Betty Jo administering first dose of Covid vaccine to Frank Lang.
Health Officer, Dr Celia Sutton-Pado holding a vial of Moderna. Marty Creel and Frank in the background.
This past Tuesday, December 29, marked the beginning of the western Sierra County COVID-19 Vaccine Program. This joint effort between the Downieville Ambulance and Urgent Care organization and the Sierra County Health Department started operation at the Downieville Community Hall when 40 doses of the Moderna vaccine were administered to EMS and First Responders of the Downieville, Sierra City, Alleghany, and Pike City fire departments.
It’s no secret that in the heyday of gold mining and lumber, extraction industries in the Sierras thrived due to the abundance of natural resources and the essentially non-existent environmental concerns. However, in the absence of these once-thriving industries, a new player has entered the game. And it’s sustainable! Outdoor recreation has been a rejuvenating industry to communities throughout Plumas and Sierra counties, once again putting them on the map for visitors from around the world. The Downieville Classic, along with the multi-use trail systems winding through the wild beauty of the Sierras have outdoor enthusiasts visiting year-round. Hunting and fishing remain constants while winter snowmobile action is heavy throughout the mountainous areas of the county as well. However, it still holds true that the communities throughout Sierra and Plumas counties are struggling to maintain year-round economic growth, local jobs, and tourism revenue. Greg Williams and the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship have been brewing a plan to enhance the attraction of outdoor recreation enthusiasts to the area, continuing to bring life back into the Lost Sierras and boost year-round economic flow into our communities. Their plan is to connect fifteen communities throughout the Sierras via a multi-use trail system. The Trails Master Plan, or TMP, is focused on creating a vision for recreation-focused lifestyle, community investment, shared stewardship, economic opportunity, and creating local jobs to benefit the economies of disadvantaged communities in Sierra, Plumas, and Lassen counties.
Fantasies die hard, or so it is said. And perhaps they are more stubborn in the hard-knocks, real-life world of newspapering. Every reporter is rumored to have a novel tucked in some hidden file in their desk or on their computer. Every publisher dreams of becoming the visionary voice of the community. Every everyone (reporter, photographer, editor, publisher) dreams of winning the Big P. (aka Pulitzer Prize, which, by the way, have now been announced for 2020.)
A Google Street View of The Mountain Messenger in Downieville, California, taken in July 2015. The weekly newspaper still operates out of the second floor, above a beauty salon Google Images
Were it not for “Citizen Kane,” the tiny town of Downieville, Calif., would be just the latest in a long list of communities without a newspaper.
But one night late last year, Carl Butz was watching the Orson Welles drama about a newspaper magnate, and saw a new future for himself. He knew that the longtime owner of his hometown paper, The Mountain Messenger, the state’s oldest weekly paper, was set to retire and sunset the paper with him. Watching the screen, Butz thought, I can do that.
Black Bears have been conspicuously absent in our neighborhood the past few months. I saw a bear track in the snow in January, but no tracks since then. We haven’t even seen any bear scat locally! Black Bears are primarily nocturnal, but I have seen them many times during the day. They should be out foraging on insects, carrion, small to medium size mammals (mainly rodents), and vegetation at this time of year.
