Show: On The Town Station: KNCO File: 9:10.mp3 Air date: 2026-09-10 Source: OpenAI whisper-1 · shrunk from 30.5 MB to 6.1 MB --- transcript --- It is 1133 and 86 degrees, and it's Thursday. Tom Fitzsimmons is On The Town at Serino's. Good morning, Tom. Well, good morning, Mo. Yeah, Serino's at Main Street, downtown Grass Valley, place to be. Oh, just relax there, Gary. Jerry Serino here. Good to see him. And matter of fact, the last show I did, Donna did the show. I think that was maybe the first time she talked about the restaurant, or maybe second. Busy with Ryan out there. Yeah. Yeah. She came in and did the did a pretty good job. She did a flawless job. That's the thing. You know, she's going to be with me doing football. We're going to do football tomorrow night. Is she excited about doing football? She's always excited about doing football. I think it's interesting going to be interesting to see how she responds to football like she did basketball. You know, if that works well, you've got another partner. Yeah. You know, so we look forward to that. I will say this. I did have a football guy try to do basketball. You remember Rod Martin at all. Right. And that was a disaster. I have to admit he was. Yeah, that was a disaster. So we'll see how Donna does. Donna is much smarter than Rod. Reverse the logic there and it might work out just fine, you know. So, yeah, we're here at Serino's at Main Street and we've had a fabulous weekend. That was a lot of fun. A lot of big families and a lot of people enjoying themselves. I just want to shout out to this incredible staff of 50. I think we've got 56 here now. The employees that work here and some of them have been here for well over 25 years. We we of course, it goes without saying, couldn't do without them. Of course not. But but it's the it's the integrity and the and the diligent respect that they put into their work. They really care about this place. They really care about their work. They care about their customers. And that that seems like a lame thing to say. But it's it goes on here every day. And those unsung heroes in the kitchen. Not not not to leave out the the the great people we have up front, but concentrating on the the unsung heroes in the kitchen. That's why we have the kiss the cook here. And these little envelopes that are on the table for every two dollars that you put into that envelope. You win a chance to win another chance to win a dinner for two. And there's no happier diner in the whole house than those than those winners. Sometimes there's multiple winners in here. It's a trip. You can almost pick them out there. They're having a good time. And so that goes 100 percent of that goes to the kitchen and is distributed among those hardworking people. So they appreciate that is totally volunteer. I would never put a surcharge or a tax or a hidden cost on your bill. That would deteriorate the contract that you and I have had for the last 44 years. So you can always always depend on our honesty here as far as our integrity as a business person. Enjoy about your staff that when it is a three day weekend or a holiday and things like that, they're not moving around holding their heads and stuff because you can go into some places and, you know, maybe they didn't want to work that weekend or that holiday and they're kind of moving around and you can kind of feel that vibe. It's called the holiday drop. And the other heads are down and they've got to be here and they're not not very pleased that you're here. Well, that's not the way it is here. We have we have a we have a way of circumventing that in a sense. A lot of moms and a lot of people that have families, that's first. And you've got situations at home that you should be there sometimes. We've got a volunteer call in where we have slots and the ones that are available there, they're up for it. And we had a situation here to where we this was last week sometime. No, it was during the holiday. I'm sorry. It was during this weekend that boy, we've got to get somebody here. We've got a slot here. And sure enough, a girl got just got back from a cruise and she changed her clothes and she says, I'm up for it. I'm in and came in and bailed us out, so to speak. So that's the that's that's the way these people that work together treat one another and they carry it out through your through your service. You know, you can feel that here. People want to be here. They're good people. I hire people by their heart. I don't hire people by their experience. And we can teach restaurant, but we can't teach caring, you know, and that's really, really important. And that's why these people work so well together. And it's and I enjoy coming in every every time I come through that door. So we're here at Serena's at Main Street. We've been here for forty four years. If you haven't, I'm not quite sure what to do about that, except to invite you to come and enjoy our cuisine and enjoy our hospitality. The numbers four, seven, seven, six thousand. That's four, seven, seven, six thousand. And remember the