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Who should pay for development? Get 17-year-olds involved Keep July 4th safe, legal, fun Doctor’s stroke, community’s tragedy California is going up in flames Talk’s cheap, but campaigns aren’t Move on, Bruce Sons Time to weigh in on our future Put leeches to work Find the will to ‘fix’ homelessness June 06 July 06 August 06 September 06 October 06 November 06 December 06 January 07 February 07 March 07 April 07 May 07 June 07 July 07 August 07 September 07 October 07 November 07 December 07 January 08 February 08 March 08 April 08 May 08 June 08 July 08 June 06 May 06 April 06 March 06 February 06 January 06 December 05 November 05 October 05 September 05 August 05 July 05 June 05 May 05 April 05 March 05 February 05 Blog RollAsk The Californian Editorials Entertainment Eye of Bakersfield Faith Forum Fired Up! Inside Sports Neighbors Right Thinking Sound Off Talk of the Town 
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PUBLISHED 7/3/08 -----
Kern County builders may be unhappy about the prospect of paying an estimated $5,400-per-home increase in development fees. They correctly point out that those fees will, to a great extent, be passed on to homebuyers.
But who, if not homebuilders and their customers, should be bearing the cost of roads, traffic signals and other infrastructure improvements necessitated by growth?
Bakersfield and Kern County have for too long allowed development to outpace local...
PUBLISHED 7/2/08 ----
As any high school government teacher can tell you, civic education is sorely lacking in our schools. For every whiz kid who can recite the U.S. Constitution front to back, there are undoubtedly hundreds who, when asked to describe the 15th Amendment, would opt to take the Fifth instead (if only they knew what it said).
Perhaps as a result, voter turnout among citizens in 18-to-24 age range is grievously low.
Now a state legislator is trying to do something about...
PUBLISHED 7/1/08 -----
It paid dividends two years ago when the City of Bakersfield declared it illegal to sell and use Piccolo Petes and ground bloom-type fireworks, and then stepped up fireworks enforcement. Let’s hope it pays again this year.
Not too long ago, Bakersfield Fire Chief Ron Fraze described a July 4th holiday in the city as being like living in war-torn Beirut, Lebanon. Structures were on fire and people were injured. There was even a death as people set off legal and...
PUBLISHED 6/29/08 ----
The shocking report of a Kern Medical Center surgeon being detained after a traffic accident and his medical care withheld demands a review of the Bakersfield Police Department’s training and procedures.
Inconsistencies between reports made by a nurse who arrived on the scene, by ambulance personnel that responded and by a police officer also require investigation.
According to the police report, officers were dispatched at 6:55 p.m. on Nov. 24 to an...
PUBLISHED 6/27/08 ----
A shower of lightning strikes last weekend added to California firefighters’ headaches. Already battling stubborn wildfires, California’s stretched firefighting resources were further stretched to respond to hundreds of lightning-caused blazes.
As flames chew their way through thousands of acres of timber land, homes are threatened, families displaced and the lives of firefighters risked in an annual battle to save California. Meanwhile, Californians are...
PUBLISHED 6/26/08 ----
Barack Obama has tried to portray himself as the face of change, and Americans in growing numbers are paying attention.
His across-the-board appeal speaks to voters’ interest in moving away from politics as usual — from corporate influences, from omnipresent lobbyists, from big money in general.
But Obama took a big step backward earlier this month when he changed course on public campaign financing.
Before he demonstrated the ability to attract...
PUBLISHED 6/26/08 -----
OK, Bruce Sons, can we please move on?
Now that the Second District Court of Appeal has refused to erase your 2006 conviction for voluntary manslaughter in the 1994 shooting death of a California Highway Patrol officer — a conviction you ought to view as a godsend, in view of the first-degree murder verdict you might have gotten — will you please focus your attention elsewhere?
Yes, there were complications in the original trial...
PUBLISHED 6/25/08 ----
It’s not often that government asks the rest of us to weigh in on our own future. But that’s precisely what the Kern Regional Blueprint Project is inviting people to do this week.
Not happy with the way your City Council or Board of Supervisors is managing growth? Worried about air quality and transportation? Wondering what other realistic options might be out there? Register your feelings when the Kern Council of Governments convenes the Blueprint...
PUBLISHED 6/25/08 ----
At last, the perfect deterrent. The City of Bakersfield has struggled to find the best way to keep people from swimming in the ponds and creeks at its flagship park.
Two people, an adult and a child, drowned at The Park at River Walk in 2006. That inspired a round of communitywide hand-wringing: Should the city put up fences, lower the water level, install “keep out” signs? Should there be bodies of water in the park at all? In any park?
Marshall...
PUBLISHED 6/24/08 ----
To most of us, the spectre of homelessness only rears its head on occasion. We’ll see ragged people digging through trash bins or pushing shopping carts piled high with odds and ends. We might notice people sleeping in parks or asking for spare change outside convenience stores.
Beyond those sporadic sightings of apparent homelessness, however, is a deep-seated problem with vast implications for the chronically homeless and non-homeless alike.
Homelessness...
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