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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 6-1-2007
Appointing one or two Kern High School District board members to sit in on job interviews for district administrative positions is a bad idea.
Chad Vegas, KHSD trustee, is proposing the board appoint members to observe interviews for principal and associate/assistant superintendent level hirings. Superintendent Don Carter now conducts the interviews and makes hiring recommendations to the board.
If Vegas’ proposal is adopted, it will set bad policy and...
PUBLISHED 5-31-2005
A common thread in numerous cases of incompetence and illegal activities of Bush administration appointees is the weakening or ignoring of the Hatch Act.
Despite substantial legal hurdles, Congress must act to reverse erosion of a law intended to insulate government from political self-interest and corruption.
The 1939 law named after its author, Sen. Carl Hatch of New Mexico, originally restricted almost all partisan activity by federal...
PUBLISHED 5-31-2007
California Partnership Academies are needed in Kern County and throughout the state to lower drop-out rates and to have a highly skilled and highly trained workforce.
Partnership academies train students in high school for careers and college at the same time. Kern County has 17 academies.
Senate Bill 830 would expand the number of partnership academies in the state from 290 to 390 by the 2013-2014 fiscal year. Support for this bill is needed.
Some...
PUBLISHED 5-30-2007
Secretary of State Debra Bowen began an analysis of electronic voting machine security and access for the disabled this month.
Despite the objections and fears of county elections officials that the 2008 elections could be affected, Bowen’s review is a reasonable move to insure the accuracy of the vote count and restore voter confidence in the controversial electronic system.
County elections officials, including Kern County Auditor-Controller-County...
PUBLISHED 5-30-2007
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger needs to hold off on selling a huge state-owned loan agency until after the loan scandal is resolved.
Schwarzenegger is proposing to sell EdFund, the nation’s second largest provider of student loan guarantee services, for a quick and easy state budget fix. But this is the wrong time to sell a agency that does business with the student loan industry.
In his May budget revision, the governor estimated EdFund is worth $1 billion. But...
PUBLISHED 5-29-2007
Levees are crumbling, drought is getting worse and wildfires rage.
Good reasons voters last November passed a $5.4 billion so-called water bond — knowing that even bigger wallet-busting proposals were in the infrastructure proposal pipeline.
Now it’s time for legislators to pay the political pipers — the special interests who kick in campaign funds for bond issues and legislators who have the “juice” to pass bills that...
PUBLISHED 5-29-2007
Gross financial mismanagement is the latest in a nearly century-long series of mess-ups by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power involving the Owens Valley.
In 1997, a court ordered a partial restoration Owens Lake south of Lone Pine. Over pumping water from the Owens Valley has resulted in severe environmental damage.
Hot, swirling winds frequently blew choking clouds of dust laden with arsenic and salt off the dry lake. The plumes impacted operations at...
PUBLISHED 5-28-2007
Memorial Day is a day to remember Americans who have died in service to the nation. But this year, we must broaden our perspective and consider the holiday as we do Veterans Day.
So let us all have in our thoughts, hearts and our prayers hope for, and remembrance of, those who are still in active service, as well as those who have died.
Especially, we should honor the many who have suffered, but who have survived to be back home with us.
If the Vietnam...
PUBLISHED 5-27-2007
As she tried to cross a Wasco street, 5-year-old Erica Guerra was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver. Her tiny body being tossed into the air and over the fleeing vehicle was caught on a nearby security camera.
As 87-year-old Merle Chappell maneuvered his motorized wheelchair in the 2200 block of South Real Road in Bakersfield, he was struck by a hit-and-run driver. He died about a week later.
As 3-year-old Cecilia Maldonado was crossing a street in Lamont,...
PUBLISHED 5-27-2007
It’s OK to spend millions of dollars for an ineffective “high-tech” fence to keep immigrants from illegally entering the U.S., but the federal government is too cheap to give local law enforcement more effective “low tech” backup to curb illegal immigration.
That backup is assigning Border Patrol agents or federal staff — they don’t even have to be sworn officers — to county jails for daily checks of...
PUBLISHED 5-25-2007
Most Americans agree: The nation’s immigration system is broken and must be fixed.
Our borders are not secure. An estimated 12 million people are illegally living in this country. Workers must sneak over the border to fill jobs begging to be filled. Families are separated. The path to citizenship is difficult. The present system satisfies no one — whether immigrant advocate or opponent.
Congress and President Bush must reach an agreement on a...
PUBLISHED 5-23-2007
Attorney General Jerry Brown is on thin ice with his tortured — some say dishonest — wording of a petition being circulated to change California’s voter-approved term limit law.
