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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 8-1-2007
People who live in historic neighborhoods are sometimes reluctant to have their streets officially designated as such. They fear every home improvement project will be subjected to critical review.
People with those concerns, who otherwise may be proud of the distinctive character and history of their residential district, should like a proposed historic preservation ordinance the Bakersfield City Council will consider this month.
The proposal being advanced...
PUBLISHED 7-31-2007
A key element of the farm bill working its way through the House of Representatives must be an increase in funding to attack a massive die-off of honey bees.
Left unchecked, Honey Bee Colony Collapse Disorder could devastate a huge portion of Kern County’s and California’s agricultural production.
Since the fall of 2006, colonies of honey bees required for the pollination of a variety of crops have been dying off nationally at rapidly...
PUBLISHED 7-31-2007
We already know that life in the fields can be difficult and even dangerous for Central Valley farmworkers. Testimony at a state senate committee hearing last week in Sacramento suggests it might be more difficult and dangerous than we even imagined.
Despite regulations that specifically address heat-illness issues, farmworkers aren’t getting enough shade or water as they labor in the summer sun, farmworker groups contend.
Rules enacted in August 2005 to...
PUBLISHED 7-29-2007
It is increasingly apparent that David Crisp’s real estate empire is crumbling because of his careless, overreaching aggressiveness. He is the victim of his own greed.
It also is increasingly apparent that Crisp, who turns 28 this month, is not the only victim of a grandiose scheme gone sour. The actions of Crisp’s companies have produced scores of victims — and, depending on how one defines the impact of his missteps, probably thousands.
The...
PUBLISHED 7-30-2007
Woch w@ ur doiN!!!
It’s bad enough that the guy in the next lane is simultaneously shaving and snarfing down his McBreakfast as he drives.
Now he’s arguing with his girlfriend, too — via text message.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
We know about this new threat to public safety thanks to a recent Seventeen Magazine/American Automobile Association survey of teen...
PUBLISHED 7-30-2007
Enthusiasts like to talk about what a great family sport ATV-riding can be. There’s no question it’s great fun. But ask them about the odds of injury that young riders face and many will just shake their heads. It’s a parent’s responsibility to monitor their children, they’ll say.
Too bad not enough parents shoulder that responsibility.
At least 2,178 children under 16 were killed in ATV accidents from 1982 through 2005, with annual...
PUBLISHED 7-27-2007
Local firefighters will join others from throughout the nation at a Bay Area funeral service this morning for a Contra Costa County fire engineer and captain who died trying to rescue an elderly couple from a burning home near San Pablo.
It is a reminder of how dangerous firefighting is. It also is a reminder of how critical cooperation between public safety agencies is.
The cause of the early morning Saturday fire, which claimed the lives of the elderly couple,...
PUBLISHED 7-26-2007
Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood’s decision to stop issuing licenses for medical marijuana dispensaries is a good one, both legally and ethically.
And despite medical marijuana users’ demands to the Board of Supervisors this week that the sheriff and the county “uphold state law” allowing medicinal use of marijuana, they cannot ignore that federal law banning any use of marijuana takes precedence over more permissive state law.
Thus,...
PUBLISHED 7-26-2007
Kern County Supervisors and school board trustees must follow the advice parents give children who find money from the tooth fairy: Don’t spend it all at once.
The county will see a rise in revenues in the coming budget year as a result of the now-fizzling housing boom. The boom has moderated and so will the property tax spike in the future.
According to County Assessor Jim Fitch, the taxable value of property values for the fiscal 2007-2008 year...
PUBLISHED 7-25-2007
The abundance of “for sale” signs at vacant homes around the county these days is a reflection of the growing number of real estate foreclosures flooding the market.
In many cases, those signs are also de facto advertisements for potential West Nile virus incubation sites.
When homeowners are compelled to abandon their houses, they often leave behind swimming pools. And swimming pools, as any swimming-pool owner knows all too well, require almost...
PUBLISHED 7-24-2007
Among the first 10 questions every prospective homeowner should ask his or her Realtor, especially if it’s a new development: What’s that big, empty lot across the street going to become?
If the people who bought homes in Brighton Parks, a new gated subdivision for adults 55 and older, had asked that question, they should have gotten this answer: It’s going to be a 40-acre recreational park.
If those west Bakersfield homeowners asked that...
PUBLISHED 7-22-2007
Shame on Bakersfield Councilman David Couch. He dumps an explosive, divisive issue into his City Council colleagues’ laps, admits he really doesn’t know what he’s talking about and then he cuts out of Wednesday’s City Council meeting early to catch a plane, leaving his colleagues to face nearly two hours of heat from a community he has spun into turmoil.
And why? Well, maybe if Couch had stuck around to explain himself, or maybe if he had...
PUBLISHED 7-23-2007
You don’t often hear words of undeniable wisdom from an “American Idol” contestant, but this observation qualifies.
“I used to say ‘Cover your tracks,’” singer Antonella Barba said last week. “But it really should be, ‘Don’t make tracks that need to be covered.’”
