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Kern County supervisors will have to decide whether to hit animal rescuer Kimi Peck with $5,000 in code enforcement violations and a $500 ongoing fine over the 170 dogs she's keeping in a house in the hills south of Tehachapi.

Officials say Peck needs a conditional use permit to run a kennel on the property.

Neighbors have complained extensively.

But Peck, a Hollywood kid who used to be married to Gregory Peck's son, says she's just trying to save the dogs.

The hearing is at 2 p.m.

Ok. I'm pulling a page from my peers up at the Sacramento Bee's website who do this occasionally:

I'm offering a $10 gift certificate to Dagny's Coffee to the person who correctly names the new CAO (interim if they go that route first) and the correct day and time of day the new CAO is announced. We'll set a one month time frame — starting tomorrow and ending Thursday, March 26

e-mail your submissions to jburger@bakersfield.com.

Include:

Your name: So I know who to make the certificate out for.

Your online name: So I can embarrass the winner on the blogs without revealing any secret identities.

Name of new CAO: You gotta get this right.

Date that CAO will be appointed:  in a range between Feb. 26 and March 26.

Time of day that appointment will be made: So that I can break any ties.

I propose this challenge in honor of Errea, who I'm sure has  been in dire need of coffee a thousand times over the last month.

Kern County Administrative Officer Ron Errea will leave county service on March 14, leaving a gap in the county's top appointed position and a gulf in power right as supervisors head into what promises to be the most challenging budget development process in years — if not decades.

Errea, Supervisor Jon McQuiston and Sueprvisor Mike Maggard have all said that Errea was not fired or pressured out.

Errea's staff's handling of the recent budget crisis has been criticized by at least one county department head — Public Health Director John Nilon, who competed with Errea for the CAO's job in 2005.

And Errea's performance in his position has been discussed with supervisors behind closed doors for months.

But McQuiston said he only found out about Errea's decision on Monday.

But he said that new leader needs to have full ownership of the budget the county will adopt for the 2009-2010 year.

“If there’s a window of time in which a CAO can consider leaving — before the next budget is due,” he said. “That CAO needs to be able to have had a commitment to (the budget) and has to have had a role in developing it.”
 

Kern County Supervisors are back at it today. It's a routine meeting - for the most part.

Jeff Clark asked the board to re-establish medical marijuana dispensaries in Kern. County Counsel Bernard Barmann said those dispensaries are now illegal under and Supreme Court ruling.

Here comes the fun stuff.

Supervisors are about to pass an ordinance that will allow them to cut their pay,....

I wonder what they're going to say.

State Senator Dean Florez will launch legislation today that would require
pet owners to acquire a license to keep their pets intact.

The bill, Florez told me, does not mandate spay and neuter surgeries -
unless an irresponsible owner violates state or local animal control laws or
neglects their pets.

He¹s expecting a firestorm of debate about this as he tries to move the
legislation through the Senate and Assembly to Schwarzenegger¹s desk.

I¹m expecting a fair amount of debate to occur on this blog.

Let the games begin.

To help launch the discussion, here is a basic summary I developed from the
text of the legislation:

SB 250 - Florez said it was named after the $250 million cost of killing
unwanted and stray animals in California each year - does this:

Requires a dog "owner or custodian" to either sterilize or license the
animal as unaltered.
Exemption: A veterinarian determines the spay or neuter surgery would create
great bodily injury or death.

The unaltered license for a dog can be denied or revoked if:

• there are two verified reports an owner has allowed an animal to run
  
• at-large or is neglectful of animals in general.
  
• the owner has been cited for violating state or local animal control laws.
  
• the dog has been declared dangerous.
  
• another unaltered animal license held by the same owner has been revoked.
  
• the license information contains incorrect or missing information.

Requires sellers of an unaltered dog to include an unaltered license for the
animal.The legislation allows appeals of the license revocation.

Requires a person who "owns, keeps or harbors" an unaltered cat six months
or older to keep the animal inside.
Exemption: A veterinarian determines the spay or neuter surgery would create
great bodily injury or death.
Requires sellers of unaltered cats to notify the local licensing agency of
transfer of the animal within 10 days.

Violation of the law will require spay or neuter of the animal.

I'm madly looking over reams of data on county budget issues before madly rushing off to the Kern County Administrative Center to cover a special budget session of the board of supervisors.

Two weeks ago supes were looking at nearly $14 million in extra cuts to get the county's cash flow to a zero balance at year end.

After the state budget passed last week things are looking much better. Kern didn't lose $4.1 million in farmland preservation backfill from the state and deferred state payments won't drag on for months. That's good news.

From what I can see the county has found ways to put some money back in the Sheriff's Department (Youngblood apparently discovered he'd lose deputies) and plug the rest of the cashflow problem with other cost reductions.

I'll get more details when I get to the board chambers.

Stay tuned.....

Kern County Supes are starting talks that will finalize the creation of a firefighter paramedic program in Pine Mountain Club.