way it used to be. It still is. It's Serena's at Main Street. And your favorite recipes are still on the menu here. That's that's the other thing. Very consistent that way, Jerry. So we appreciate that as well. Thank you so much. My pleasure. OK, we're going to take a quick break. Check in on Wall Street. Then we're talking Chicago Park Paradise Fire Department and Law Enforcement Fire Protection Council. We come back. It is eleven thirty nine. Eighty six degrees. It's time to chat with Nathan Leishman, financial advisor with Ostro Financial Consultants, LPL Financial, member SIPC. Well, good morning, Nathan. Good morning. And, you know, Rick's still on vacation, wasn't he? Wasn't this supposed to be like a three hour tour that he was going to take? I imagine him as the Gilligan character, if that's the case. Yep. Yep. That sounds about right to me. And how about Wall Street? How are things looking today? Yeah, so we're seeing another day with the market pulling back. The Dow Jones industrial average down about point seven percent at just under fifty two thousand. The S&P 500 is down point six percent at seven thousand five hundred and ninety. And the Nasdaq down point six percent as well at twenty six thousand ninety one. Taking a look at commodity markets, crude oil is up six dollars a barrel at one hundred and two dollars and forty four cents. Gold is down eighty one dollars an ounce at four thousand three hundred and eighty dollars. And silver is down four dollars and twenty cents an ounce at sixty four dollars and forty cents. Lastly, the U.S. 10 year Treasury yield is at four point nine five percent, which is up point one percent from yesterday. And we'll get an update from you following the five thirty newscast this afternoon. Enjoy the rest of your Thursday. It's going to start cooling down tomorrow. Thank you. Thank you. Securities 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. Discover the stories that shaped Nevada County on History Unfolded. Hosted by Tom Fitzsimmons and myself, Mike Stewart. With special guests the second and fourth Mondays at 9 a.m. Brought to you by Mowl Paint and Glass, serving Nevada County since 1949. And Smarter Broadband, local, reliable, high speed internet. Don't miss the voices, the stories, and the history that make our community unique. Right here on KNCO News Talk 830. Welcome back here on the town. Tom Fitzsimmons here. Serino's at Main Street, downtown Grass Valley. A great place to be. And a real quick shout out to the parents. I know there's this last group of parents whose kids are going off to college. Maybe for the first time. Especially those going off for the first time. Come out to Serino's. Enjoy that last dinner before they take off next week and start classes and stuff. You can celebrate then the emptiness when you come back as well. Another reason to have another dinner. Tom Vallee is here from Law Enforcement Fire Protection Council. You were sharing with me off the air. Scott Bias here from Paredale Chicago Park. We'll get to his thing in a second. You guys are very busy in your meeting, it sounded like. Yeah, we had three different proposals come in today. Two of them we were able to fund. Paredale Chicago Park, we funded five new portable radios. And for the CHB to be kept local, we funded a very nice drone for officer safety, as well as looking in different canyons for car wrecks and whatever. And a couple of bikes that they're going to put together for their bike patrol. Tell me about the bike patrol, because you were sharing with me that it had an impact at the county fair, which I didn't really even know about. Yeah, apparently they were well received, number one. They're able to get around real easily in the fair compared to, obviously, a motorized car. And they ended up making two or three drunk driving arrests, as well as helped with some crowd control and a few different things, because they're mobile inside of the fairgrounds. So you got the CHB officers riding these bicycles? Yeah, they actually have to be certified to do it, which is another course that they have to take to get that certification. But my understanding is they all volunteer to go get that certification because they like that whole feeling of, number one, it's not a patrol car anymore. You're right there with the crowds and just a different slice of life. Can I ask you something as a fire guy? Do you end up giggling when you say that? Well, that's got the same thing. I kind of giggle because my dad was a firefighter. He'd probably laugh at that. Well, we've had this discussion before, and fire and police are kind of like oil and water. They don't usually mix too well. But up here in this county, everybody works together. It's all these smaller agencies that you have to to survive up here. It's not like you're in Sacramento City and you've got 52 stations down there. It's a different thing. What's exciting about Law Enforcement Fire Protection Council, Scott, is that you're able to go to this organization with a presentation, and as it turns out, you're