April 22, 2008 — A recent article in Outdoor Life magazine named Susanville on of the best towns on the Pacific coast for hunters and fisherman to live. On a list of 200 towns across the country, Susanville ranked high on the list at number 29. While in-depth coverage in the magazine was given to the top 10 towns, a sidebar in the article, entitled, “Best of the Rest,” highlighted Susanville as one of the top, if not the top place on the Pacific Coast for sportsmen and fishermen to live.

The mention of the town in the article was brief but poignant: “Located between the Sierra Nevada and Warner mountains, this cozy valley town is within easy reach of deer, elk, duck and grouse hunting. Trout are abundant just outside of town, and bass, steelhead and salmon are within an easy drive.”

During the Wednesday, April 16 City Council meeting, councilmembers and audience members alike delighted at the news of the article. City Administrator Rob Hill said the article helped make a perfect opportunity to capitalize on and promote the area.

City Attorney Peter Talia said one of the main reasons he moved to Susanville two years ago, was the tremendous part hunting and fishing played in his upbringing.

“Based on this article alone, I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t start to see a bunch of people come here to retire,” Talia said at the end of the meeting.

Hill brought it to the council’s attention how another side bar within the article discussed how the staff of Outdoor Life determined the rankings.

“They took a combination of the overall quality of life that the towns offered,” Hill said. “They considered factors such as growth rate, economy, unemployment rate, taxation, commute times, crime rate, housing prices, etc.”

Hill went on to say they put it all into a database and came up with a formula that, while weighted 60/40 toward the emphasis on having something to hunt and fish, still accounted for factors such as quality of life.

Hill also mentioned one of the criteria in the magazine’s list was that a town had to have a minimum population of 4,000.

“When this issue came in the mail, I was reading it in bed, and I literally fell out of bed when I got to page 37,” Hill said. “Basically what they’re saying is out of the Pacific Coast region, Susanville is the top-ranked city for hunters and fishermen. If that isn’t a gift for Susanville, I’ve never seen one.”

Hill said the council and city staff should post the article on the city Web site. He also said the council and staff should use this opportunity to promote the city as something besides “Prison Town, USA.”

This was a reference to the locally ill-received PBS documentary of the same name, which attempted to portray the negative impact of having a number of prisons in the vicinity of one town and the impact they have on a town’s economy and culture.

“This (article) needs to be added to everything,” Hill said.

Talia expressed the same sentiment after reading the article. He explained how an article in the same magazine about Montpelier, Idaho, (which Talia said he frequented regularly) made it impossible to get a motel room the next hunting season. He said articles like this can go a long way to impact a town’s economy.