On courthouse steps, auctioneer seeks bids on bank-owned homes

Almost every day at around noon, an auctioneer stands in front of the Nevada County Courthouse and tries to sell someone’s foreclosed home.

It’s a reflection of the nation’s continued housing crisis, which has hit California particularly hard, evidenced by the more than 358,000 homes that have gone into foreclosure auction this year, with 57,000 of them finding buyers.

In Nevada County, 434 properties are in pre-foreclosure and 280 are being auctioned for sale, according to the county clerk-recorder’s office. A key indicator has been the 1,120 notices of default that have been filed in Nevada County in 2009, according to the county clerk-recorder’s Web site.

Most days, the auctioneer has to postpone the sale of foreclosed homes because there are no bids. It’s not for a lack of interested parties. The steps at the courthouse are often filled with interested citizens, either worried about their own foreclosed home or bargain hunters. The crowd size differs from day to day.

Read the full story in The Union.

Medical marijuana co-op now in the works

A new medical marijuana co-op in Nevada County is now openly seeking members as the discussion for safe access continues to sting area residents amid pot busts and possible dispensaries.

Nevada County resident Charles Day has worked for months to formulate the co-op, Harmony Holistic Health, and is now prepared to accept members for the “grassroots, membership-based collective,” according to an advertisement placed in The Union and on the co-op’s Web site, (www.harmonyholistichealth.org/).

“We’re good people, trying to do a good thing,” Day said. “I don’t want this to be about me.”

From an organizational standpoint, the co-op would only benefit members as outlined by state law and the California attorney general, Day said. It would not have a “storefront presence.”

Read the full story in The Union.

Antique collectors saved Miners Foundry from major disaster

The legacy of the Miners Foundry is arguably built on its preservation.

After 150 years, the eclectic Nevada City building known for the birth of the Pelton Wheel, remains one of the most prolific buildings in western Nevada County. And thanks to Charles Woods and David Osborn, its legacy is still being blazed.

“It was such an historic building. It was the largest space in Nevada City, under one roof,” recalled Woods, who, along with Osborn, purchased the building in 1972 to house the American Victorian Museum.

At the time, the foundry was in danger of being bulldozed for another freeway ramp for truckers moving in and through the tiny city, Woods said.

“We’d been collecting antiques for years,” Woods said. “So we needed somewhere to put them.”

Read the full story in The Union.

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