, head of Joint Venture Silicon Valley, a public-private think tank.

Read the rest of the article here.

Another AB32 green job myth has been over come by reality. Sacramento is out of control and the Bay Area cities are floundering on liberalism, and that is making Cleveland and Pittsburg look good to educated immigrants, they are not dumb, there is more opportunity outside of California. 

CA missed the bus to the Top Ten Next Boom Towns in the US (Edited)

Russ Steele

Joel Kotkin at the New Georgraphy web site has participated in a study to find the cities best positioned to grow and prosper in the coming decade. Along with Mark Schill at the Praxis Strategy Group they looked at the 52 laregest metro areas in the US with a population over 1 million and ranked them based past and future vitality.

The future of California cities is not very bright. Conservative Riverside is at 16 at the top of the CA list.  San Diego, a city on the verge of bankruptcy is at number 26. Sacramento is number 29. San Francisco is number 42 and Los Angles comes in at number 47, all three are run by liberal Democrats.  As you can see in the list below, Texas has four cities in the top ten.

The ranking criteria is in a long article here. The article concludes:

What is clear is that well-established patterns of job creation and vital demographics will drive future regional growth, not only in the next year, but over the coming decade.  People create economies and they tend to vote with their feet when they choose to locate their families as well as their businesses. This will prove more decisive in shaping future growth than the hip imagery and big city-oriented PR flackery that dominate media coverage of America’s changing regions.

Cities of the Future Rankings
Rank     Metropolitan Area
1     Austin, TX
2     Raleigh, NC
3     Nashville, TN
4     San Antonio, TX
5     Houston, TX
6     Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV
7     Dallas-Fort Worth, TX
8     Charlotte, NC-SC
8     Phoenix, AZ
10     Orlando, FL
11     Indianapolis, IN
12     Salt Lake City, UT
13     Columbus, OH
14     Jacksonville, FL
15     Atlanta, GA
16     Las Vegas, NV
16     Riverside, CA
18     Portland, OR-WA
19     Denver, CO
20     Oklahoma City, OK
21     Baltimore, MD
22     Louisville, KY-IN
22     Richmond, VA
24     Seattle, WA
25     Kansas City, MO-KS
26     San Diego, CA
27     Miami, FL
28     Tampa, FL
29     Sacramento, CA
30     Birmingham, AL
31     New Orleans, LA
32     Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD
33     Minneapolis, MN-WI
34     St. Louis, MO-IL
35     Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN
35     New York, NY-NJ-PA
37     Boston, MA-NH
38     Memphis, TN-MS-AR
39     Pittsburgh, PA
40     Virginia Beach, VA-NC
41     Rochester, NY
42     Buffalo, NY
42     San Francisco, CA
44     Hartford, CT
45     Milwaukee, WI
45     San Jose, CA
47     Chicago, IL-IN-WI
47     Los Angeles, CA
49     Providence, RI-MA
50     Detroit, MI
51     Cleveland, OH

Exit Question:  Now do California Cities get back on the top of the list?

Forget "green" jobs, it's the "brown" jobs that count!

Russ Steele

I am not sure that California will ever figure it out, but Pennsylvania, North Dakota, West Virginia, Colorado, Wyoming, Texas, Oklahoma and Alaska have broken the code to job creation.  Where you say? In mining, oil and gas extraction.  An article in New Geography has the details:

The six fastest-growing jobs for 2010-11, according to EMSI’s latest quarterly employment data, are related to oil and gas extraction. This includes service unit operators, derrick operators, rotary drill operators, and roustabouts. Each is expected to grow anywhere from 9% to 11% this year, in an otherwise stagnant economy.

But that’s not all. A mixed bag of other extraction and petroleum-related jobs—wellhead pumpers, all other extraction workers, geological and petroleum technicians—are also expected to see healthy gains. In total, nine of the top 11 fast-growing jobs in the nation are tied in one way or another to oil and gas extraction.

While California is breaking wind for their energy, the fossil fuel states will have the jobs and wealth to play a larger roll in future elections. The next great devide will not be between the red and blue states, but between the fossil fuel states that are creating "brown jobs" and those that are blowing in the wind looking for "green jobs."

CA: Personal and Economic Freedom near bottom of list - 48th out of 50.

