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POSTED 7-2-2006As this editorial is being written on Friday, six inmates have escaped from Kern County’s Lerdo minimum security jail since June 21. Who knows, by the time you read this on Sunday, more may have gone missing.Our elected sheriff, Mack Wimbish, tells us the escape “problem” won’t go away until we build a new 1,000-bed facility. “I think it has a lot to do with the age of the facility,” Wimbish told The Californian. “It’s a...
PUBLISHED 7-3-2006Why is this Fourth of July significantly different than previous ones in Kern County? An admirable public and private commitment and effort culminates in groundbreaking ceremonies for the Kern Veterans Memorial Foundation at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday at Truxtun Avenue and S Street in Bakersfield.It is a long overdue tribute to veterans of Kern County.Tehachapi-based actor and Army veteran Charles Napier has volunteered to be master of ceremonies at the event, which will be attended...
PUBLISHED 6-30-2006As the dust settled over a recent Fourth of July weekend in metropolitan Bakersfield, Ron Fraze, the city’s fire chief, likened the scene to war-torn Beirut, Lebanon. One man lay dead. Several others were injured. The rooftops of homes were torched.The death and destruction was caused by people firing off illegal fireworks and improperly using legal fireworks. Is this the way to celebrate our nation’s birth and the liberties we enjoy? No. It’s...
Posted for 6/29/2006They said they felt like fish out of water. California National Guard aviators were assigned to units in Iraq and Kuwait that had nothing to do with flying. Instead, the officers were assigned to routine office jobs, such as counting trucks in a logistics unit.The pilots complained that their strange orders not only didn’t make sense, but wasted millions of dollars of taxpayer-funded training and kept them out of battle they desperately wanted to...
Posted for 6/29/06Kern County supervisors are following the right course to prepare Kern Medical Center for a new and difficult era — adjusting to significant changes in how the federal and state governments fund medical care for the poor.The changes will be challenging for all public hospitals. But they are critical for KMC, which has been in borderline financial health for years. The challenge is made even greater by the forthcoming resignation of KMC’s chief...
PUBLISHED 6-28-2006Whether it was a political decision or one based on the facts — or perhaps a combination of both — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made the correct call. He denied a White House request to send an additional 1,500 members of the California National Guard to patrol the Mexican border in New Mexico and Arizona.Earlier this month Schwarzenegger and the Bush administration worked out an agreement in which California would send 1,000 troops to the border by Aug. 1 as part...
PUBLISHED 6-28-2006The failure by Congress to enact comprehensive immigration reform is no excuse for failure to enforce the law as it is — flaws and all.Despite a few sweeps of large employers, including in Kern County, federal agents have not routinely audited the vast majority of employers to determine if they are complying with requirements that job applicants show proof of legal residency.Penalties that remove the incentive for employers to hire workers illegally are the heart of...
PUBLISHED 6-27-2006Let’s hear it for the city of Oxnard. It finally got its ash together and moved it to where it belongs — a hazardous waste dump.And let’s hope we hear Kern County supervisors today tell U.S.A. Transport Inc. to move its operations, as well. The company is appealing the revocation of its permit to spread Oxnard’s biosolids on Oxnard’s farm near Wasco.County officials forced Oxnard to clear a mountain of hazardous waste (refinery ash) that was...
PUBLISHED 6-27-2006Say it isn’t so, governor. There are reports floating around Sacramento that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is no friend of high-speed trains.The Sacramento Bee recently wrote that the governor “has been curiously silent on high-speed rail.”Schwarzenegger proposed a sum of only $1.3 million for funding the High Speed Rail Authority — the agency created to build a bullet train.The Legislature boosted that to $13 million, the minimum needed to keep the...
Published June 25, 2006Now they’re cooking. OK, well at least they are talking. And that’s a lot better than Bakersfield city and federal officials have been doing for months.Representatives of the U.S. Government Services Administration and federal courts met last week with city representatives to begin anew the search for a downtown Bakersfield location for a new federal courthouse.An earlier process that was shrouded by secrecy resulted in the selection of a southwest...
Published 6/26/06One of the most pleasurable things about purchasing a new automobile is that “new car smell” — that beguiling, mysterious aroma that is found (and smelled) nowhere else.Unfortunately, this pleasing odor is created by chemicals and may be bad for you. A mixture of volatile organic compounds, mixed with adhesives and sealers, combine to create that new car smell. These chemicals individually are probably not harmful, but long-term exposure to the chemical car...
PUBLISHED 6-26-2006Spurred by four heat-related deaths in Kern County last summer — including a farmworker who died while harvesting bell peppers near Arvin — the state has permanently adopted safety rules designed to protect outdoor workers.After Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, held a legislative hearing on the issue outdoors under the boiling hot Kern County sun last summer, an emergency set of safety rules was immediately implemented. The emergency regulations expire Aug. 12 and...
PUBLISHED 6-26-2006The nation’s disaster relief agency exhibited inexcusable incompetence in not quickly coming to the aid of victims of Hurricanes Kastrina and Rita. Now the Federal Emergency Management Agency has suffered another black eye.The Government Accountability Office — the investigative arm of Congress — issued a blistering report on how FEMA wasted taxpayers’ money in doling out as much as $1.4 billion in bogus assistance to victims of the hurricanes.GAO...
Welcome to the new version of our Bakersfield.com blogs.As you can tell, there are some big changes. We have moved from our original blog provider, Typepad. Now we are running our blogs on our own system, the same one we use for our user profiles and blogs.So what does this mean for our loyal blog readers? Well, a couple things.First off, to comment on our new blogs you need to be registered with Bakersfield.com. You don’t have to have your name attached with your posts. You can choose...
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