Show: On The Town Station: KNCO File: 8:27.mp3 Air date: 2026-08-27 Source: OpenAI whisper-1 · shrunk from 30.5 MB to 6.1 MB --- transcript --- It is 1133 and 84 degrees and Tom Fitzsimmons is On The Town today at Serino's in downtown Grass Valley. Good morning, Tom. Let's give Tom a little time here to get situated. Pete, I wish the listeners could see you right now. I know, it's kind of rude, I just thought about it. Kick your feet up. Yes. We've got room, we've got space, we've got air conditioning, we have good people, we've got the best staff. Look at this table of lovely ladies right over here. That is, that's great. Window table. I'm very honored to be here today broadcasting from Serino's at Main Street, one of the finest establishments in Nevada County, long lasting. I was thinking about just the other day, as I see people in here enjoying an anniversary or a birthday or whether it's an event like a graduation, wedding rehearsals, we get these larger reservations and I've been getting more and more of them and I'm so proud to be involved in people's celebrations, if you will. I just want to let everyone know and encourage them to come by and make reservations for any kind of celebration you have. We do a little something nice for you here. Just call up and make reservations, but let us know that it's a birthday or an anniversary and let us know the age of the person and let us know which year anniversary it is. These kind of details, because we can kind of fine tune our little card that we write and the other things that we do. It's important. Your dad sings though. Does he sing at times to people if it's a special event? I'll say this, I've seen it happen. You have? Right. He can sing very well, by the way. Everyone listening knows that. He just can't get to every table. I want to encourage people to do that because nothing makes us feel better than when I walk through the restaurant and see somebody, not celebrating a birthday for the first time, but for the third or fourth or fifth time. It's such a cool feeling and it's a proud moment for us. You and I talk about this and I know since you're a restaurateur, when you travel, you check out other restaurants and stuff. For one reason, I check it out just to see what prices are, what the service is like. I went up to Portland. You guys do very well here when you travel and see different places and what other establishments do. Yeah. Let's talk, on that note, let's talk service fees too. That's something that I've noticed as I ... I don't get out very often, like you said, you just got back from Portland, but when I do go somewhere and I go out to eat, you'll see these things called convenience fees, service fees, cost of living fees, things like that. We don't have any of that hidden fee stuff here at Serino's at Main Street. We don't have gratuity automatically added to the bill of six or more. A lot of times you see that. Our prices are good. Our staff is the best. That I know. When you get your bill, that's an honest number right there. I'm really proud of that and Jerry's really proud of that. You won't see these fees on your receipt here. I don't think that's the way we should be doing it. It's already expensive enough to go out and do anything. You're starting to see these fees at places that aren't even restaurants. What I'm saying is, tip your servers because we didn't hide anything from you here. Prices are tough and we're pretty much smack dab in the middle. I did offer the kiss the cook, but that's something I guess that's unique to your place because I almost got slapped when I offered that to one of the places. Oh yeah, for sure. Well they don't know what you're talking about. So the kiss the cook winner of last week was a Todd from Yuba City. We see a lot of that. We see a lot of people traveling up the hill, get out of the heat, beat the heat and come up here and have dinner. Dinner or a show. Todd left a very generous tip here and that's the kiss the cook program at Cerros at Main Street. You throw a couple bucks in an envelope and you get into a contest where you get to win a dinner for two. You have like a football betting pool going on. I see like a little handwritten notes here and I remember the Mancino family was famous for that back in Jersey. I wish I was that cool. This is a schedule. This is another schedule. That's another schedule. It's just all work here. It's all work. It's no play. It's all work. It's all work and it's all for you folks. It's a place to be. All right. So number for reservations? 530-477-6000. I'll repeat that, 477-6000. Call us up. This time of day is perfect. Let us know what your special occasion is and how many people you're bringing in. We specialize in not just small tables, twos and fours, but large tables of up to 20 and 30. Yeah. Another special event real quickly. I remind the parents out there who might have the kid going to college for the first time here in the next couple of weeks. Come out to Serino's. Kind of like a going away dinner type thing. Kick them out on the right foot. Hit the road. Right. Road check. All right. Thanks for hosting us. We'll see you here at Serino's in downtown Grass Valley. You can check in on Wall Street. We come back. We're talking about the Penn Valley Fire Department along with Nevada County Law Enforcement Fire Protection Council. We come back. It is 1139 and 85 degrees and time to chat with Nathan Leishman, who's filling in for Rick Fisher today. Financial advisor with Ostro Financial Consultants, LPL Financial, member SIPC, and the reason that Nathan is filling in is because Rick is taking like a six-week vacation. That's right. Yeah. He'll be out for a couple of weeks, so he'll have me to give you the updates