error attempting to edit service: UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode...

[arthur sherman]

UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xe2 in position 68: ordinal not in range(128)

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when attempting to edit the config of the ping service i get this error. looks like something deep in the python code. any hints?

configure->service->ping

i'm using adagios 1.6.1, nagios 4.1.1, debian 8 (jessie)

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/opt/adagios/adagios/views.py", line 43, in wrapper
    result = view_func(request, *args, **kwargs)
  File "/opt/adagios/adagios/objectbrowser/views.py", line 191, in edit_object
    c['form'] = PynagForm(pynag_object=my_object, initial=my_object._original_attributes)
  File "/opt/adagios/adagios/objectbrowser/forms.py", line 312, in __init__
    self.fields[field_name] = self.get_pynagField(field_name, css_tag="inherited")
  File "/opt/adagios/adagios/objectbrowser/forms.py", line 418, in get_pynagField
    _('%(inherited_value)s (inherited from template)') % {'inherited_value': smart_str(inherited_value)}
UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xe2 in position 68: ordinal not in range(128)

[arthur sherman]

setting the locale to US utf fixed the editing problem.
however, on subsequent edits of anything which i had already edited, the problem still exists.
i tried various locale setting but the problem still appears.
any ideas would be appreciated greatly.

tnx,
ams