going to get these radios that were needed. What was your presentation like without going into the details? Did you have to have audio, visual, and things that you guys have been dealing with? Mainly, I went over with them the current state of our radios. Last year, they were gracious to purchase us five last year, which made a big deal for us because our radios are older, probably 1990s technology, and they're not as easy to use as the new ones are. We have five. Currently, we have three back in district, and we have two that's out on the strike teams right now. That leaves us with five radios that our other personnel are using that are the 1990s technology, and they no longer make the parts to fix them. That was something I wanted to go over, is that they are becoming a dinosaur. Some days, we've had to steal parts from other radios that were already out of service just to make these radios work. It's a big deal for firefighter safety and for just communications on an incident to have radios that are the state-of-the-art that really make a big difference. You got to hear from these firefighters that are out there in some spots where radios aren't working or not working well, and their frustrations when they come back? That happens all the time because those radios, they're just not quite as good. The parts are old. But out there, the ones that are wearing them are mostly the ones that are just listening, but it's very vital that they hear all the radio traffic that's going on. If the fire changes direction or something, that they're hearing it. The biggest issue for us is if you have a structure fire, and if you're inside of a structure. Those radios, number one, they're almost impossible to actually transmit out on because they're either inside of your radio pocket on your turnouts, and the button is inside, and the buttons and the knobs on top are very small. They couldn't change the channel if they needed to. Where the new ones come with the radios, we would have them under their jacket, and then the radio mic actually comes out from where their collar comes. So now they have easy access to talk on the radio and can get out if they have a mayday situation where somebody's trapped or the conditions are changing or if they need additional resources. That's where it really makes a big difference. I'm just kind of curious, Tom, with, again, getting these radios and such, you guys have done so much over the years. You're at $1.4 million raised getting equipment and stuff. Do you guys are able to get it at a decent price, too, just because you guys know the industry and know where to go? Well, the bid process, as Scott will tell you, I mean, it's very competitive. If somebody knows he went to this dealer to get something, and the other dealers more, they're going to match that price. So we try to, you know, we try to watch out for that. But we also put the trust in who's ever making the presentation that they've gone out and made the best deal they could make. So that it, you know, because we only have so much to put around every year. And, yes, we have raised about a million and a half since the organization started. So we try to spread it out as best we can, you know, because you fundraise and you give it away and then you get a fundraise again. So it's an ongoing process that I'm really proud to be a part of. It's really a unique group. And, of course, you make this in this meeting that you have, that whole idea of these meetings where all the leaders get together, you know, all of the first responders and stuff. That's kind of a neat thing to be a part of as well, I think. Oh, it definitely is. I mean, we get to hear reports from all the different agencies. We have the police, the sheriff, all the different fire agencies, the district attorney's office. That is where, you know, we, as being at Paradale Chicago Park, I'm out on the outer edges. So to get to hear stuff that's going on and that gives you that ability. It kind of makes you, as we talked earlier about helping each other, because we are all in it together. I mean, whether it's a fire, whether it's a, could be a disaster. It could be something that, but we're all in it together. We're too small. We have to be able to work together. And so by the time you come in and you get to hear each other talking, you hear their struggles or their successes, same thing with us, it is, hey, we know that we're all in it. You know, nobody's special. We're all doing this job the same, and we just all wear a different patch on our sleeve. And, of course, your department's been busy. You were sharing with me off the air that you have a strike team that's been out for quite a while, right? Yes. So on the Plaskett fire in Monterey County, we've actually, we sent two apparatus out. The first one was out for 12 days. They returned on Labor Day. And our patrol, it's been out since a week from Sunday. So I think they're on day 12 right now, and they've already told me they're working tomorrow. So most likely they'll be coming home most likely on Sunday, unless they