Russ Steele

California is in the bottom three with New York and New Jersey when it come to personal and economic freedom according to the latest analysis by Mercatus Center at George Mason University


Executive Summary
This study comprehensively ranks the American states on their public policies that affect individual freedoms in the economic, social, and personal spheres. It updates, expands, and improves upon our inaugural 2009 Freedom in the 50 States study. For this new edition, we have added more policy variables (such as bans on trans fats and the audio recording of police, Massachusetts’s individual health-insurance mandate, and mandated family leave), improved existing measures (such as those for fiscal policies, workers’ compensation regulations, and asset-forfeiture rules), and developed specific policy prescriptions for each of the 50 states based on our data and a survey of state policy experts. With a consistent time series, we are also able to discover for the first time which states have improved and worsened in regard to freedom recently.

Full  PDF is here.

Exit Question: How do we get out of the basement and back into the top ten? The Mercatus Center has some analysis and suggestions in these extracts of the PDF.

Exit Question #2: Are Californian's capable of implementing any of these policy recommendations?

 

Examining our economic future

Russ Steele

I think that we have reached a point where the community needs to take action to restore out local economy on our own,  since our political leaders have failed to stimulate economic growth across the nation:


Locally, we can not longer wait for the California's economy to recover, we need to take action on our own. Michael Anderson has some thoughts on the issue at Rebane's Ruminations that I think we should examine his ideas in more detail. George, also has an article in The Union on Entrepreneurship in 2011

Since The Union no longer allows comments, I recommend that you comment on George's columns at Ruminations.  While you are at RR please comment on Michael Anderson's ideas.

Calling the Tribes to an Economic Summit

Russ Steele

The Former Editor of the Union, who used to sit on the ERC Board, is calling for a County Wide Economic Summit.

Our county has always prided itself on a “wild west” spirit, but you have to draw a line somewhere. We need a cohesive economic development strategy.

Right now we are all over the map, catering to retirees, 30-somethings and “old line” businesses — all at the same time.

Some examples:

•”Ron Moser, president of the Nevada County Economic Resource Council, said Rincon del Rio (a senior retirement complex) would provide significant benefits in terms of jobs,” according to the Auburn Journal.

•”Okay all those 30-40 somethings like me: The City of Grass Valley is looking for volunteer models for publicity this weekend,” reads the Downtown Association’s Facebook page. “This is your time to shine and be known (if you are not already)! We have big plans for GV.”

•”Emgold is in the advanced stage of permitting the re-opening of the Idaho-Maryland Mine and is completing an EIR for the project through its 100 percent owned subsidiary, Idaho Maryland Mining Corporation,” writes the mine’s president in the local newspaper.

Coming up with a cohesive strategy is like herding cats, thanks to our fiercely independent mindset. We also tend to lean too heavily on local government to help steer us along — a crutch.

We have had numerous economic summits and economic strategy planning meetings in Western Nevada County and they always end the same way, with lots of words by all the tribal leaders and no action. As a community we can not come up with a vision of what we want to be ten years from now. Without an agreed upon vision of want we want our community be economically in ten years, we are in capable of defining the steps necessary to reach our goal and allocated the community resources needed to make our visionary goal a reality. Every meeting, conference, and summit have failed the first step,  an agreed upon vision for our future.

Every tribe in the community wants to take a different path to our future.  Some want to go green, others want to revitalize our applied technology manufacturing industries, other want to focus on agriculture, others want Nevada County to become the Brentwood of the Sierra, home base business want more broadband and to be left alone, and local business just want more tourists.  The ERC was tasked by the County to come up with a comprehensive economic development plan, but once all the tribal leaders and the county staff did their inputs and edits it was a un-comprehensive mess. We need a clear vision that can be put on a single page, not 23 pages of mish mash. 

So, what did the County do, they fund a comprehensive web site and marketing plan that was due last October and still is not done yet. The rebranding logo was a milk toast bust, the web site was not mobile friendly, and required huge bandwidth to display the videos.

I will be discussing some of the comment to this proposal in future updates.  In the mean time, let’s hear from the tribal leaders on how we come up with a clear concise vision of where we want to be in ten years. 

Exit question: Is a clear vision of our economic future possible?

 

California loses 70,600 financial jobs in 10 years, Texas gains 47,200

Russ Steele

The Sacramento Business Journal has the details in a story on the financial sector from 2001 to the present. Financial sector employment in 21 states has improved, while 29 states have fewer financial jobs than 10 years ago, with California at the bottom of the list.

California lost 70,6000 financial sector jobs in 10 years, according to an On Numbers analysis of new federal data. The second largest drop was in New York, with 64,400 jobs lost.

