Show: On The Town Station: KNCO File: 10:20.mp3 Air date: 2026-10-20 Source: OpenAI whisper-1 · shrunk from 30.6 MB to 6.1 MB --- transcript --- It is 1133 65 degrees and Tom Fitzsimmons is on the town at Toffinelli's. Good morning, Tom Well, good morning Mo and yeah Toffinelli's is always a great place to be I'm not sure if I could find little Ashley I think she's back in the kitchen area and which is always a kind of an interesting thing. I will say this With the specials they have going on here always fun to talk about like the fish po-boy Just because to have a guy from New Jersey say po-boy It's grilled cod on a soft roll with tartar sauce shredded lettuce tomato and red onion There's also the prime rib French dip, which I highly recommend I've had that a few times because it comes and it's enough for like two to eat It's shaved prime ribs sauteed onions roasted red peppers melted pepper jack and a ciabatta Roll it is a great Angus beef the soups that they have today still have seafood gazpacho Which is award-winning the best cold soup in America, but also talk about comfort soup They are Italian sausage, and they also have tomatillo poblano Which would give you that little bit extra kick as well think about Toffinelli's that I'm talking about enough is that yeah? We're in the dining room in the atrium area. I guess you could say right outside the patio Which is of course open today, but the bar area is a great place to enjoy some fine food They have great windows to the outside you can see what's happening in the world and also get some great libations over at the bar Matter of fact at the bar just to tell you since I'm over here at the front here doing the specials they have a Reese peanut butter cup shot, which is a Okay, ready for the screwball peanut butter whiskey Mozart chocolate liquor shaken and served chill They have a screwball white Russian, which is screwball peanut butter whiskey Kahlua and cream and then a salted caramel espresso martini Which is stoli salted? Caramel vodka Kahlua espresso heavy cream shaken and served up that sounds all sound fabulous and like dessert drinks right there That's all happening at Toffinelli's here in downtown Grass Valley always a great place to be Call for reservations for dinner, and if you're doing a show over at the Center for the Arts There's always big things happening over there Just tell you server you have to go see a show they'll make sure you're in and out on time To enjoy your show and enjoy your fine food as well here at Toffinelli's gonna Take a quick break checked in on Wall Street, then I'm on the town, which Wayne Strosser we come back It is 1135 and currently 65 degrees and time to chat with Rick Fisher financial advisor with Austro financial consultants LPL financial member SIPC well we know who is playing in the World Series now Yes, and then the one nice thing regardless of who wins it's gonna be someone who's never won before now that is yeah that's what I always hope for but I'm still rooting for the Milwaukee because I want the team that beat my team to be the best Well they have to be to say that in order to beat the Dodgers you have to be the best team and win the World Series well they they are pretty good. They won 102 games And I learned three games was it 103 yeah, so they won the last game of the season and then I think that Tampa was the number one seed in the American League to that is correct Yeah, they are the two best teams from their division from their leagues, and you know we'll find out what happens I'm I enjoy the World Series no matter what happens I'd prefer if it was a team that I supported in there, but that helps yep But if it's not then you hope for somebody that's new Yes, and we've got that regardless. Yeah, so should be pretty fun gets underway on Friday We have to wait a long time for that and how about Wall Street. How are things going on Wall Street today? Well before I tell you about Wall Street while I was waiting on hold I heard about those Delicious dessert drinks, and I want to know do they make virgin versions of them You know that I think that they do. I think that they'll pretty much Accommodate you anything you'd like to to have because they yeah, they do sound what was that something to do with peanut butter Yeah, peanut butter and chocolate. Yes, like drinking a Reese's a shot of Reese's Wonderful, so I may not like the caloric Intake but I'm sure the taste outweighs any concern about gaining weight. Yeah, it cancels it out Okay, good. Yeah, I'll have the one that without the calories, okay Yeah, you take the booze that all the calories goes with it right we'll set that up for you. Okay, all right Anyway, so back to Wall Street, so we got the Dow is up a nice 483 points to 7449 S&P 500 is up a little over 22 points to 77 13 and the Nasdaq Is now turned positive, but only up about three points to 26 444 434 and then taking a look at commodities We've got crude oil off 81 cents to ninety seven dollars and seventy three cents a barrel golds at about seventeen dollars to four Thousand one hundred and forty three dollars an ounce But silver is actually up over 1% up 76 cents to fifty eight dollars and four cents an ounce and the 10-year Treasury Currently, we have the yield at