come home Saturday. But most likely Sunday they'll be coming home. So these people have been away from their family. What's amazing about this is out of everybody that's on these strike teams, because we train our people for wild land and structure and everything. They're trained. But we only have one full-time person out of the, when we had seven out. We only had one full-time person out there. Now, Battalion Chief Ramey, he's considered, you know, he's been a leader with our department for years, but he still does other things. He's not there, say, 40 hours a week. But the rest of these are paid call firefighters. These guys all have, or gals, which have one female out right now, they have other jobs, and they're stepping away. And they do it for two reasons. Number one was to help the state and help the fires that are going on right now. But the other part is to help balance our budget, because our revenues do not match our expenditures. So we balance our budget every year off of OES deployments or Office of Emergency Services. So that's how we budget, we balance our budget. So we think we just now are close to where we've balanced our budget, and we've been out for eight, almost nine weeks now. So throughout the summer, we've been out approximately nine weeks. For us people at home, how do you go about making sure that you're covered at home? Because, you know, you have people out, and that's part of it, and that's, you guys, I'm sure, adjust for it. But just the peace of mind that you can still cover things here at home. We're very lucky. We have great staff. I had to say that everybody stepped up. In fact, we had one of our guys work yesterday, and he initially had vacation. But we had one of our guys had been out. He'd been out for 12 days. Another one had been backfilling backup shifts. And it's just kind of like everybody's kind of needed their days off. So he canceled his vacation to stay yesterday. And then we've had our paid calls have been able to come back and backfill on when we had open assignments. So everybody stepped up. They've all done a great job. I mean, like I said, it's not only is it to help the state, but it's to help the district to keep us afloat and keep us in the positive. That's not a cop canceling his vacation. That's a firefighter. Anyway, we're going to take our one break here on the town here at Serino's at Main Street. We're here. Jerry Serino hosting us. Quick break. We'll be right back. Make your happy place, Grass Valley Brewing Company on East Main Street. Great beer, people, and now a full bar serving handcrafted cocktails. There's always something happening all week. Mondays are open mic night. Thursday, it's trivia or karaoke. 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Now through September 20th, get $50 to $100 in instant savings on four select in-stock Cooper, Pirelli, and Hankook brand tires with installation purchase. Plus, get our labor saver package with any purchase, which includes tire rotation, alignment check, visual break check, battery check, windshield wiper check, fluids check, free. Big O Tires, the team you trust. Installation required. Disposal fees and shop fees extra where permitted. C-store for pricing. Eligibility may vary. Not valid with other offers. Welcome back here on the town. Tom Fitzsimmons here. Serena's at Main Street. We're talking to Scott Bios, who's the chief down there. Perry L. Chicago Park, or PCP, the initials for that department. Do you crack up? I crack up every time I say that, Scott. It is kind of funny. Where do those letters come from for the department? That's through OES. Each department has their own three-letter designator. You have some that you're like, why is that thing the way it's written? It's just because maybe what would make sense is already taken. They put that on us. That's how they, in each county. We're XNE for our county. When I came from San Joaquin, we were XSJ. They give you your three-letter designator, so everybody is kind of, that's the way they can keep you apart. We all have the same numbers. You go back to the Oakland Hills fire. They had all those resources coming in. That was one of their big problems was radio communications. How many Engine Ones did you have showing up into Oakland? You had Engine One from all different places showing up. Who answers to Engine One? That's why. Just PCP kind of worked. Yes, people do think that's quite funny. Today, which was kind of interesting. My talk show was with WM Waste Management. The young lady that was on, I know her really well, Laurie Ruddy, was talking about things. I brought up September 11th. There's a whole bunch of different reasons. Locally, that's when our 49er fire started many years ago. It was a devastating wildfire that changed really the landscape and the whole culture here about preparing for wildfire and the like. It really does remind everybody that though we've had cooler temperatures, this is kind of the heart of a real bad fire season right now here. Definitely. This is probably the worst time of the