here for a couple of weeks. Well, I appreciate that. This way we'll get the right numbers. Right? Yeah. Exactly. No. We get the... I'm just teasing him. How are things looking today? Yeah. We're actually seeing some positive results in the market on the back of some good earnings results coming from NVIDIA today. The Dow Jones Industrial Average up about .1% or 75 points at 53,540. S&P 500 up .5% at 7,715, and the NASDAQ leading the way up 1.2% at 26,450. Looking at commodity markets, we're also seeing some positive price movement with crude oil up $1.40 a barrel at $83.60, gold up $3 an ounce at $4,656, and silver up just over a dollar an ounce at $69.06. Lastly, the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield at 4.68%, which is up slightly from yesterday's close. All right. And we'll get an update from you right after the 5.30 newscast this afternoon. Nathan, have a great rest of your day. Thank you. Investment advice is offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA SIPC. Investment advice offered through Ostroff Financial Consultants, Incorporated, a registered investment advisor, and separate entity from LPL Financial. Hi. This is Jerry Serino. Thank you for voting Serino's at Main Street the best of more times than any business in Nevada County. If you can't join us for lunch or dinner today, stay tuned to On the Town, and we'll keep you informed of the great changes taking place at Serino's award-winning restaurant. Remember, Thursdays, lunchtime, KNCO, Serino's at Main Street in Grass Valley. And welcome back to On the Town. Tom Fitzsimons here. Serino's at Main Street, downtown Grass Valley. Tom Vallee is here. Tom, actually sitting off the table to my right, almost like you're on probation or something, or you're put in a corner, but you got an ex-firefighter. Is it ex-firefighter, you guys, that have retired? Is that the correct term? Well, you're always a firefighter. Well, yeah, but you know, retirement has its quirks and its privileges, and I always say thank Grandpa Kalpers, I mean, he is always right on time every month, but we have worked hard for that. I mean, I know Pat was in the business forever. I spent 37 years doing it, and it's a love affair, but it's also a task. It's a job, and you gotta love it, and I did, and I know Pat did, and I know Clayton's been in the racket forever, too, and it gets in your blood, and here you are. Well, here's Pat Sullivan, but he's representing the Law Enforcement Fire Protection Council, right? Yeah, he missed a meeting one time, so I convinced him to be a board member, so he's our newest board member, and we're honored to have him, because he brings a legacy of time and knowledge for all of Nevada County, so he's going to be good as a board member, because he already understands what we do, and he'll be in there doing it just as hard as the rest of us. That's true, Pat. I mean, you've seen the work that gets done. You also might anticipate the work that's needed out there that Law Enforcement Fire Protection Council can help with. Both of those. Both of those have been part of the recipient of going to the Law Enforcement Fire Council as a captain, as a chief, to get funds that were needed for our agency, and seeing the need with other agencies, trying to facilitate that, as being a retiree, still trying to address the need that all of Nevada County agencies, law enforcement and fire, they need those bits and pieces that are hard to fund, and if I can facilitate that on the behalf of being a board member, that's great. It's really fulfilling. Was this in your plans to do this in retirement? I thought it was travel, I thought it was fishing, I thought it was something else. You know, I had no real plan. We have a... That was a mistake. That was a mistake, number one. Tom can be a persistent character, and again, it's an organization that's always done good work, and it's easy to say yes to an agency, to an organization who's doing good work, and trying to fall into that same piece, and carry that legacy along as well. It's just a different kind of service for the community, I think. Quentin Thomas, our guest here, Fire Chief of Penn Valley, just before I talked to him, he brought up something, just how it's been pretty busy firefighting activities already in Penn Valley, but interagency-wise, you guys have all been working together, kind of the formation of what you guys do on a weekly basis, kind of meeting and stuff. It's monthly meetings, and represented by every imaginable law enforcement, everything from state parks, to Cal Fire, to Forest Service, to local government, is part of that meeting. The amazing thing is to sit down at the beginning, and everybody does a brief snippet as to where their organizations are at, and again, the cooperation, the face recognition, it happens at that meeting, and it carries out from there. I think that's what the, again, we say it about Nevada County, I think that they can, we all can't do it by ourselves, so as a group, this is a real powerful county to be working in public service. Exactly, and it does seem Penn Valley's been extra busy. We're trying to think, maybe the busiest place in Nevada County, at least the beginning of fire season. You're correct, it has been very active for wildfire in Penn Valley. This year, we've had three significant fires, between 20 and 40 acres apiece. Unfortunately, we've lost a couple of homes as well, but the inter-agency cooperation between our agency, the other local government fire agencies, Cal Fire, state parks, the Sheriff's Department, is really, I think, that's where we need to credit the ability to keep them relatively small, and less devastating than they have been. What gets the firefighters