Where the Needles Get Sharp: Welcome to Pinecone Politics

You didn’t move to Shingletown for the political drama—but here we are.

Pinecone Politics is where we dig into the local decisions that affect real folks with dirt under their nails and wood stoves in their living rooms. We’re talking about backroom deals, boardroom bickering, zoning zigzags, and all the PG&E, CAL FIRE, and Shasta County budget twists you didn’t know you cared about—until you couldn’t burn a brush pile or hang a chicken sign without a permit.

This isn’t cable news. This is pine-scented watchdog journalism with a side of sass. We’ll follow the meetings, decode the jargon, and translate supervisor speak into plain English—whether it’s wildfire policy, Smith Creek water rights, land use battles, or why the road crew seems to skip the same pothole every year.

If it impacts our mountain town, we’re on it.

You’ll get:

• Local leadership profiles (the good, the grumpy, and the ghosted)

• Fire district funding fights and grant tracking

• PG&E updates, water wrangles, and broadband pipe dreams

• Town gossip backed by fact checks

• And the occasional uninvited opinion, because what’s local journalism without it?

  
  

Got a tip? A gripe? A juicy voicemail?

Send it. We take news tips, photos of missing “no trespassing” signs, and anything that smells like something the public ought to know.

This is Pinecone Politics—where we shake the tree and see who falls out.