This stinks.

I have half of the county's department heads in the media room with me so I can't make as many smart-aleck comments to the empty room as I usually do.

They're back here because the whole board chambers is full of people in orange Trans-west security company shirts.

The company is about to lose a county contract its held for years. Company supervisors were checking off employee attendence at the doors of the County Administrative Center and handing out the shirts....

State Senator Dean Florez's SB 250 Pet Responsibility Act passed the Assembly Committee on Business and Professions on a 6-3 vote Tuesday.

Now its to the appropriations committee, then to the full Assembly.

The bill requires dogs to be spayed and neutered unless their owners get a license saying they don’t have to. And that the license can be revoked if they violate animal laws. If the bill passes the Assembly it will head to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk for a signature.

The Gov.'s press office said he has not yet taken a position on SB250.

Supes have started up with a number of presentations. I'm glad the power is on down here after yesterday's outtage - baking during a day-long board of supes meeting wouldn't be pleasent.

So Kern County Supervisors will decide, tomorrow, whether to raise fees that ambulance companies and hospitals pay to keep the Emergency Medical Services department functioning.

They're quadrupling them from a (rough) cost of around $.89 per patient transported to $3.89 per patient transported on ground ambulance service.

Here's the catch:

To make up for that extra $3 of fees the ambulance companies are asking supervisors to allow them to increase their rates by between $32 and $39 a patient trip.

WHAT? How does it work that ambulance companies need to multiply the costs by $10 to break even? Surely that can't be right.

Ambulance companies and EMS say it is right for one simple reason: Hardly anyone pays full price for an ambulance ride.

Medi-cal patients only pay a fraction of the cost. And some people don't pay at all.

Jackie Att said it will fall on the 12 percent of Hall clients who have private insurance to pay for the cost of everyone else's fees.

Anyone have thoughts on that?

(A note on my numbers: Currently the EMS ambulance fee is assessed differently than it will be under the new plan. Fees are charged on each operating area and each ambulance — not on each ambulance transport. The $.89 per transport number I quote above is a calculation based on the expected amount of money EMS will bring in under the new fee as compared to what it brought in last fiscal year. )

I just talked with Anthony Leal of the Kern County Detention Officers Association and he shared some of the concerns the union has with plans to close Lerdo Minimum and with other cuts in the Sheriff's Department's budget.

According to Leal Sheriff Donny Youngblood plans to lay off detention deputies in the downtown jail and replace them with more-expensive, lesser-trained Patrol Deputies.

"We have nothing against patrol deputies," Leal said. "We think they should be on the street. Our training is in the jail."

He also said that union negotiations are not a guaranteed way to prevent closure of Lerdo Minimum which is being considered by Youngblood and the Kern County Board of Supervisors as part of budget negotiations.

But Leal's biggest complaint was that experienced detention deputies could lose jobs and be replaced by "fresh-out-of-academy" patrol deputies with only 56 hours of jail training rather than the 20 weeks of jail training detention deputies have.

He also argues that, because detention deputies have one less pay step, and don't have other bonus pay, they are cheaper than raw deputies.

I've got a call into Youngblood to get his thoughts on this.

Tehachapi chihuahua rescuer Kimi Peck has moved her pack into the property once inhabited by accused animal abuser, fugitive and identity thief Cynthia Gudger. Check out the Tehachapi News story.

She probably won't be there long, since her accontant Susan Marlowe has defaulted on the loan she used to buy the property.

The home just outside the exclusive community of Bear Valley Springs on Cummings Valley Road became a refuge for Gudger (who called herself Anita Gilbert in Tehachapi) after she fled Riverside County just ahead of an arrest on animal cruelty charges (under the alias Barbara Ryan.)

Hollywood CPA Susan Marlowe, who owned the Bear Valley Road property but has defaulted on the loan, retrieved the animals Riverside animal control officers had seized from Gudger. The animals, and the carry-cases with Riverside animal control markings, were found in the Cummings Valley warehouse when Kern County Animal Control raided the property and arrested Gudger.

Marlowe was Peck's partner when she ran a chihuahua rescue in Los Angeles and is Peck's accountant.

Gudger has been ruled mentally incompetent stand trial and sent to a mental hospital.

County Engineering and Survey Services Director Chuck Lackey reported that Kimi Peck has moved out of her property in the hills south of Tehachapi in compliance with a ruling from supervisors.

Supervisors came out of closed session Tuesday afternoon and announced they'd picked Nilon as their new top administrator.

Nilon has run the Public Health Services Department since the end of the B.A. Jinadu era ended in scandal.

He gained some noteriety earlier this year when he fired off an e-mail to supervisors criticizing the administration and budgetary planning powers of the budget team lead by retired CAO Ron Errea and his team, including Interim CAO Elissa Ladd.

Nilon will replace Ladd after today.

We're cleaning up a little information from Thursday's mega-Board session.

Undersheriff Marty Williamson is giving some info on the Sheriff's budget. Sheriff Donny Youngblood is sitting next to him this time — back from his training trip to Australia.

I'm headed for the county building in 10 minutes for today's budget hearings before the supervisors. Here's what I sent my bosses so they could plan today's paper:

All the scenarios for crafting a county budget — from bloodied to blood-bath — are on the table today as supervisors try to craft "priorities" for county spending that have eluded them for months.

Department heads are seeking clear direction from the five men who control their financial fate about where to spend and where to cut.

The county's budget team is seeking clear input from supervisors before they finalize a draft spending plan.

County layoffs have begun — will today provide elusive "clarity" about the county's future? Or will there be more uncertainty?

A bit melodramatic? Perhaps. We'll see if the drama develops....

Supervisors will interview candidates for the CAO job in closed session just after noon today.

I'm trying to get a feeling for what they expect to happen.

So far I've only gotten ahold of Michael Rubio.

He said he can't think they will make a CAO choice today. They are in the middle of budget creation — and the worst budget in decades — and now would be a bad time to switch top bosses.

What do people think? Wait until after the budget to pick a CAO or make the choice now and deal with the upheavel Rubio expects?

The Stonefield development, 1,450 residential units on 305 acres west of Enos Lane just south of 7th Standard Road is up in front of supervisors.

County planners said the project , at the remote northwest edge of Bakersfield, is premature development and recommended denial.

The Sierra Club, represented by Gordon Nipp, is saying approving the project will violate the upcoming General Plan Update process.

Stonefield is one of 13 projects proposed in the northwest which county planners called premature - and promised planning opposition to - during the building boom.

Planner Lorelei Oviatt said all but six of those projects backed out. Stonefield kept going, however.

This morning's board session will likely feature an engaging depate over layoffs in the District Attorney's office. We hear SEIU has some concerns about which layoffs DA Ed Jagels wants to make.

The personnel department would also be asking for some elimination of jobs.

But right now Mike Turnipseed of Kern Tax is telling the supes how he thinks they could save the county budget.

Here we go folks. The big "all budget" afternoon session of the board of supervisors.

Supes don't know the whole budget picture yet but what they do know — 253 layoffs, closed jails and a ton of other impacts — isn't pretty.

There's a few items off the consent agenda now, so it may take a while to get to the debate.

Ok. That was funny.

Morning presentation for the summer reading program at the library. Staff handed out handmade masks (there is a mask making activity this summer) for supervisors to wear.

Supervisor Michael Rubio got something like a cross between a bandit mask and a luchador hood.

Supervisor Jon McQuitson got a fox mask (Is that a kit fox, someone quipped) The mask actually looked more like a mouse to me.

Supervisor Ray Watson had a massive smiling sunflower mask colored with crayon.

And Supervisor Don Maben had a carnival mask in pink. Feathers!