Five point one two percent. So that is your midday report on this unfortunately cloudy October Early late morning I should say yeah, we're getting some real fall weather now And and we'll get an update from you right after the 530 newscast this afternoon So until then this has been Rick Fisher of Austro financial consultants incorporate LPL Inviting you to call us at two seven three four four two five and discover the difference when you think beyond investments Have a wonderful afternoon securities offered through LPL financial member FINRA SIPC Investment advice offered through Austra 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 the special guests the second and fourth Mondays at 9 a.m Brought to you by a mile 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 And Welcome to on the town Tom Fitzsimmons here at Tuff Nellie's Gold Country Bistro great place to be in downtown Grass Valley And this is like perfect weather for being outside the patio is delightful out there We sit inside because a little bit easier to access the Wi-Fi here for the interview and stuff But some people out there enjoying it if you have a dog. It's dog friendly here at Tuff Nellie's It's also City of Grass Valley friendly for the workers there join Strauss's here Dwayne at this point I don't know. There's been a lot of shuffling at the top of the City of Grass Valley Are you in charge of the place now at this point? Oh, yeah, we're each one of us is in charge of everything now. Yeah, that that would be Alex and Taylor hasn't gone anywhere She's still our deputy city manager, so yeah Alex Gamble guard now is officially our city manager And we're all there in charge of our own departments to support him and and the other leadership, so yeah Have that finalized I mean really just for I don't know the psyche of everybody and stuff or does it make a Difference it does I mean being in limbo was never a good thing and and I've been on the other side of that obviously with My background and so you never know what you're going to get it if the City Council decides to go out and maybe interview out Of area or even out of state you know candidates. You don't know what you're going to get Alex is a known quantity. I mean born and raised here. Everybody's known him for years and in his policing positions So I think for most of us that gave us some stability Some kind of security knowing that we would have somebody transitioning in that already knows the city loves the city and so yeah You know I don't know if this is the correct thing to say because it's probably more of a fire guy that Probably could answer it better has this been a relatively quiet year for fires in Grass Valley proper Yes, and no meaning if you look at the numbers of wildfires and not just in Nevada County But statewide is still in the thousands people don't realize that but in a relative term We have again kind of skimmed under the radar with anything Extremely large and serious, and I don't think it's luck a lot of it is our fire safety both cities County and Cal fire State Their proactive approach now jumping on things a very large robust initial attack mentality Which we didn't have many years ago, and so I think it's a little of both we've been fortunate But at the same time we're creating our own fortune with a different approach to fire services now So that's the fire that happened just recently off of East Main Street there by big A's You know that that's an area that's always been kind of troublesome for fires, and they have a tendency to go quickly and stuff like that But it I'm not saying that thing laid down, but it seemed like it had less to burn over there. Is that true yeah? And and again we have we have vacant properties like that that are overgrown citywide. They're everywhere I have I have an appointment today at one o'clock over off Dorsey Drive to meet with a out-of-area property owner On a sliver right between some of our critical senior apartment housing But I think sometimes when we don't have although this year supposedly El Nino when we don't have big wet winters We don't have the moisture coming in we don't have some of the extreme overgrowth of grasses shrubs weeds Coming in the next year is somewhat more manageable I Don't know how it's gonna be. I don't know if I mean do you really kind of buy the El Nino thing and stuff or I? Know it's something you guys have to go look at right as far as preparing Yeah, and I was fortunate with my my couple of years with the air quality management district that we have access to some of the some of the best forecasting You know agencies individuals Apps you know online apps in the industry out there, so we do see some pretty as accurate as you can ever find And this year is lining up if you want to believe the science to be a a hugely wet Snowy winter which means next spring summer. We're gonna have robust vegetation everywhere, and we already have too much to manage So it's going to be double or triple that potentially in the next year or two because of that moisture Should people then be working on it still now obviously not on windy days I was kind of stressing that this past week as the north winds pick up and you can feel how warm and dry it kind Of felt just about a week