Program will be 24/7/365.

But the paramedic can only respond to one emergency at a time and can be pulled out of PMC for other emergencies.

Scheduled vacancies (time off, training time, meetings) will be backfilled with another paramedic firefighter.

Unplanned vacancies won't be covered unless it will be longer than a trip to a Bakersfield hospital and then the fire batt chief can call in another paramedic firefighter.

paramedic firefighters will operate under response time and other standards similar to ambulance companies have to abide by.

I don't see the PMC folks here. They must feel it's a done deal.

Medical Marijuana advocate Jeff Clark made a presentation to the Kern County Board of Supervisors calling for a pilot program of 20 medical marijuana cooperatives to be opened in Kern County.

He offered to accept an additional three percent county tax on proceeds from the sale of marijuana to help out the county in its financial crisis. He said the county is losing tax money when medical marijuana patients go out of the county to buy their marijuana or buy on the black market.

But the plum comment from Clark was the suggestion that the county open its own cooperative selling pot raised by cultivating open county owned land....

I'm not sure he made much progress with the five on the dias.

Kern County Supervisors will get a chance to put their hand out for funding from the federal stimulus package at 2 p.m. when they consider an emergency item that will be added to their agenda.

Attached is the report that will go to the board and an example of a "please give us money" letter that will go out to local legislators:

The Kern County Board of Supervisors, fresh of Monday's vote on a new budget for this year, returned to regular board meetings Tuesday morning.

Arvin High's constitution team and the Whiskey Flats mayor candidates got some recognition from the board.

Fire Chief Dennis Thompson just got an additional $165,000 to finish construction of his new fire helicopter. The money, he said, came from a fund that is filled by revenue generated by flight time of the county helicopter on state wildland fires.

Now we're on to the KMC agenda. The meeting was supposed to take place on Monday but supervisors pushed it back till today so they could do budget work yesterday.

We're on at the board of supervisor's chambers for the third round of hearing's on the county budget crisis.

Staff reports starting off the day. Staff has increased the cuts to county departments by around $4 million - creating a $4 million budget buffer in the general fund at the end of the year.

The cuts actually all come from the planning department which gave up $4.3 million in funding for environmental impact reports.

Total layoffs throughout the county - 12 people.

That's a shockingly small number compared to what departments were throwing out last Tuesday.

How the heck is that possible?

Stay tuned.

Public Health Director John Nilon may have stuck his foot in his (electronic) mouth a bit in reacting to the recent county budget crisis.

I'm currently digging through a pile of e-mails that have been released to me through a public records request.

In the pile I got from Supervisor Don Maben I found a bit of a gem written by Nilon.

It was written on Tuesday, January 27, the day after County Administrative Officer Ron Errea released a dire report about county budget shortfalls that called for a 10 percent cut in annual appropriations across most county departments.

Nilon calls the report and the 10 percent recommendation an overreaction to state budget actions they believe will take place. He said the plan would eviserate county department budgets.

But the most shocking statement involves personnel changes he recommends for Errea's department.

"My humble opinion is that the CAO budget staff are too inexperienced to handle a budget problem of this magnitude.

He recommends moving General Services Director Jeff Frapwell (former Budget and Finance Director) back into a position to control the budget (replacing Assistant CAO Elissa Ladd and new Budget and Finance Director Gloria Dominguez) and hiring former CAO Scott Jones as a consultant to help Errea's department get through the budget process.

Nilon, who competed with Errea and Ladd for the CAO's job when Jones retired, said he didn't mean the comments as an attack against Ladd, Errea or Dominguez.

"I've worked with Ron for years. I don’t have any doubt that he’s an exceptional CEO," Nilon said.

But he figured Jones and Frapwell's experience would be invaluable in the current crisis.

Nilon said the e-mail was a result of shock many department heads' felt in reviewing Errea's proposed 10 percent cut plan.

"We were all caught very cold by the letter," he said.

Looking back he said he might have re-worded some of it.
 

The state of California's IOU's are such bad investments that the Kern County Board of Supervisors will have to vote on Tuesday to ease the standards in the county's treasury investment policy so they can accept the state's warrants.

Treasurer Jackie Denney's report reads like this:

"Currently the State of California as an issuer does not meet the minimum credit quality guidelines established in the investment policy."

i.e. Kern would never make an investment this bad if they weren't forced to:

"The Treasurer's Office is not pleased with the prospect of accepting these instruments in lieu of cash, but we feel we are faced with no other options,..."

Sorry for the delay - Computer troubles.

We're into the meat of this morning's budget session.

Some highlights:

County Counsel Bernie Barmann - responding to a hopeful question from Supervisor Ray Watson - essentially "We're going to get deferred payment money back from the state, right?"

Barmann:

"There's no certainty in any of this. I cannot assure this board that they will make good on any of these deferrals."