Brown is being sued by U.S. Term Limits, an advocacy group that supports limiting the time politicians can serve in elective office.
The group claims the title and summary Brown gave to a proposed initiative shows “contempt for California voters and for California...
PUBLISHED 5-24-2007
Although a children’s museum proposed to be built on the Cal State Bakersfield campus has been approved only in “concept,” the concept presents an exciting opportunity for Kern County children and their families.
Proponents must now formulate construction plans, evaluate environmental consequences, develop a financing scheme and obtain the final project approval by California State University trustees.
A long road stretches ahead. The promising...
PUBLISHED 5-23-2007
Just in time for the Memorial Day weekend, state and Kern County officials have combined resources to save lives by urging visitors to say out of the deadly Kern River.
Californian reader and letter to the editor writer Curtis Dalton can be thanked for this stepped up campaign. For about a decade, Dalton has written to The Californian and hammered away at Caltrans officials — urging the state’s electronic sign at the mouth of the canyon be used to flash a...
PUBLISHED 5-22-2007
Cleaning up California’s polluted air isn’t a job for people weak in heart or short on political will. The resolve of the California Air Resources Board will be tested this week when members consider a controversial, but much needed rule to reduce pollution spewing from diesel-burning construction equipment.
The rule has been in the making for years. But opposition from the construction industry and other delays have stalled the requirement that...
PUBLISHED 5-22-2007
California needs to help soldiers in the National Guard with education costs just as all other states do. California is the only state that does not offer some sort of financial assistance to those enlisted.
Educational aid was created for the California National Guard in 2003, but was not funded until last year. However, the $200,000 allocated to the program has not been used because regulations have not been written. The law that created the program expires in two...
PUBLISHED 5-20-2007
Expansion and upgrading of pediatric care at Memorial Hospital offers significant and badly needed benefits to the entire community.
Like San Joaquin Community Hospital, Memorial is undergoing extensive expansion. Memorial’s new pediatric care center is planned to be housed in a new tower that is under construction and scheduled for completion in January 2009.
Memorial now has 12 standard pediatric care beds. The number is expected to increase to between 16...
PUBLISHED 5-20-2007
Ronald McDonald House Charities doesn’t clown around when it comes to gravely ill kids and their families.
Its impending arrival in Bakersfield can’t come too soon. The charity arm of the fast food restaurant chain provides a home away from home for families who have a seriously ill child in a hospital, especially in pediatric intensive care.
Plans are being developed for a facility on Memorial Hospital grounds, or very close to it.
The...
PUBLISHED 5-21-2007
Back away from that Dodger Dog. Back away slowly. Animal rights activists are barking up the wrong tree if they think they can get the Dodgers to dump the Dodger Dog.
As one sports observer noted: “Taking away Dodger Dogs from Dodger Stadium is almost like firing Vin Scully. Not quite as bad, but not something that will be taken lightly by the fans.”
Last week, the Sonoma County-based Animal Legal Defense Fund wrote to Dodger owner Frank McCourt...
PUBLISHED 5-21-2007
Schools should focus resources on English learners in order to improve test scores — and, of course, a school’s image.
Some school districts have done just that and have seen an increase in the state academic achievement tests.
Take the Bakersfield City School District, for instance. It goes above what the state requires to ensure its English learners are getting the resources they deserve. The district increased its Academic Performance Index...
PUBLISHED 5-18-2007
The California High-Speed Rail Authority must do a better job of selling its bullet train idea to Californians. And it seems the most important person who still needs to be “sold” on the idea is the governor.
The authority has been talking about and planning a high-speed system, or bullet train, to run from the top to the bottom of the state for more than a decade. It already has spent more than $30 million on the effort that many believe is critical to...
PUBLISHED 5-17-2007
Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, is taking the right track to keep the state’s off-highway vehicle program in existence. Due to expire next January, Steinberg’s SB742 would extend the program to 2013.
By legislative description, the program “provides for the acquisition, operation and funding of off-highway vehicle recreation areas and trails.”
But it doesn’t do many of those things very well, according to both off-highway...
PUBLISHED 5-17-2007
The House of Representatives took a huge step in the right direction by voting to ban gifts from student loan providers to universities in exchange for being placed on a preferred lenders list.
Those practices hurt students, while enriching some financial aid administrators.
Lenders paid money and gave gifts to financial aid administrators — the very people who are in charge of helping students find a lender — in exchange for recommending them to...
PUBLISHED 5-16-2007
Guilty. Five times guilty. After less than four days of deliberation, a Kern County jury declared Vincent Brothers guilty of murdering his wife, three children and mother-in-law.