Texas is enjoying the sharpest upswing — its financial sector contained 622,900 jobs last month, which was 47,200 above the corresponding figure for April 2001.

North Carolina was second with a 10-year gain of 16,100 financial jobs. The only other states to post five-figure increases were Arizona (up 10,500 financial jobs in a decade) and South Carolina (up 10,000).

The Business Journal links to a data base with a state-by-state breakdown of the latest figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

While the states Democrat leaders are claiming that California is recovering,  the numbers indicate the recovery is taking place else where.

Well, I can agree on some points, but not all.

 Russ Steele

Steven Frisch, Sierra Business Council CEO, has put forth some ideas on how to improve the California economy at the Sierra Foothills Report, where they are being discussed by Nevada County Liberals and others. Since most of the people who read this blog do not venture into liberal land very often, I decided to post Mr Frisch's ideas here for discussion. I have put my comments in [Brackets].  Please post your thought on these ideas in the Comments. 

Things we could do to improve California’s economy:

1) Establish an office of Economic Development to coordinate policy to encourage new business growth, within either the Governor’s office or the California Department of Business, Transportation and Housing. [We used to have one, it was called Trade and Commerce, until Arnold decided we did not need an economic development agency in California. It was through the T and A Rural Development Project that the ERC competed for  and won broadband grants totaling $245K. Yes, bring back Trade and Commerce, with a mission to have broadband in every home in California that wants it. ]

2) Encourage regional economic development planning that is based on the natural subregions of the state that have economies based on geographic, demographic and economic similarities, such as Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, the Inland Empire, the Central Valley, the Sierra Nevada, etc.
[I agree that each region has uniques needs and opportunities that should be nurtured.]

3) Adopt policies that create a more stable governance structure with predictable revenue and costs, such as multiple-year budgeting, performance based budgeting and an increased level of local control. [ I like the performance based part of the this proposal. That is something we have not had in government. We have hundreds of agencies with no performance measurements.  The Apple Center was one classic example of federal grant funding with no performance measurements.]

4) Adopt a sane regulatory reform process that reviews, adjusts and/or eliminates regulatory policies that are not working, while respecting the core needs that the policy was adopted to address. [Agree]

5) Increase investment in California’s critical infrastructure such as roads, bridges, water systems, energy networks, mass transit, etc. [Missing from this list is broadband.  Broadband and work from home programs have done more to reduce traffic congestion and CO2 than all the transit spending in Sacramento.  Spending money on mass transit has not produced the desired results, people are still driving to work, as we have pointed out on this blog many times. Building more transit is a waste of money, while building more broadband generates jobs and tax revenue.

6) Allow California corporations to calculate ‘wealth’ using a triple bottom line accounting system, measuring improvements in social and natural capital, along with final capital, so shareholders can hold corporations accountable but corporations are not held liable for not maximizing financial capital. [ I am sorry, but the stock holders could care less about the social and natural capital, they are only interested in in the real capital. We are not going to have a social capital stock market or a natural capital stock market. People buy stocks for one reason, to build wealth and they cannot spend the social and natural capital to buy food and energy.

7) Return control of non-essential state functions that can be more efficiently served at the local level to local government. [ I agree, right on!]

8 ) Reform the California Environmental Control Act to allow for streamlined permitting of projects that meet multiple local and state objectives. [ I agree, but do you really think the the left is going to give up their power structure for black mailing cooperation and local developers? ]

9) Improve California’s vocational and secondary education system to better prepare young people for entry-level jobs, particularly with dramatic improvements in math, technical, engineering and science education.  [To do what? I agree we need to improve math and science education at the secondary level as many students cannot cannot pass the college entry exams.   If your are not going to college in engineering or science, your are going to get a government job. Those are not wealth creating jobs, they are wealth consuming jobs.] 

10) Invest heavily in renewable, distributed, and locally generated energy. [Hogwash!  Solar and wind farms are becoming a blight on the land scape and are not producing the forecast levels of energy. Now, if we are talking nuclear pebble bed neighborhood power plants, we may have something here. If that is the case, then  we need a lot more nuclear engineers.]

11) Create local pools of capital for local business investment through community supported banks. [This assumes that local communities have individuals with local capital to invest. ]

I have not covered all the bases, and not all the issues. I think we all would like to improve the California economy.  Please comment on these ideas and my critique in the comments section.