It's no secret that a bad housing market really wallops the timber industry. Two-by-fours for framing houses are a major driver of the need for lumber. Still, Shasta County's annual ag report for 2009, which is available in a .pdf...

I'm not, generally speaking, a huge fan of Fox News. That said, when a political group wages a campaign declaring a media outlet it doesn't like and whose line it doesn't share to be "not a legitimate news organization," as...

So says Humboldt County Sheriff's detective Troy Garey, retiring at 64 from a 40-year career in law enforcement. The Eureka Times-Standard has the wonderful read about an old-school lawman. A taste: That's not to say Garey treats all criminals with...

Three members of the City Council up in Shasta Lake -- that's a majority, for those keeping score at home -- say the city's hillside ordinance is too strict, makes building a home too difficult and needs revisions. As the...

A resolution to do just that is on the agenda next week. Read why here....

Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics had the sense to post the judge's ruling I mentioned earlier. This line -- from a section on indirect effects of fire retardant -- is too much: Plaintiff argues that the use of aerial...

If I lived in Lewiston, where the photo above was shot last summer during the Coffin Fire, I'd not have been complaining that firefighters were pulling out all the stops to protect my and my neighbors' homes. But an...

Marc B. caught Carl and Linda Bott asking -- and Paul Hauser not directly answering -- the question of how much Redding Electric's rates are likely to rise in the coming year. Hauser wouldn't come out answer directly, and in...

After nodding my head in agreement with Jon Fleischman's column earlier this week about the massive Humboldt County jury verdict in a civil suit against Skilled Health Care, a nursing home chain, I heard from J.G. Preston, spokesman for the...

In fairness, the top managers at the city of Redding have taken a hit amid the budget cuts, through pay freezes and furloughs. I've long wondered, though, why for all the talk on the City Council about having employees pick...

I'm not in a position to form an opinion about whether Don Frank's lawsuit against PremierWest Bank will go anywhere, but this bit of analysis quoted in David Benda's story captures the dilemma that has speared the economy: David Wyss,...

... the commenter on the story about Tehama County Sheriff Clay Parker's role as lead plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking to strike down new state regulations on ammunition sales is off base when he calls California's largest city "uneducated":...

Our memories are inevitably shaped by what we see -- and I'm sure I'm not alone in often thinking of my grandparents living in a black-and-white world. But of course it wasn't, and to prove it, here's a rare series...

It would be a tough sale in Redding, of course, but I'm still surprised that nobody's even discussing the possibility of a tax increase to keep cops on the beat. Maybe a quarter-cent, with a firm sunset in, say, three...

I had read that, despite the budget stalemate in Sacramento, Republicans and Democrats agreed on a plan to close about half the state budget. Hey, that sounded good to me -- halfway there is at least a start. But this...

At least a dozen potential candidates have taken out papers or otherwise said they plan to run for City Council, but of course they're not on the ballot unless they gather signatures, pay their fees, and make it official. Already,...

As Shasta County Assessor-Record Leslie Morgan noted in her annual report, presented to the Board of Supervisors this morning, more than 23,000 properties had their tax assessments cut under Proposition 8, because their market value has fallen beneath their Prop....

That's what writer David Ropeik argues Sen. Gloria Romero should really sponsor -- instead of the measure to drop serpentine as the state rock, which he calls emblematic of the way we let fear drive our government. Society does this...

Jim Reed, the Democrat challenging Rep. Wally Herger in the November election, is challenging the congressman to a series of debates: Reed is calling for three debates during Congressional Recess: One on Saturday, August 14th at the Veterans Memorial in...

I wonder how much RoundupReady alfalfa is out there waiting to be planted. Apparently enough to get the attention of 75 members of Congress, including Rep. Wally Herger. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has received a letter signed by 75 Members...

Tantalizing item on the Shasta County Board of Supervisors' closed-session agenda for tomorrow morning: CONFERENCE WITH LEGAL COUNSEL - ANTICIPATED LITIGATION (Government Code section 54956.9, subdivision (c)): Initiation of Litigation: 1 potential case Dollars to doughnuts, the supervisors will be...

As a follow-up on Ryan's excellent article Saturday about vaccine exemptions and the whooping cough outbreak, California Watch writes that the Golden State has some legal quirks that might set us up for epidemics. California is one of 11 states...

A few weeks back, Marc mentioned the eye-popping $677 million verdict by a Humboldt County jury against Skilled Healthcare, a chain that runs nursing homes in Humboldt and elsewhere. I hadn't give it much thought, but Jon Fleischman has. And...

Marc notes Skip Murphy's post marveling at the proliferation of hydroponic stores in Redding. It'd be interesting to see if our own fair city has experienced the same spike in electricity use that North Coast counties already have. From the...

Commenter "not_an_expert" -- who sells himself short; he plainly knows more than most about the details of the city budget -- writes in response to yesterday's editorial with a common complaint about the City Council's priorities. The gist: The city...