Still to be decided: Will Brothers be put to death for this mass murder that has sickened the community for nearly four years?
Brothers wept quietly as the guilty verdicts were read Tuesday morning. We weep for the innocent babies and women Brothers murdered in 2003 in their south...
PUBLISHED 5-16-2007
Republican Congressman Kevin McCarthy is asking us to shout our support now for a federal courthouse in downtown Bakersfield. He set a Friday deadline for collecting letters supporting the project, which faces budget hurdles and bureaucratic foot-dragging.
For more than a year, California’s Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, who heads the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, has badgered federal Government Services Administration officials to...
PUBLISHED 5-15-2007
There is no good reason why California schools shouldn’t be held accountable for the number of students that drop out.
A set of bills that would do just that — hold schools accountable — need support.
Thousands of students — approximately 145,000 — in California this year will drop out of high school.
Those students potentially could have been productive citizens in society. But most will not be because they are lacking the training...
PUBLISHED 5-15-2007
Come on, California, stop hanging up on cell phone consumer rights. Since 2000, the Public Utilities Commission has weakened what few consumer protections existed for cell phone users.
And since then, the industry has lobbied successfully to blunt legislative attempts to bring simple fairness to the lucrative and growing technology.
Three bills now working their way through the Legislature would restore some of the rights, although they face considerable...
Kern County’s Animal Control Commission is barking up the right tree in its effort to reduce the number of unwanted dogs and cats, and curb the need to kill thousands of animals every year.
While state lawmakers are considering AB1634, which mandates dogs and cats in California be sterilized, county animal control officials are considering a plan that relies on permits and increased fees to encourage people to have their animals spayed and neutered.
The county’s plan, which...
PUBLISHED 5-13-2007
It was high-fives and grins when the city of Shafter pulled a fast one and grabbed a portion of neighboring Bakersfield’s “sphere of influence” a couple of years ago.
The “sphere” is the designation of land a city can some day annex to expand its borders.
Shafter convinced the obscure, but powerful, Local Agency Formation Commission to shift its growth boundary south to 7th Standard Road and into Bakersfield’s designated area....
PUBLISHED 5-14-2007
At this rate, average Americans may soon be priced out of their own national parks.
The Bush administration is quietly moving forward with plans to raise entrance fees at 135 national parks, include Yosemite, one of California’s most popular.
Yosemite’s entrance fee would jump from $20 to $25 a car — a hefty hike from 1997, when the Clinton administration raised the fee from $5 to $20 a car.
Under the park service’s Yosemite proposal,...
PUBLISHED 5-14-2007
As a result of errors found in the way states distribute migrant education funds to their school districts, changes in distribution need to be made.
The U.S. Department of Education has proposed some changes, which should be turned into policy.
The proposal came after states were asked to do a self-evaluation that produced pathetic results. Some areas — Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico — found that 100 percent of students identified as migrant...
PUBLISHED 5-11-2007
Californians must learn more from an investigation of a disastrous Bay Area tanker truck accident than just its cause.
They must learn why the operating permit for a trucking company with a poor safety record was allowed to stay in force.
Questions arising from the accident that closed a section of I-880 freeway in the East Bay for eight days apply to highway safety throughout the state, including in Kern County.
Sabek Transportation Co. has a fleet of...
PUBLISHED 5-10-2007
Why are California and other states being stiffed by the federal government? California’s congressional delegation must order the Government Accountability Office to investigate the inadequate reimbursment for the cost of jailing immigrant criminals who are illegal in this country.
The amount the federal government is reimbursing states is far below what local governments actually spend. And what little money Washington does send takes years to arrive.
...
PUBLISHED 5-10-2007
Pardon us? Paris Hilton wants a pardon from the governor because she listened to her publicist instead of the judge? Give us a break.
On Sept. 7, Hilton was busted by Los Angeles police officers for speeding and making an illegal left turn. She failed a field sobriety test and her blood alcohol level was measured to be just over the 0.08 percent legal limit.
Although Hilton pleaded no contest to driving under the influence and her license to drive was...
PUBLISHED 5-9-2007
A proposal to make the governing board of the San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District’s less responsive to political and parochial concerns, and more focused on cleaning up the valley’s polluted air, recently cleared a political hurdle.
On a 4-0 vote, the Senate Local Government Committee passed the measure on to the Appropriations Committee.
The bill by Sen. Michael Machado, D-Linden, is a long way from being approved by the...
PUBLISHED 5-9-2007
Leadership is not a spectator sport. A measure of the people we elect to public office is the quality of the people they appoint to boards and commissions, and encourage to become involved in government.
