Kern County planners may have an olive branch to offer the two sides in the passionate debate over suburban development in northwest Rosedale.

I'm sitting in the Kern County Board of Supervisors' chambers waiting for what promises to be another round of heated battle over the controversial Northwest Communities projects.

Nieghbors who hate the three projects on the agenda today are here. The attorney that is suing the fourth of the four projects is here. And the developers and their representatives are in the audience.

The projects are surrounded by dirt and narrow asphalt roads far from what could be called core urban neighborhoods. They sit amid large-lot ranchettes where folks don't take kindly to suburban tracts — even tracts with homes on quarter-acre lots.

County Planning Commissioners have recommended that supervisors deny the projects.

But  Kern County Planning Department staff has come up with a possible compromise.

It's called a "cluster combining" zone.

Basically it works like this. Developers could build smaller home lots on their land BUT those homes would have to be clustered into smaller neighborhoods.

Instead of the classic suburban block wall surrounding a chunk of cheek-to-cheek homes, the clustered development would be surrounded by substantial open space or trails systems.

The result is a more rural feel to the development — theoretically a feel that is more in keeping with the "country" homes of the project's neighbors.

The Cluster zone is clearly a peace pipe.

Will developers and neighbors take it?

Stay tuned.

The Californian has gotten ahold of some of the photos taken by animal control officers on July 16 inside the warehouse where accused animal abuser Anita Gilbert was living before her arrest.

WARNING: These photos are disturbing.

The photos are here.

If you do check them out,  don't forget to come back here and talk about them.

larger view

KC the Bull was a no show Tuesday morning.

Kern County Fair CEO Bill Blair showed up to receive a proclamation from the Kern County Board of Supervisors without the fair's offical mascot.

I've never seen the Bull go AWOL from a proclamation appearance in nearly 10 years of covering city and county government.

Supervisor Michael Rubio asked about the Bull.

"He's got a real job," Blair said.

(photos from the Kern County Fair website: www.kerncountyfair.com)

Guy Shaw starts work as Kern County's new Animal Control Department Director today.

He's a veteran environmental health official with little animal control experience.

When he sat down with me last week, he showed a lot of enthusiasm for his new job and a realization that it will be tough and challenging.

He said he has to believe he can make a difference despite the obvious hurdles in his way — a cash-strapped county government, a kill rate in the shelters of more than 18,000 animals in 2007 and little practical change in the basic policy for running the shelter.

What do people think about the decision to pick Shaw for the job?