It was big news last year when the property assessments came out and reflected the first net drop in taxable property values since WWII. That was both California-wide and in Shasta County, where total taxable property values fell 2.14 percent....

I'd like to thank the good people at the Shasta-Trinity National Forest for giving me the chance to gain minor Web fame and even get my name in The Washington Post. Mom would be so proud. At least Al Kamen...

I must have heard it said a hundred times -- most recently in a comment on Marc's blog -- that the humble Carl and Leah McConnell would have gagged if they'd seen the opulent pleasure palace that is the foundation's...

Here's one more reason to get out and vote. I noted over the weekend that the special election that made a charter city of the now-notorious Southland city of Bell -- the election that would have allowed city councilors to...

Hey, you can watch Congressman Herger, introducing his resolution calling for a better strategy to fight backwoods marijuana growing, on WallyVision. Interesting that he says federal agencies need to cooperate and coordinate their efforts. Are they not, at this point?...

Here's a frankly stunning move in the pretty little Monterey County city of Pacific Grove, reported by the Monterey Herald: An initiative to limit Pacific Grove's contribution to its employee retirement pensions was enacted into law Wednesday by the City...

Our congressman wants an end to these displaced foreign travelers growing marijuana in our national forests. He's even gone so far as to introduce a resolution. H. RES. 1540 Supporting the goal of eradicating illicit marijuana cultivation on Federal lands...

Here's a strange plot twist in the world of banking -- customers who ruin the bottom line by never running up any finances charges. They've always been around, of course. Now some credit-card banks are cracking down. From The Washington...

Commenter P_B attacks us for "another irresponsible editorial" this morning The author made no effort to find out where this technical term originated, or whether it has ever been used in the past. I don't know P_B personally, so maybe...

Just thought y'all should know The Washington Post squeezed that into a story. The context: It's not only the number of buildings that suggests the size and cost of this expansion, it's also what is inside: banks of television monitors....

This story on environmentalists' campaign to create a new national conservation area at Snow Mountain, in the Coast Range, shows that the environmentalists pushing the concept really have their work cut out for them: [The California Wilderness Coalition's Ryan] Henson...

In El Dorado County, rural residents fed up with 20th-century Internet options are taking action, the Bee reports: Now, the Camino Fiber Network Cooperative is trying to bring ultra-high-speed fiber-optic Internet service to the central part of El Dorado County....

I have not had a chance to read The Washington Post's epic package National Security Inc., but I was refered to the map. Zoom in on my own hometown of Redding, and you see that we're far from the center...

In the Forest Service's news release about the recent string of marijuana busts, I discovered a term of art I'd never encountered before: During the raid, a U.S. Forest Service K-9 team located Gauldry Almonte-Hernandez, a displaced foreign traveler from...

An angry reader points to a Denver federal court ruling that invalidated the "Stolen Valor Act" -- on the curious grounds that the First Amendment includes the right to lie. Who knew? But an ACLU lawyer explains the principle at...

The universe of people who care about this particular issue is probably pretty small -- Ray Hennemann, his friends in the Shasta County Democratic Party and me -- but for the record it turns out Assemblyman Jim Nielsen will run...

"At this point in time, I care more about gay unemployment than I care about gay marriage." That's Nathan Mintz, the GOP candidate in the 53th Assembly District, in Southern California, an engineer and founder of the South Bay Tea...

I did not know that Bob's Red Mill -- in a literal sense the parent company of Moore's Flour Mill in Redding -- had also started in Redding, back in the 1970s, before moving north to the Portland area. The...

UCLA professor (and blogger) Mark Kleiman explains why -- for both legal and practical reasons -- an initiative to legalize marijuana in California just won't work. Here's a string of consequences I hadn't thought through. The federal government can ignore...

The top administrator of the SoCal city of Bell is getting a lot of attention this week after the Los Angeles Times noticed that his salary is nearly $800,000 a year. That probably makes him the highest paid city manager...

"The poor man's Aspen"? "Priced out of Tahoe? Drive a little, save a lot"? U.S. News declares Redding one of 10 affordable mountain towns for retirement. Hey, getting on a list with Bend and Bozeman can't be all bad....

Here are more capitalists, afraid to invest in Obama's America. SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Venture capitalists funneled more money into U.S. startups in the second quarter, indicating continuing confidence that the economy is on the mend. A study scheduled for...

No, not illegal immigrants. Red-light cameras. I appreciate this act of civil disobedience, reported by the NY Times: A man wearing a monkey mask racked up dozens of tickets, fighting them in court, to protest the system. Vandals at different...

Will Republicans take control of Congress in November? They're feeling pretty confident, at least about the House. I would be too if I were them, seeing poll numbers like Field's, released today. A generic, California-wide poll shows Democratic candidates leading...

Well, Pat Jones wanted a more diverse mix of invocations at City Council meetings, and he's getting them. If I'm not mistaken, the first outside religious leader to lead a council invocation -- not counting City Councilwoman Missy McArthur --...