losing homes? I can tell you, just by the way you just said that, you lost a couple, I can tell that kind of hits at the soul of firefighters, doesn't it? Well, absolutely. It's really hard, you can grow vegetation back, but when you lose a home, people lose a lot of other things, too. The building you can build back, but all those things they have inside are what's important to you in your life, so yeah, that's the worst part. Unfortunately, one of the homes that burned, a young, starting out family had just moved in two weeks prior, and then lost all of their belongings in that fire. Yeah, it's devastating to the people who experience it. You talked to, as I mentioned to our listeners, about the inter-agency cooperation and stuff. What's that like as fire chief to see that happen? Well, I would say that's one of my biggest responsibilities, is making sure that my agency is working well with all of our partners. We think of fire and law enforcement as the only partners sometimes, but it's a lot of other groups, too. We have the Office of Emergency Services at the county, and we try to work closely with them, because it just so happens they're working on a grant-funded project right now in the Penn Valley Fire District, called the Lower Deer Creek Hazardous Fuels Reduction Project, and it really focuses on evacuation routes in the Pleasant Valley Road, Mooney Flat, Bittany Springs Road areas. We work with OES closely to encourage our residents to allow for right of entry to get in so they can do that important vegetation management work. Are you getting cooperation from everybody? You mentioned those roads. I think at the 49er fire, that's kind of the heart of it there. Well, exactly. As we saw in the Lobo fire in 2017, when Lake Wildwood was evacuated, Pleasant Valley Road is the main artery for all of those people, and we're not getting quite the participation level that we would like, which makes the continuity of the project along those areas difficult. When you have folks along the routes that don't participate, it lessens the effectiveness of the project. So if I could share anything with my constituents, it would be that work with the county on that project because it's going to benefit everyone. The fires that have happened in the Penn Valley area, were they mainly human caused? We're always anticipating, we can't go out and say it, but we anticipate somebody's clearing the property and maybe spark something. Well, in the case of wildfire, over 90% of every wildfire start is human caused. There's really not many natural ways a fire starts, typically accidental, and in the case of most of our fires in Penn Valley, they have been accidental, but they're coming from mowing or weed eating in the middle of summer, in the middle of the day, which is not the time you want to do that. You want to do all of that earlier in the year if you can, and try and do it before 10 in the morning if you do have to do it later in the year. Just before we went on air today, there was a fire in the southern part of the county started from weed eating, so those kind of things, we can control those. While they're accidental, we can think ahead and try not to do them during those types of periods. Do you think people are hesitant to not do it in the morning because they want to disturb a neighbor? I mean, I hate to say that, but obviously a fire is going to disturb them more later in the day. A fire definitely does disturb your neighbors more, but you have a few good hours in there where it's reasonable. I mean, if it's after 7 o'clock and you're done by 10, it's not that much of a disruption, and you're trying to make it safer for your neighbors, not just yourself. So I hope people don't shy away from it because of that. We have a ticker board where you can do that right now, as we have Clayton Thomas here, he's fire chief for the Penn Valley Fire Department, and Pat Sullivan on the board, Nevada County Law Enforcement Fire Protection Council. I know there's people just shocked by that. Here he is right here, a board member, along with Tom Vallee here at Serena's Main Street. So a quick break, we'll be right back. If you suffer from joint pain, you know just how big the little things are, like enjoying your morning coffee with two sugars and no painkiller. 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Make your visit even cozier with a fresh cup of coffee from the Fur Gone Craft Coffee Shop nestled in the back of the store. Visit us today on Mill Street in downtown Grass Valley, close to the DeLauro Theater. Whether you're refreshing one room or reimagining your whole home, discover something you'll love at West Home. And welcome back to On the Downtown for some interior serenos of Main Street, great place to be in downtown Grass Valley, whether you're taking in a show, or like I said, you have your little one about to go, it's all grown up going to college maybe for the first time, be fun to take him out to serenos for one really special dinner at home before they go to their new college and stuff, since a lot of the kids are leaving in the next few weeks. Clayton Thomas here, he's the Penn Valley Fire Chief. I didn't even mention yet, Clayton, about the Rough and Ready merger and stuff, it took a while to get done, so how's that going and what's the process that you're still left with, if anything? Actually a very exciting time, we worked for about three years on that merger, and in March of this year, finally finished that up, and probably the most important part of that whole merger was ensuring that that fire station stayed open, because it doesn't just serve the residents of Rough and Ready, it's more of a regional issue, because all of the fire agencies are