ago But it's still it's it's still a little bit of a challenge Absolutely this is that golden window right now with with the permits back in place You know cal fire. You know we're approaching that window where we're allowing people to do open burns We prefer not to do open burns obviously, but that that's a necessary evil in our current life. You know lifetimes But I would say the city itself. We're doing a lot of work on it So we're doing a lot of work on it, but we're also doing a lot of work on it You know lifetimes But I would say the city itself. We're doing our best to offer programs where we can help get rid of we've got chipping programs And green waste collection programs that are moving forward now. We'll start having bins in different neighborhoods This is the time for people to get out there and get it done And again if you're not proactive now reactive is is a lose-lose situation When we have so much vegetation you can't manage it trees that are dead dying diseased everywhere falling down You've got to deal with it while you can I appreciate the whole idea of chipping programs after all we're all trying to make up for a fire state council that Has gone away and stuff and it's kind of Kind of reinventing the wheel for lack of better term. Yeah, absolutely And uh, I think the county's doing their best with some of their allotments We have a green waste program coming up for grass valley again on november 7th at condom park. It's free Uh 9 a.m. To 1 30 p.m. I think last year I helped zach quinnemeyer um put that on over at uh D martino park And so this year because we have I think we have soccer or something going on So we're moving it over to condon in the big parking area behind the love building And every you know, nevada city's doing it regularly evan and his crew Um the county again, like I said, they're offering, uh, you know city slash county wide green waste certain days and dates Adam mccourtney and then we try to advertise and let our residents know that that's open to them also And all we can do is just keep building those programs again with fire safe Uh pretty much shuttered at the moment as far as a green waste program Uh, we have to do our best until something else comes out of the woodwork that that's larger than what we can Manage that we have capacity for all right. So the stuff that's eligible for there since you brought it up. Is it? um Just kind of like your yard clippings. Um, you know branches things like that. Nothing too big, right? Yeah, correct It's basically all tree, uh and plant trimmings weeds leaves branches pine needles, uh, nothing over four feet long And nothing over a foot in diameter. We can't you know, take anything quite that big but pretty much anything We don't want invasives, you know, ideally you don't Exactly, and there are other options to get rid of that that we're moving forward on um We just did a grazing project two acres over in condom park and we're trying to bring in a non-profit that does hand what we We call grubbing where they pull them out by the roots So those so those berries aren't coming right back um So we have a lot of a lot of things we're moving forward on that are kind of creative and out of the box So the grazing was with uh sheep or what? What was that with? Yeah, so goats and sheep with livestock, uh did a great job The problem is you have to immediately it's got to be done seasonally at the right time And now we have to quickly uh before we lose that and head into what winter we've got to get in and you need some moisture on the ground To be able to pull all those berries out by the roots now that the grazing's happened The the hand crews can get in and actually get to them And pull it out by the roots and then we need to revegetate because those roots provide, uh, you know erosion prevention that type of thing So it's always A big puzzle and you have to put the pieces in place One thing we're going to talk about i'm going to take our break here around the town with twain strasser From city grass valley here at top finale's gold country bistro going to talk about firewood opportunities. 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It's a cool day But it's a nice day out there If you have a dog you can go out there and enjoy a fine meal as well Dwayne straws my guest from the city of grass valley whole bunch of great things going on You just got done talking with my news guy because I know he said he was talking to you about firewood in the city of grass valley So it's been one of the biggest challenges is once you you either have trees that come down naturally that are dead dying disease And they fall which we've had a bunch Especially over on wolf creek in that corridor or the vegetation we have to remove for fire safety. What do you do with it? That's expensive And to me it's ridiculous to have to masticate or chip or mulch or burn If we have other options in this case, we've been starting to kind of brew a partnership with the gold country senior services Senior wood donation program. There are a lot of other folks out there that sell firewood that they need the firewood I'd rather get it into their hands Saves wear and tear and staff time on our equipment and our small staff with measure b And helps