Barba was referring to the all-too-common practice of posting “private” photos and conversations — intentionally...
PUBLISHED 7-23-2007
What hypocrisy! President’s Bush’s commutation of prison time for Scooter Libby makes a mockery of the administration’s own definition of justice, let alone most other people’s more reasonable concept.
What is even more shocking is that it appears no one in the administration “gets it” about why the commutation angers so many people. Or, worse, they do get it, but don’t care what anyone else thinks.
Libby —...
PUBLISHED 7-20-2007
Last week’s $5.85 million gender-bias verdict for former Fresno State University volleyball coach Lindy Vivas was attention-grabbing for its shocking size. Now attention must be turned to the issues the case raises.
Vivas’ landmark legal victory is compelling evidence that it’s time for U.S. university administrators to re-read Title IX, the federal law that requires equal opportunities in intercollegiate sports for men and women.
...
PUBLISHED 7-19-2007
California cannot simply regulate itself into cleaning up the air and curbing green house gas emissions. It will take a system of rules and economic incentives.
Gov. Schwarzenegger and the Democratic-controlled Legislature are locked in a tug-of-war over how to implement AB32, landmark legislation passed last year that requires California to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020.
Known as the Global Warming Solutions Act, the bill passed the...
PUBLISHED 7-19-2007
So-called sin taxes sometimes make sense. If cigarette smokers are creating a burden on the public health care system, it’s logical to levy a per-pack assessment. Cigarette-tax revenue funds smoking cessation programs and “don’t even start” education for youth, among other things.
If alcohol abuse is causing death, injury and heartache, it’s reasonable that a per-gallon assessment go toward the campaign to educate the public on the many...
PUBLISHED 7-18-2007
This is International Tainted Race Week — or it ought to be, as the Tour de France and Barry Bonds’ pursuit of Hank Aaron’s home run record approach simultaneous crescendos.
The three-week Tour de France, the world’s most famous bicycle race, has long been plagued by accusations that participants have used illegal performance-enhancing drugs to gain competitive advantages. Most recently, the 2006 champion, Floyd Landis, tested positive for...
PUBLISHED 7-17-2007
Kern County is the danger zone for West Nile Virus in the state, with one death among the nine confirmed cases statewide thus far. Eight of the nine cases are in Kern County. The Kern County woman who died was 96 years old. Other counties have suspected cases, but none had been confirmed as of late last week, according to the state Department of Health Services.
Although occasionally fatal — especially to the elderly and peope with immune system disorders...
PUBLISHED 7-17-2007
First 5 Kern commissioners took a good step toward repairing the embattled agency’s image by appointing child advocate Wendy Wayne as its executive director.
Wayne, who established Community Connection for Child Care and spent decades advocating for children’s services in Kern County, was named to the post last week, replacing First 5 Kern’s controversial executive director Steve Ladd.
Unlike Wayne, Ladd had no experience with child care programs...
PUBLISHED 7-16-2007
Once upon a time, the people most frequently ripping off other people in restaurants were the low-lifes who tried the time-dishonored “dine-and-dash” maneuver.
Things have changed. With plastic an increasingly common method of payment, opportunities for crooked waiters and cashiers to turn the tables have taken off.
While they have their grubby little hands on customers’ credit cards, these unsavory servers — a small minority within the...
PUBLISHED 7-16-2007
A sweeping and well-intentioned federal medical law that is driving many people crazy — and in some cases — endangering patients’ lives must be changed.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was designed to:
• Protect health insurance coverage when people changed or lost jobs.
• Protect the privacy of personal medical information.
• Require national standards for such things as electronic...
PUBLISHED 7-15-2007
When pollsters recently asked people in Southern California to define the word Delta, most responded that it was an airline. They had no clue it is a system of rivers, canals and levees between San Francisco and Sacramento that supply drinking water to 25 million Californians and irrigation water to 2 million acres of San Joaquin Valley farmland.
And they had no clue that a crisis looms. A natural disaster, such as a significant earthquake, would wipe out water...
PUBLISHED 7-13-2007
Off-roaders and environmentalists don’t agree on a lot of things, but they seem to agree on the need for a prompt reauthorization of the state parks department’s OHV program. And that’s a good thing.
The state Legislature has less than six months to draft a new and improved bill allowing off-highway vehicle riders to continue enjoying California’s eight OHV parks. The 36-year-old program is set to expire Dec. 31.
OHV riders have been paying...
PUBLISHED 7-12-2007
So what’s it going to be, Arnold? Is California’s farmland worth saving? Or is conservation nothing but talk?
In his proposed budget, Gov. Schwarzenegger wants to stop paying about $39 million to counties to backfill property taxes lost as a result of the Williamson Act. The 1965 Agricultural Land Conservation Act is named after its author, Kern County’s Democratic Assemblyman John Williamson.
For more than four decades, California farmers have...
