No one was more happy Tuesday that Nevada County gave its blessing to restoring fabled North Star House to its former grandeur than Catherine Conway Gerstung, the great-granddaughter of famed house occupants A.D. and Mary Hallock Foote. “Marian Foote Conway, my mother, would be overjoyed, since she spent quite a few hours up here trying to get somebody interested in the North Star House in 1966, when my grandmother died,” she said.

A massive, immediate response by more than 75 firefighters on land and in the air was able to contain a five-acre brush fire Sunday evening in the hills east of Pioneer Park in Nevada City. Although one structure was threatened early on, firefighters using a variety of tools rapidly erased that threat and no structure damage was reported, said Cal Fire Capt.

A massive, immediate response by more than 75 firefighters on land and in the air was able to contain a five-acre brush fire Sunday evening in the hills east of Pioneer Park in Nevada City. Although one structure was threatened early on, firefighters using a variety of tools rapidly erased that threat and no structure damage was reported, said Cal Fire Capt.

Kurt and Nancy Lorenz were ecstatic to get a quick tour Tuesday inside the historic Bridgeport Covered Bridge before contractors descend on it this week with engineers, architects, machinery, I-beams and cables. “It’s great to get back in it and smell it,” said Kurt Lorenz, adding that he and his wife are longtime Nevada County residents, Bridgeport Bridge-lovers and members of the San Juan Ridge Citizens League and the San Juan Ridge Taxpayers Association.

Nevada County’s first walk-a-thon for the homeless invites the community to join the party and, at the same time, invoke the experience of being “on the move,” without a home. “It’s not actually a long walk,” said organizer Joanna Robinson of “The Long Walk,” a 1.8-mile trek around the Brunswick Basin area of Grass Valley set for Sept. 6.

Nevada County voters will decide Nov. 4 between two radically opposing viewpoints of Measure S, a proposed revision to the county’s existing medical marijuana cultivation ordinance. Which is right? The arguments are so diametrically opposite that thoughtful voters likely will want to take a careful review and comparison of provisions in each.

One of the most well-known thought leaders and conscious movement teachers in Nevada County will be a guest presenter over Labor Day weekend at a four-day retreat, Aug. 29-Sept. 1 on the Stanislaus River. Michael Stone of Grass Valley, facilitator for “Sweat Your Prayers,” a movement group at the South Yuba Club in Nevada City for the last 15 years, and a weekly interview-show host on KVMR radio, is a key part of the event, called “River of Bliss.”.

When the U.S. Navy scrapped its first battleship with the name U.S.S. San Francisco in 1939, no one ever thought that 75 years later, one of its lifeboats would be restored to a stunning new grandeur by a 65-year-old auto mechanic named Ray in Nevada County. “It was just something different than cars,” said Ray Hugenberger, proprietor since 1985 of antique-styled Ray’s Auto in unincorporated Grass Valley.

It’s been more than 50 years since Dennis Kocher fought with the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War, but now he’s facing a battle at home. Kocher, 72, a disabled veteran who served from 1961 to 1965, is appealing a July 11 order from the Lake of the Pines homeowners association to shut down his garage hobby woodshop, where he makes furniture to donate to military families in need at Beale Air Force Base.

“To me, this is bigger than me, and that’s why I wanted a celebrity lawyer,” Bigelsen said Monday at his arraignment on the charges in Nevada County Superior Court. “There’s a persecution going on of alternative medicine.”. He said he didn’t know Geragos before contacting him, but the attorney, principal of Los Angeles-based Geragos & Geragos, told Bigelsen he was “fascinated” by the case.

If there were any doubt that Nevada County is feeling impacts from the drought, check out the wider-than-normal grainy beachfront at the campgrounds along Scotts Flat Lake reservoir. “The selling feature of these campsites is that you’re right on the water,” said Chip Close, operations manager for Nevada Irrigation District.

When the fast-moving vegetation fire broke out Monday off Hutto Road in Big Oak Valley, there was a brand new team on standby, ready to rescue endangered horses if necessary. As it turned out, the team — Dave Fields and Lisa Smith of Lone Wolves Horse Rescue — was called off after a slew of fire agencies swept in to knock the blaze down quickly, containing it to one structure, an RV and 49 acres of brush.

When Steve Castleberry arrived in town more than six years ago, he looked at the 2007 Nevada County Bicycle Master Plan – then the most recent update available – and gulped. “There were a gazillion projects; it was really unfocused,” said Castleberry, the county’s public works director. “We didn’t have a ton of money to spend on bike path upgrades; it wasn’t clear which were top priority.”.

Supporters and critics of a Nevada City holistic physician are reacting to news that he is being charged with various medical business-related criminal offenses in a complaint filed Friday by the Nevada County District Attorney’s office. “I find this persecution reprehensible!”. said Marilyn Nyborg of Grass Valley in a letter to the editor of The Union.

Instead of saying “I do,” Nevada County leaders agreed Tuesday with local wedding industry objections and approved a “do-over” on a proposed outside events ordinance. “It seemed evident that they didn’t understand our industry,” said Donna Hoekstra, a wedding coordinator and founder of Joy of Life Events in Nevada County and the website www.ncweds.com.

Nevada County innkeepers and other members of the hospitality community say they are upset about the potentially devastating economic impact of a proposed new county ordinance regulating commercial outdoor events at private properties. The ordinance, approved 5-0 at first reading on Tuesday by Nevada County Board of Supervisors, would require private property owners who rent out their land for wedding venues and other profit-making gatherings to get a temporary permit.