Jeff Ackerman has an editorial out on the Sierra College NCC expansion project and our efforts to keep local taxpayer dollars in our local economy.

“While I was hoping to see a lot of local subs involved in the project, I never imagined that it would eventually lead to two local general contractors getting the job,” Klein later told me. That’s because government-funded school construction is a specialized field and nobody “on the hill” had much experience with that process.

So Brady and Allen decided to find someone who did, which led them to Clark & Sullivan out of Sacramento, one of the leaders in school construction. The three companies created joint operating agreements, whereby Clark & Sullivan will serve as project managers, using their bonding status and knowledge to help guide Brady and Allen. That relationship offered college trustees the best of all worlds: Keeping the dollars local while satisfying rigid construction regulations and guidelines.

I appreciate the kind words, but this was definitely a team effort at Sierra College. We’re excited, and look forward to putting together a good contract with the local team.

» Read the Entire Column

An interesting piece of my family’s history is our relation to Henry Ford. My great-grandmother is Susanna Marie Edington Ford (my sister is her namesake). Her first cousin (the son of her dad’s brother) was Henry, and she could remember times when they played together during the summer when he was about 12 and 13 years old.

But that’s not the reason I’d seriously consider buying a Ford if I was in the market for a new car right now.

The New York Times had a great story the other day about Ford’s forward-looking management team, how they planned ahead for bad fiscal times, and have managed so far to survive — and even to lay the foundation to thrive — even as the bottom fell out of the market for new cars.

Ford’s market share has been holding steady at about 15 percent. But that could move up, particularly if either G.M. or Chrysler is forced into bankruptcy.

A recent national study by the firm AutoPacific found that 72 percent of those surveyed would be more likely to buy a Ford product because the company is not taking government loans.

“This is America, and this is about making products people want and being self-sufficient,” Mr. Mulally said. “Clearly, the reputation of Ford is on the rise in the consumer’s mind.”

You can say that again. Does that kind of attitude about America make you want to do more business with American companies?

» Read the Entire Story

Tonight, the incredible team at Sierra College stepped up again to deal with the second security threat at our Rocklin campus in the space of a single month. Our planning, drills and preparation worked, and students were evacuated quickly and in an organized fashion.

The picture above is Executive Dean Stephanie Ortiz and Police Chief Greg Murphy briefing the press. Here’s an excerpt of the SacBee story.

At about 6 p.m., a caller reported overhearing a conversation about bombs on the campus and plans for an armed takeover, said Stephanie Ortiz, dean of the college’s Business and Technology Division. Campus officials immediately ordered the evacuation of both campuses and ushered the hundreds of students involved in the evening courses out of their classrooms, said Greg Murphy, chief of the Sierra College Police. So far, the search has turned up nothing, but officers are still searching the campuses, he said.

» Read the Entire Story

I love what Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest, wrote about the Susan Boyle phenomenen.

“The way we see Susan Boyle is very nearly the way God sees us: worthwhile, special, talented, unique, beautiful. The world generally looks askance at people like Susan Boyle, if it sees them at all. Without classic good looks, without work, without a spouse, living in a small town, people like Susan Boyle may not seem particularly ‘important.’ But God sees the real person, and understands the value of each individual’s gifts: rich or poor, young or old, single or married, matron or movie star, lucky or unlucky in life. God knows us. And loves us. ‘Everybody is somebody’ said Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan at his installation Mass in New York City yesterday. That’s another reason why the judges smile and the audience explodes in applause. Because they recognized a basic truth planted deep within them by God: Susan Boyle is somebody. Everybody is somebody.”

» Read the Entire Post

The Wall Street Journal had a great read over the weekend about the backstory of two of the three guys who started Twitter. (To those of us on Twitter who want to keep up with their goings-on, they’re known as @ev and @biz.) Not sure why they didn’t include @jack in the story, but it’s still a great read.