intertwined and we provide mutual aid to one another on a daily basis, and so losing that fire station not only was going to be a negative for the residents of Rough and Ready, but residents in Penn Valley, it actually responds into what was the old Penn Valley Fire District for about two-thirds of its responses every month, and then it also provides aid to Nevada County Consolidated on the north side, so that's what made it so exciting to get it done, so really what we've been working on now is just merging all of the other things, there's a lot of administrative stuff that you've got to do, even after you're done with the official merger, so that's been keeping us busy this summer. Alright, of course, you've been busy, a lot of things, you know I was thinking about your demographics in the Penn Valley area, older people, I imagine paramedic calls and stuff like that, they're probably pretty big for you guys down there, right? Yes, so in Penn Valley, Lake Wildwood was sold originally as a retirement community or a second home community, and we do have a lot of young families in Wildwood now, the demographic is changing some, but it's still predominantly retirees, as well as the rest of Penn Valley in Rough and Ready have a lot of retirees, so that's why we started the ambulance service in the late 70s, originally with EMTs and then with EMT2s and then with paramedics in the 80s, and slowly we started with one ambulance and then we had two ambulances and now we have three ambulances, one at each of our stations, so that's because 75% of the calls we run are related to EMS, so we're one of only two public agencies in the county that transport, Truckee being the other one, and that's been a very proud part of the heritage in our organization, is the paramedic program. Yeah, and I see them up at the hospital, you know, I walk my dog in the morning when I get off of the air at my talk show at 10, and I see a Penn Valley, you know, the guys that have run up the hill to the Sierra Nevada pretty often. That's correct, we're on track to run about 1,500 EMS calls this year, the vast majority of them go to Sierra Nevada, unless it's a specialty case like trauma or heart attack, in which case we go to Marysville or Roseville for those, but yeah, they're very busy. Do you like being chief, by the way? It's a great job, I'm eight weeks into it. Wait, wait a minute, now I asked you that, and these two guys, who are retired by the way, are laughing, did you notice that? I did notice that, and everyone who's congratulated me who's retired in the last eight weeks has a similar chuckle or smile on their face, that's true. But no, it's a great job, I'm really honored to serve the Penn Valley community and Nevada County at large, I spent most of my childhood here, and I've worked here almost my entire career, so it's gratifying to be able to give back and try and lead an organization as great as the one I'm able to. And is staffing where you want it to be? Well, if you ask a fire chief if their staffing is where they want it to be, they're always going to say they would like more staff. We staff our units with two people when the national standard is three or four, so is it where I want it to be? No, we would be more efficient and safer if we had better staffing, we would provide a better service to the public with better staff, or more staff, but the positions that we're budgeted for are full, and I have a great crew of employees who are really dedicated to the community as well, so that's a positive, I feel lucky to walk into that as the new fire chief. All right, we've got about a couple minutes left here, anything else going on exciting that our listeners would like to know about in your department? Well, we've successfully had a couple of members of the public, because of early CPR by bystanders and use of an AED, and then our advanced life support care, we've had two individuals this year who were in cardiac arrest and are now walking and talking with their families at home. I think one was at the Holiday Market? One was on the Lake Wildwood Golf Course, and the other one was at Western Gateway Park. In both cases, early bystander CPR was the key, so I would encourage any of the listeners to, if you haven't taken a CPR class, or you haven't taken it lately, go in there, refresh those skills, or learn them for the first time, because that's how we save lives. If you wait five or ten minutes for someone to do CPR, that's too long. That is great advice, and that is very, did they get an accommodation and stuff, or did you make them eat your dinner that you made, or something like that, how did that work? Well, for the first one that was in March, there will be an event, we don't have a date set yet, but there will be an event where the family will be present, and the patient, along with the first responders and the members of the public that were there, and we'll probably be holding that in Lake Wildwood. And Pat Sullivan, since you are a board member, the website for people who want to find out more about Nevada County Law Enforcement Fire Protection Council is, oh no Pat, no no, Pat, this is radio, you have to... He didn't move his lips there, Tom Vallee. I, you know what, I did for NCLawAndFire.org, I just put Pat on the spot, that's not a fair question, you laughed at the fire chief, anyway, and again, I appreciate all these guys and what the Penn Valley Fire Department has been doing in the early going of the fire season. Please, mow your lawns early, alright, really use a lot of common sense out there and help out the fire department. That will do it for us here, I want to thank Serino's hosting us on the town, we've got ABC News coming up right now. --- end of transcript ---