year. Everything has dried out completely. We have been lucky in this county to not have wind. The wind is what drives these fires. We've been very lucky. The aircraft from CAL FIRE has just been knocking them out. We're lucky. The fires that we have had, there's not a lot of them going on in the area. We had a fire that was right on the border between Placer and our jurisdiction. It was a Saturday. We had five aircraft and five helicopters working that. If we would have had any wind and they wouldn't have been able to send us all those resources, it could have been a completely different story. Yes, this is that time of year that everybody starts to see. We had that little bit of rain this morning by my house. It was probably about 10, 15 minutes. People kind of think, well, we're starting to have cooler mornings. It's starting to get better, but it's not. This will go until we really get a good drenching rain before you can finally start to maybe put your guard down. We've got a while. After all, Paradise Fire was early November as well, so that's something to remember about. Tomorrow is September 11th. Just as a firefighter, what does that mean to you? Just a remembrance day that it is for the firefighters that were lost back in Ground Zero and at the Pentagon and places like that as well. For the firefighter side, I think it just tells you that the nature of the business we're in. Those guys went up those stairs, all those many floors, not knowing what they were going to. But that's what everybody does every day. You never know whether you're going on a medical aid. Somebody could have a gun behind the door. You never know going to a fire what you may encounter. But I think that just gives you – and same thing for law enforcement. It's the same thing every day. They come to work knowing that they could give the ultimate sacrifice today. That's what we do. You don't do that in every job you go to. But this one, those guys – and what I think was so big about that is I've watched documentaries and things. I saw people that were going off-duty because it came right at ship change. They weren't going with five-person engine companies. They were packing that engine because a plane into the World Trade Center. They had seven people in that engine going to those things. These guys were off-duty, some of them, going in to help fight this fire. So I think it's kind of what we were talking about earlier about having people come in and cover. It's just what we do, right? I mean, the big fire, they could have said, I'm just going home. But they didn't. They actually said, we're going to go help our fellow firefighters put this fire out because they're going to need help. And that's how the mutual aid system works is whether we're responding with Nevada County Consolidated or responding with Grass Valley, we're going to help them. And in turn, they come and help us. And I think with the firefighters, it's just that feeling that you're giving back and you are actually helping each other. But ultimately, I think for September 11th, it just shows us how vulnerable we can be, whether it be for fires, whether it be for criminal activity, whether it be for natural disasters. I mean, everything can change in a second. And our whole life changes. And so I remember that day. I was recovering from a torn ACL in my knee. And I was laying on the bed and I got a phone call that the first plane hit. And when I rolled over, my knee caught. I was like, oh, I grabbed it. It was hurting. But then I couldn't believe it. And so it was a crazy, crazy time. And like I said, I was rehabbing. So I'm at the gym doing my thing. And it was just people just had different looks on their faces. And life did change from that point on. Absolutely. I will say this. One of my big memories of that, just watching and covering it, was the radios that were off and the sounds they were making, you know, from their equipment that got crushed when the towers came down and all that stuff. So when you were talking about your radios and getting them here, just getting it approved just before September 11th, I think a very special thing. So congrats on that. And congrats, Tom, on the organization doing that as well. That's a very special thing that these guys need on the front lines. Absolutely. And we're proud to do it. So hang your head in the morning and think about 9-11 because it was moving. And it's a big thing. You know what? If you always wonder, when does Tom get choked up? I get choked up right now. I do moments of silence every year. So you can join me tomorrow morning before 6 o'clock is when that first plane hit. It was about 5.50 our time. And then the next one is 6.03. And we go right through the morning and I get goosebumps just thinking about it. So, yeah, don't forget 9-11. We'll never forget it here at KNCO. And, again, our thanks to Jerry Serino hosting us here on the town. That'll do it for us. We've got ABC News coming up right now. So we'll see you tomorrow. We'll be right back. Bye for now. We'll be right back. --- end of transcript ---