Even faster than Google, Amazon and eBay in their days, the three-year-old Twitter has become deeply embedded in the culture. President Barack Obama twittered the words, “We just made history,” on the night of his election. It was a twittered image that first captured the forced landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River. Scores of people trapped in the Mumbai terrorist attack twittered desperately for help. And in a much discussed event, a San Francisco technology writer twittered his surprise to discover his home was being broken into.

Strictly speaking, Twitter is a social networking application that enables users to post short text messages — called “tweets” — of no more than 140 characters on their personal feed. These real-time diary entries can then be read by other users, called “followers,” who have subscribed to that page.

But Twitter is much more than a novel way to share updates of one’s daily life with friends. It’s now evolved into a powerful new marketing and communications tool. Regional emergency preparedness organizations are looking at Twitter as a way to reach millions of people during a disaster. NASA is using it to regularly update interested parties about the status of space shuttle flights. And one journalist solicited help from fellow Twitterers to get himself out of an Egyptian jail. (It worked.)

» Read the Entire Story

Illustration Credit: Wall Street Journal

My friend Dixie Redfearn posted this on her very fun and informative blog, and I had to share with you what she wrote…

The awkward 47 year old, wearing a dowdy dress and looking for all the world like a bit of a troll, Susan told Simon and the others that she had never been kissed, and lived alone with her cat Pebbles, after taking care of her mum most of her life.

The camera pans the audience and you see the snickering and laughing as they wait to see this person probably humiliate herself. Then she begins to sing…watch the video so you see for yourself.

How quick we are to judge. I was embarrassed for her before I heard her sing. It was a bit of an international wake up call (more than 20 million people have watched the YouTube video) that you can’t judge a book by its cover.

The judges all admitted they thought she would be awful. They didn’t say it was because she was unattractive, but that was the reason.

It caused me to take a long hard look at how judgmental I can be, and, I hope, try to be a better person.

Thanks, Susan. I’ll bet you’ve always deserved better than what you’ve gotten.

Couldn’t have said it better, Dixie. The video can’t be embedded, but you can click here to watch it on YouTube.

And here’s the full story in The Union, with reactions from the contractors and Barbara Bashall of NCCA.

Grass Valley’s Tru-Line Builders and Sierra Foothills Construction Co., in concert with Clark & Sullivan construction out of Sacramento, were informed they were the college’s first choice for the project. They have about 30 days to demonstrate they can complete the project within budget.

If they can do that, the local contractors can start construction as early as June 15, which they said could lead to hundreds of local jobs through an estimated 70 to 80 local subcontractors.

The news came the same day as a state report that Nevada County’s unemployment rate climbed above 11 percent in March.

“The local team (Tru-Line and Sierra Foothills) has been selected to negotiate a guaranteed maximum price with Sierra College for this construction,” said college trustee Aaron Klein, who represents parts of Nevada County. “The college has two very good options (the local contractors and the runner-up from Redwood City), but we are negotiating first with the local team.”

» Read the Entire Story

Here’s a roundup of the breaking news headlines on the NCC expansion project…

• The Union: Local contractors gain inside track
• Pelline: Area builders in lead for Sierra College project

Based on a phone call I just received, I’m guessing that Dixie Redfearn may have a post up shortly, either on her blog or over on YubaNet soon. I’ll update this post with that link when it arrives.

Also, the optimism in The Union headline should be tempered just a little bit. While likely true, the outcome is dependent on successful negotiations. Not to take away from the excitement. The Union updated their headline, which is a little more accurate, but just as exciting.

Hand-to-hand political combat in the heat of political campaigns certainly exists. But outside of that, it seems to me that good, reasoned debate on public policy issues demands respect for the ideas of others.

This is not as easy as it sounds.

This issue arose when two conservative bloggers (and friends of mine) were appointed as columnists at The Union (Nevada County’s newspaper), and agreed to have their blog content aggregated on theunion.com. The controversy was based on the fact that neither is a particularly ardent believer in man-made global warming.

(Disclaimer: I just don’t know what I think about this issue. Clearly, climate changes have been occurring for hundreds of years. Many important climate changes have been happening in the last few years. How much is man-made, I don’t really know. I’m interested in reading more about it when I get a break from  drinking at the fire hose of educational reform.)