Posting a vacancy notice and waiting for candidates to come knocking is not the leadership we expect in our Bakersfield City Council members.
Well, maybe it is the leadership we expect. But we deserve better.
Two vacancies on the city’s Planning Commission...
PUBLISHED 5-8-2007
Albeit only temporarily, the U.S. is putting the brakes on allowing Mexican trucks to roam freely throughout the U.S.
It is a fair decision for both economic and environmental reasons. But more work needs to be done.
Under one of the most hotly debated provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement, 100 Mexican trucks were to begin hauling goods from Mexico throughout the U.S. this week following a one-year pilot program.
Mexico was supposed to...
PUBLISHED 5-8-2007
California must preserve workers’ rights to a secret ballot in union representation elections.
SB180, which is making its way through the Legislature, would, among other provisions, allow farmworkers to choose a union by signing petitions without the normally required follow-up secret vote.
The bill by Sen. Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, is supported by the UFW and the California AFL-CIO. It is opposed by most farming organizations.
In labor...
PUBLISHED 5-6-2007
The road to immigration reform is a long one. Many political miles stretch ahead before the journey is done.
While many united last year to draw awareness to the importance of reforming U.S. immigration policies, those same people now seem divided — not on the need for reform, but on how to pursue it.
Should energies be focused on street protests or the political process? Clearly this is the year to become politically active.
Immigration reform is not just...
PUBLISHED 5-7-2007
The Legislature’s Joint Audit Committee must heed Senate members’ pending calls for an investigation of the State Department of Health Services.
It has been more than two years since former Gov. Gray Davis ordered the department to set standards for the handling of low-level radioactive waste. It has not done so.
Two years before Davis’ order, a Sacramento Superior Court had ordered the department to do an environmental impact report on the issue...
PUBLISHED 5-7-2007
Four McLean, Va., high school students are suing a company that keeps students from plagiarizing on grounds of — get this — copyright infringement.
The company, Turnitin.com, is used by schools for students to turn in their assignments.
The Web site makes a “digital fingerprint” of the assignment and compares it to other assignments.
It sends students’ work to clients to be cross-referenced without students’ permission....
PUBLISHED 5-7-2007
Times are ripe for Congress to pass a badly needed federal shield law for journalists.
If the effort by a bipartisan coalition is successful, a federal shield law would prevent lawyers in federal cases from requiring disclosure of journalists’ confidential sources except when approved by a judge.
A judge could compel disclosure of sources in matters of dangers to national security, imminent harm to individuals and some corporate proprietary secrets.
...
PUBLISHED 5-4-2007
In 2002, a man who had 11 felony convictions — most for identity theft — four aliases, 11 Social Security numbers and four driver’s licenses was issued an emergency medical technician’s card in Kern County.
In another case, a registered sex offender was arrested in Los Angeles County for impersonating a firefighter and stealing fire department equipment. He had a Kern card.
Recently a woman walked into the Kern County Emergency Medical...
PUBLISHED 5-3-2007
Enormous economic and environmental harm will be done to California if the delivery of water from the delta is stopped.
Appeals court justices must be convinced not to follow through with an Alameda County Superior Court judge’s threat to shut off delta water to the rest of the state.
In March, Judge Frank Roesch ruled that the state Department of Water Resources did not have the “incidental take” permit needed to pump water from the...
PUBLISHED 5-3-2007
An increasing segment of the U.S. work force is inadequately trained and educated. The dire consequences loom large for our nation’s economy and security.
A high-tech superpower needs a workforce to support its businesses and industries. For the U.S. to be a leader — or just to be competitive — on the world market, today and tomorrow’s generations of workers must be high-tech educated and skilled.
For our democratic form of government...
PUBLISHED 5-2-07
The political buzz in Sacramento is changing term limits and Sen. Roy Ashburn, R-Bakersfield, is one of the busy bees in the swarm of proponents.
But there is other political tinkering going on at the same time — including several proposals to change how political district boundaries are drawn by taking the task out of the self-serving hands of the legislative majority leaders.
Ashburn is back at it again, and in addition to his own version of term...
PUBLISHED 5-2-07
Amid a flurry of proposals to restrict or ban advertising of drugs to consumers, there is one that Congress should pass.
If enacted, it would ban consumer ads for new drugs for the first two years they are on the market. The purpose is to allow regulators, drug companies and physicians time and experience to understand the long-term medical ramifications of drugs on a small scale.
The idea was prompted by the unexpected harm such drugs as Vioxx had. The...
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