them build up the wood program and have a regular flow of wood product to replenish when they donate a cord to somebody in need while they can Get that replenished much more quickly and get it into the hands of the next person Than them spending a month out trying to cut wood themselves load it haul it, you know Go out and put it on, you know, basically the into a chipper Or a splitter or whatever they have to do. So yeah So, you know for them out there at the firewood program I know they have a big, you know big staff of volunteers and stuff and they're kind of like a well-oiled machine You tell them hey we have x amount of Board feet of stuff on the ground. Can you come out here and get it? They come out and get it kind of buck it up and bring it out Yeah, and and we we actually do either again a tree that comes down We have to remove or we cut a tree down. That's a hazardous tree We are starting to bucket we're learning to get it into the right dimensions that they need So it meets their needs. Otherwise, it does them no good And so we're trying to at least cut a few steps out of the of the project for them out of the pattern They can then come out with their trailer load it. We try to put it in a location It's very easy for their volunteers to get into get it loaded Haul it back out to the bar to their yard and then basically get it split up with their splitters Is there any talk of it? Yeah Now here's the other thing about gold country senior services, which I found interesting and it's probably smart for them because As you know grants go away and then the dynamics change all the time with funding I think they take hardwoods that they get and actually that's part of what they sell to help fund their programs Is there any thought about grass valley having a similar type of thing perhaps down the road? Yeah, so so we most likely if we get to the point that that gold country senior services is at their capacity We still are always going to have excess wood We would probably do something like fire safe council a few years ago where we just put it in a location that the public can Get to easily And that will be for the public that doesn't qualify for gold country senior services wood program We have a lot of folks that are not seniors We have a single mom that reached out to us recently and I took a load of wood over to her house A couple of kids does not have the financial ability to go out and buy quartered wood So I think we will try to do things for our specific citizens grass valley citizens where they can come in and get free wood And again, that would be in addition to the senior services program with gold country We don't want to dip in we don't want to even try to reinvent what they're doing. They do it great They've been doing it forever But let's see if we can support with the excess wood. We have the folks that still need wood. They don't qualify All right, you still I keep checking everybody still only has two arms. All right Uh, so how are you able to get all this stuff done because you don't have a big staff Helping out on this stuff. Yeah, we're still the the crew of two Alex and taylor have finally moved forward and helped me out tremendously to we have another position that we're going to be filling Hopefully we do interviews starting next week and that'll be somebody to specifically help us start the dsi program defensible space inspection program Which is going to go out and tell all of our citizens what they need to remove from around their house to be safe With the new state mandates for zone zero zone one zone two that type of thing partnering their homes What do they have to do with screen replacement? Getting rid of the gates and the fence pieces That connect to their home that that lead a fire right up to their eaves So we will have a third person coming up here pretty soon that will help with that side That takes the pressure off me to focus on other things It takes a special person because you want to be instructive obviously not punitive necessarily, right? Yeah, a big part of it the priority has to be education and then how do we enable folks? Especially those a lot of our senior folks fixed income. They do not have the ability physically don't own a truck Physically, they're not going to go out and trim their trees or their shrubs or pull them out in that first five-foot zone How do they do that? How can we help them with the measure b funding? What i've uh liked uh, at least what i've seen in some places that have been proactive about it like even in my neighborhood there on on gold hill Uh is some of the landscaping is beautiful some of the hardscaping that they've actually done looks very very good And then that's the goal that's again We ripped all the bad vegetation out from around city hall with the goal of revegetating And or using hardscaping such as landscape rock stone that type of thing To give folks an example of what they can do that does look nice. So it's not just some barren Industrialized look to a residential home. So we're trying to give examples now Uh, I noticed you don't have a pink patch on is there any possibility they're going to pink patch you or what? Well pink patch, that's that's a big that project of grass valley With both