The Union’s former editor, Jeff Pelline (another friend of mine) referred to the two of them as extreme. I like Jeff, and I think he has a pretty level-headed approach to most issues, although from his writing, it’s clear I’m probably a little more conservative than he is. (I used to be big into trying to label myself, now not so much. Labels are a little too simple.)

I worry about our public discourse when we fall into simply referring to others as extreme. I know it’s called for at times, but as I pointed out in the comments on Jeff’s post, one man’s extremism is another’s moderation.

Disrespect for other viewpoints is clearly in vogue at NCVoices.com, where the editor of that site (a woman named Anna, who I haven’t met) has taken the position that her view on global warming is completely correct, and places disclaimers on the opposing view telling readers in effect not to believe anything written there, and saying of those writers, “They must not have children, or else not like them much.” Because this really didn’t look like humor — and I’m the first person to appreciate humor — it appeared like both an absurd and disrespectful statement.

When we fail to respect each other’s view points, and simply reject their thoughts without consideration on the merits, we have no basis to actually debate. The result is polarization, balkanization and talking past each other. Not really healthy for a representative democracy.

To sum it all up, a fellow by the name of Tom Grundy signed on and wrote the following comments on Jeff Pelline’s blog in response to my point about respect.

Right on. Granted, we don’t yet know if Russ and George will suddenly become more well-rounded and open-minded in their posts, but, the Union is probably banking on the fact that they will stay as inflammatory as they have been in the past. It’s great for upping the ratings and the web hits by online commenters, etc.

I don’t really know Tom, but I want to make something clear. Russ and George don’t need to change their opinions (one possible definition of “well-rounded” and “open-minded”) to have respect for the opinions of others. I hope they express that respect by using their column space in The Union to disagree with others using data and reason, not just out-of-hand rejection.

And Jeff, Anna, Tom, Dixie, Zuri and all of the other people involved in this saga don’t have to change (or feel threatened in) their opinions to respect the viewpoints of George and Russ. I think Dixie said it most eloquently in her post: limiting yourself to only one viewpoint is like eating the same thing every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I thought of trying to embed a YouTube video of the Beatles with “All You Need is Love”, but I thought that would be over the top.

It’s official: I knew of this yesterday (there was a tight lid on the news until our staff had notified all of the parties), but the local general contractors vying to bring the $13+ million in NCC construction spending home to Nevada County are in the lead for the contract. I just received a call confirming that the news is out. This will be a $30+ million dollar economic stimulus to Nevada County and surrounding communities.

After yesterday’s interviews, Leo (CEO), Doug (VP of Finance and Administration) and Laura (Director of Facilities Construction) huddled and made the decision to proceed to negotiating the GMP (“Guaranteed Maximum Price”) with the Tru-Line Builders / Sierra Foothills Construction / Clark & Sullivan team, a joint venture which is majority owned by the two local firms and is headquartered in Grass Valley.

The runner-up, Rudolph & Sletten, is a fantastic construction firm as well, and recently did an amazing job on the Sierra College Truckee-Tahoe Campus. They remain on stand-by for this project in case the negotiations don’t work out competitively with the Nevada County-based team.

Throughout this process, I’ve been advocating for the best result to keep our local tax dollars local, and our staff has done an incredible job helping to create that outcome. We have carefully balanced the desire to keep the dollars local with the need to deliver the best value to the taxpayers who are investing their dollars into their community college. We cannot afford to pay a premium to keep the dollars local, but I think in the process, we’ve discovered that we won’t have to. This is the best of both worlds.

This is by no means a done deal, and the negotiations between the local team and our staff have to conclude before the Board of Trustees can approve an agreement, but this is a great step forward. My hat is off to Leo, Doug, Laura, and the team at Sierra College for a job well done.

It’s also been a privilege to work on this effort with Barbara Bashall at Nevada County Contractor’s Association. She is a tireless advocate for the local economy, and has been a great partner in this effort.