Also - on the $34 million plan Rubio hatched Tuesday to avoid cuts to departments:

Budget and Finance Director Gloria Dominguez said it would leave the county general fund $24.9 million in the hole.

I heard Inga Barks was having trouble understanding why the county's fiscal crisis is so dire. I don't blame her.

So, I thought I'd give a practical example using a fictional person we'll call Joe the Radio Host.

Joe makes $40,000 a year.

He has to cut 10 percent from his annual (12 month budget) but he has to do it in only five months.

$40,000 times .10 = $4,000 divided by five (months) = $800.

Think about your monthly budget. Can you lose $800 easily? What would you have to give up to keep your personal finances afloat? Your car, your home, your daily Starbuck's coffee?

That's the situation the county is in. By law the county CANNOT spread its spending out over 18 months. I has to operate on a 12 month budget. That means the county has to figure out how to plug a $75.9 million hole in its spending plan with only five months left in its fiscal year. Cuts would eviserate county departments. But do you borrow money to tide you over and trust that the California legislature will come up with a balanced, prudent budget plan to backfill your borrowing?

Trust the legislature?

A P.S. for Inga: I kid. I kid. I can't resist teasing you.

Models are starting to hit...some showing 25 percent cuts to county departments

Millions of dollars from every major department.

You can see the department heads in the audience squirming.

"All of these are modelling, open to your changes," Errea tells the board of supervisor.

Here we go. Errea is giving his report.

The county chambers are packed.

"Many of the counties, similar to your board, discussing that as we speak," he said.

He's going over the three problems the county is facing.

- drops in local tax revenue

- cuts to state funding for county operations proposed in the budget

- a delay of massive amounts of other state payments made to the county for state services Kern County provides for the state.

I've got two red bulls and two power bars.

It's 2 p.m.

And Kern County's budget hearing is set to begin.

Everyone under the sun is here. Department heads. Unions. Lobby groups. Legislative aids for local state lawmakers. Seniors from the community. television news stations are even here....not stealing the feed off of KGOV like they usually do.

It's going to be a great afternoon.

Here we gooooooooo.....

Eight Public Health workers in a state-funded program that provides medical services to the county's most needy children were laid off when the state cut the program's funding.

But those employees' co-workers chipped in to keep them working.

A total of 40 Public Health employees offered to take furlough hours — unpaid time off — in order to create enough cash to run the program said Public Health Director John Nilon Tuesday.

Nilon himself, and most of his management team, are taking one day off a month to help.

The extra money has saved five of the eight jobs. A sixth job was saved through funding from a Emergency Medical Services grant.

Two other workers were laid off.

If the county budget forces the five county supervisors to cut pay, cut jobs or furlough workers they will take a personal pay cut.

"I think we have to," said board chairman Jon McQuiston. "You lead by example."

McQuiston and Supervisor Mike Maggard committed to cut their pay on Monday. Supervisors Don Maben, Michael Rubio and Ray Watson committed to the cuts on Tuesday morning.

Maben asked County Counsel Bernard Barmann to bring back a change in the wording of the county laws that govern pay of elected officials. The change would 1) allow an elected official to reject a pay raise (they have to accept the raise now)  and 2) allow the  elected official to take a voluntary furlough.

Barmann will bring language back for board approval. The change would also affect other county officials who are elected to office including the Sheriff, Auditor-Controller and Assessor.

As the county considers massive cuts to operations — supervisors plan to use this "Tier" system to prioritize who gets cut a little and who gets cut a lot.

Tier One — these departments get the most protection from cuts — Grand Jury, Indigent Defense Services, District Attorney, Public Defender, Sheriff-Coroner, Probation, Fire, Animal Control, Roads, Debt Service in the county General Fund.

Tier Two — County Administrative Office, Clerk of the Board, Auditor-Controller-County Clerk, Assessor, Information Technology Services, County Counsel, Personnel, Elections, Communications, General Services, Utility Payments, Construction Services, General Services-Major Maintenance, Engineering and Survey Services, Risk Management. Capital Projects, County Clerk, Agriculture & Measurement Standards, Code Compliance, Recorder, Resource Management Agency, Planning, Public Health, California Children Services, Human Services-Administration, Aging and Adult Services.

Tier Three — Board of Trade, Veterans Service, Library, Farm and Home Advisor, Parks and Recreation.

The Other Tier — these departments are either mostly funded through fees or through state and federal money that supervisors don't have a choice about how to fund. They exist largely outside the tier system except in situations in which the county has chosen to spend more discretionary money to enhance operations.

Utility Payments (Division of General Services)
Contribution to Trial Courts
Building Inspection
Environmental Health
Mental Health
Mental Health-Substance Abuse
Emergency Medical Services
Emergency Medical Payments
Ambulance Service Payments
Human Services-Direct Aid
Employers' Training Resource-Administration
Community&Economic Development-Administration
Garage
Airports
Kern Medical Center
Waste Management
In Home Support Services Public Authority