the police department it benefits sierra nevada memorial hospital Our fire department's a big part of that and remember that grass valley fire department is 50 of my measure b department So we split that money So we are attached at the hip and the work that i'm doing With measure b with fuels reduction is supposed to be benefiting taking the pressure off our fire department Right, it should be win-win. Um, and hopefully it is So the the grass valley pink patch project and it's county-wide truck. He has their own version of it Please look into that go to the police department. You can buy the patches the pins sweatshirts a little bit of everything And it does benefit the local hospital with breast cancer awareness. So that's a great thing Uh, the last thing we have too is that sunday, uh, october 25th coming up. We have the halloween dog costume parade on mill street So this is where they actually march through I think at one point they were marching even through top and ellie's patio here I think right? Yeah, it's one of those things. I used to laugh about it and think wow, you know How can this even be an event and it is amazingly popular? Uh, so miranda asked me to pitch that out there They do a lot of work to put that on coming up into our halloween season And so that's another thing and every one of those things again benefits, uh, the hospital Come on, you know, that's a big part of our community No different than fire department police departments wood programs every one of us play a small part in making this community what it is and a dog mob is absolutely as As fun as it can be, uh, it looks like they meet at el barrio market right off of neil street and grass valley here Um great little place to get some mexican food over there and then um, it goes in winds through the downtown So 12th annual event, I think it's about as dog friendly as the town ever gets in a dog friendly town It is very cool event. I would say so and uh, yeah, I mean it is and people have fun It's quality of life if you're a dog owner, of course It's a little attention you get in something fun you get to do with with your you know pet that weekend and uh, Enjoy it embrace it the other thing that happens in downtown grass valley Obviously is when the preschoolers go and do their trick-or-treating and that's that's not necessarily on halloween this year Is that going to be on the friday before they typically do it right before nevada city's doing their own version now but it's great to give the kids in the school district a safe place to come down and all the shop owners will open up and embrace that and The shops get exposed to our local families or what their wares are for future sales Which is great for uh, you know, all of our sales tax revenue which helps fund measure b so it all ties together And I believe it's usually yeah one or two days before Before the actual halloween weekend the events that make mill street kind of shine I mean, that's the one thing when they've closed it made it into the plaza that it is now It really is beautiful for these events And you look at miranda and our staff at what we do on mill street now, whether it's halloween thanksgiving christmas and decorations It adds so much fun to kind of the downtown experience Do you have any need of volunteers and stuff? I know it's a paid position and city probably has liability and stuff I don't know if it works that way But is there any need to for people to come out and help grass valley and fire prevention fire clearing? Yeah, we we always do and we we will be building up volunteer programs moving forward with uh, Defensive police inspectors will be getting volunteers from the fire wise, uh, you know, or fire ready coalition Wildfire ready coalition coming up. They're already trained to do that and they're a great partner And we will be needing volunteers whether it's california conservation corps coming in Even cal fire sometimes we'll be able to tap into some of their excess staff to come in and help us with some of the clearing Work we do around the town. So we're always looking for that But we're still a bit off from getting that officially organized where we have liability Forms set up and so we can actually do it in a very organized and efficient way. So I will say this it's nice having you in this position because There is a lot of cooperation going on with different people I do on the towns and you you kind of give me some notes about people that I might be talking to they've been Very helpful for you. Yeah, and I I think even uh, one of our city council members. I think uh council member Um, I think jan is coming in right I think on thursday with our fire chief with chief buttron and uh, So I I think we try to brew those partnerships with whether it's a rotary form or cal fire or cal trends Or we're going down a whole bunch of us from both the county and the cities are going down thursday To sacramento to a resilience conference at the con the big convention center in sacramento is speaking on behalf of nevada county Which we never used to do things like that at least not in this proactive way And I think we're all trying to work together strengthen numbers county-wide For us right there to the second --- end of transcript ---