A blog about Politics and News.
Real Name: Gretchen Wenner Address: 1707 Eye Street Bakersfield, CA 93301 Member Since: November 01, 2007 Last Signed In: October 14, 2009 Profile Views: 1849 Blog Views: 37453 Bike riders: Watch for drilling rig on bike path! Canyons meeting under way... Bldrs Exchange drama... Recycling wackiness State's property values decline for first time since 1933... City seeking applicants for Board of Building Appeals Homebuilders v. city (and county): Latest buzz Council, Weds night: development "freeze?" Suing Bakersfield: Pork hits fan? And they're off! City Council seat beckons... City of Bako: Initial damage estimates from state budget deal November 07 December 07 January 08 February 08 March 08 April 08 May 08 June 08 July 08 August 08 September 08 October 08 November 08 December 08 January 09 February 09 March 09 April 09 May 09 June 09 July 09 August 09 September 09 October 09 November 09 Get e-mail updates from this blog, and download to print on the go with the City Beat Printcast.
RSS 2.0    Share!
|
|
|
The judge ruled against Beau Woodward.
Woodward says he's leaning against an appeal, and hasn't decided to run as a write-in.
The judge names 2107b in her decision, but I think she meant 2102b.
Woodward's attorney, Eric Bradshaw, pushed section 2100, arguing that the court has the ability to order registration. But the judge apparently agreed that the legislature intended that to mean to let people vote, not for nomination papers.
Here's 2100:
2100. No person shall be...
Court commissioner Linda Etienne started the hearing at 8:30, on time, but promptly pushed it back to 10 a.m. to give herself time to read the briefs.
On hand were Woodward and his wife, Frenzel and her husband (and their kid), Woodward's attorney Eric Bradshaw, City Attorney Ginny Gennaro, Jennifer Azeri for Kern County, county Auditor-Controller Ann Barnett and Elections Chief Sandy Brockman, and Tom Fallgater for Harold Hanson.
Counsel for the defense huddled in the hallway to discuss...
Here's the city's response to Beau Woodward's complaint. It basically says, "there are strict rules and you should uphold them." It puts a lot of weight on the Election Code sections 2102 and 2107, but doesn't directly address Woodward's argument relying on 8067.
And first, it says, "throw this whole suit out, you're supposed to bring this in Sacramento."
Here's the case (.pdf download) Woodward's lawyers are making.
The most interesting thing, for me at least because it's a new argument, is on Page 8, where the lawyers talk about law that specifically addresses the ability of a court to rule that a signature should be valid.
Beau Woodward got 95 percent of the way to running for city council. Now, he's going to ask the courts to help him get over that last hurdle.
From talking to Eric Bradshaw, it seems the strategy will be to not make it about the candidate, but about a few voters who signed the petition.
One supposedly registered to vote months ago, but didn't show up in the county's list.
Here's the section of law elections officials point to, Sec. 2102 (b):
For purposes of verifying signatures on a...
I e-mailed some questions to John Tarabino, one of the brothers who sued the city, forcing them to build a road... and maybe tear up a section of the bike path.
I'm attaching a couple of documents from the court case. One is the 1935 declaration of County Road 912; the other is the plan for the bike path sent by the city to the Tarabinos in the negotiation leading up to the land swap.
Below are my questions and his answers:
What is your position on the bike path? Should it be removed?...
Kern County Elections Chief Sandy Brockman gave Beau Woodward the benefit of the doubt and added one to his tally of valid signatures.
One of his five signers was unregistered, but when Brockman checked the drop box Monday morning there was a registration for that person. Because staff hadn't checked the box when they closed up Friday, it might have been there on time.
Still, that makes 19 signatures, not the requisite 20.
Say what you want about Beau Woodward, at least he tried. What's with the other 52,000 residents of wards 2, 5 and 6?
If you live in Westpark, why aren't you trying to punish Sue Benham for her vote to turn her back on the 2001 letter?
If you hate Jacquie Sullivan, why aren't you running to replace her?
And if you don't live in those wards, well, why aren't you running for KHSD or BCSD? Do you not support schools?
My excuse is that I'm not allowed in my job to run for public office. Oh,...
Out of 52,000 registered voters across three wards, only one was willing to step up and challenge an incumbent city council member.
Unfortunately, he stumbled.
Beau Woodward's last-minute filing included only 18 signatures of registered voters from Ward 5, plus five from unregistered people and 10 from neighboring Ward 4. That means he won't be running for Bakersfield City Council against Harold Hanson.
I started working on a story Friday morning about why nobody was running for city council. My main focus was going to be Westpark, the area that's up in arms over what they see as the city council backstabbing them, but didn't come up with anyone to challenge Sue Benham.
I was on the phone with one of the people most mentioned, Takvor Takvorian, when the news came about Beau Woodward, so the story went out the window.
But in a lot of ways, the story is still there. Beau Woodward is not a...
Well, I didn't see this coming. But I don't think many other people did either.
Beau Woodward is, probably right this minute, collecting signatures has filed to run against Harold Hanson.
Woodward is an Abernathy candidate. A win would mean Abernathy would have a majority of the council. My money would be on Zack Scrivner to be vice-mayor next year if that happens.
Woodward filed at the last minute. He seemed like a nice guy, smiling (although obviously hurried) as he approached the...
Councilwoman Jacquie Sullivan says she plans to file to run again probably Friday, the last day of the filing period.
With Mark McCallum opting not to run, it looks like Sullivan, along with the other two councilmembers up this year, will have no opponents.
“It’ll be my first experiernce running unopposed," Sullivan said. “It’ll be a new experience I’m looking forward to, actually.”
She said it'll cut the work of getting reelected in half. She still...
So much for the second-hottest race in Kern County.
Mark McCallum has apparently decided not to run against Jacquie Sullivan after all.
In more expected news, Harold Hanson has filed to run for a third term representing Ward 5, the extreme southwest portion of Bakersfield.
Hanson is also currently the vice-mayor, which I'd argue is the most powerful elected official in Bakersfield, since making committee assignments is more power than the mayor's ability to tell people that their three...
Barring breaking news, my exploration/explanation of how traffic lights are synchronized will be in Sunday's paper.
It will include a few, but not many, explanations about the traffic nightmares y'all posted a couple weeks back. A lot of the responses amounted to, well, they didn't know.
I promise ongoing coverage of traffic lights, once I get back from my vacation.
TRIP just put out a news release about the screening of alternatives for the Centennial Corridor.
As a reminder, Centennial Corridor is the plan for connecting Highway 58 with I-5, most likely via the Westside Parkway. (It used to be the plan for connecting the Westside Parkway with downtown. That abruptly changed at some point, and was made public in January.) The alternatives are the five routes proposed by Caltrans, and a variety of other proposals put forward by the public, ranging from...
|