PUBLISHED 7-12-2007
Changes to the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda will bring enhanced credibility to the legacy of one of the most conflicted presidents in modern U.S. history.
Two changes — among many likely ones to come — symbolize the elevation of the memorial to the status of a true federal presidential library.
• The appointment of Timothy Naftali as director. Naftali was a well-known presidential historian at the University of Virginia,...
PUBLISHED 7-11-2007
Earmark — a.k.a. “pork barrel” — spending has almost as dirty a reputation as its porcine namesake.
Earmarks are items from a pot of money — $29 billion in 2006 — from the $2.4 trillion federal budget that is set aside from the complex federal appropriation process for congressmen to dole out for specific projects in their districts.
There are two problems with earmarks:
• Some ideas are silly, flag-waving expenditures...
PUBLISHED 7-11-2007
Robert Price, a metro columnist since 1999, has been named to The Californian’s editorial board as an associate editor.
As a member of the Opinion section’s staff, Price will help develop the newspaper’s editorial positions on local, state and national issues. He also will be one of three editors writing The Californian’s daily unsigned editorials, which represent the newspaper’s position on a variety of issues.
Price will join...
PUBLISHED 7-10-2007
Since the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., patriotic Californians have paid $50 a year for memorial license plates that read: “We will never forget.”
So far, $7.2 million has been collected and placed in a special anti-terrorism fund.
Guess what. Not a penny of the fund has been spent on anti-terrorism programs or to increase security. The money just sits in the state’s treasury earning interest.
This pathetic fact...
PUBLISHED 7-10-2007
For anxious veterans and their families there is unexpected good news — a national veterans cemetery near Arvin is very likely to begin operation a year earlier than had been anticipated. The first phase with temporary buildings and parking is now due to accept burials near the end of 2008 rather than the initial estimate of November 2009.
For World War II veterans who are dying at an average annual rate of 1,000 a day nationally, a year is...
PUBLISHED 7-9-2007
Stop! Don’t crumple up that plastic grocery bag and toss it into the garbage or recycling bin.
California’s first-in-the-nation mandatory plastic bag recycling law went into effect this month. And that’s good for two reasons: environmental sensitivity and the fact that without recycling, pressure was building to ban them.
That would be too bad. The bags with their built-in handles are often easier to use than paper sacks.
Besides lugging...
PUBLISHED 7-9-2007
The findings are disappointing, but not surprising. While the federal government prepares to spend more than $1 billion this year to promote healthy diets and give our school children nutritional information, these efforts do not seem to make much difference.
A survey by the Associated Press of these types of campaigns found mostly failure. Out of the 57 programs studied, only four showed hints of successfully combating the epidemic of childhood obesity.
A federal...
PUBLISHED 7-8-2007
Plans to expand California State University’s southwest Bakersfield campus — adding students, constructing educational facilities and developing office complexes, hotels and baseball stadiums — are promising for both the school and community.
They also are potential headaches for people who live near the university, or have to travel through the already traffic-congested area.
The good and bad of Cal State Bakersfield expanding and getting...
PUBLISHED 7-8-2007
The ramifications of Cal State Bakersfield’s expansion plans have been identified in a draft environmental impact report.
The report is available to be read at the Kern County Clerk’s Office, 1115 Truxtun Ave.; at Cal State Bakersfield’s library; and in the office of Administrative Vice President Sharon Taylor at Cal State Bakersfield.
The EIR also has been placed on the university’s Web page. (www.csub.edu) Type “master plan”...
PUBLISHED 07-06-2007
The appointment of John R. Brownlee and David R. Lampe as judges to the Kern County Superior Court is a welcome relief for the overburdened bench.
It does nothing to demean their achievement and talents to ask that in the future Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his successor be far more conscious of the dire need for diversity on the bench here and statewide.
There will be plenty of opportunities in the near future to bring more ethnic and gender balance to...
PUBLISHED 7-5-2007
Californians deserve straight answers. Maybe the hearing Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez has scheduled Friday in Sacramento will help get them.
Last week, Gov. Schwarzenegger fired Robert Sawyer, the man he appointed as chairman of the California Air Resources Board. This week, the board’s executive officer, Catherine Witherspoon, quit.
The governor and his staff claim the pair was not moving fast enough to implement California’s...
PUBLISHED 7-5-2007
Enough with the studies and audits. It’s time to think about the children.
Kern County grand jurors have called for yet another audit of First 5 Kern, the embattled tobacco-tax funded commission that funnels millions of dollars a year to programs for children under 5 years of age.
True, the voter-established commission has been embroiled in controversy for years. True, the executive director has enriched himself using tax dollars. True, some...
PUBLISHED 7-4-2007
California is a tinderbox, Kern County. It is dry from a prolonged drought and filled with combustible fuel.
Two raging wildfires last week — one near Tahoe and the other in eastern Kern County — remind us of how quickly a devastating fire can strike.
As we celebrate the Fourth of July today, we must heed these warnings. We also must heed tightened rules in metropolitan Bakersfield restricting the sale, possession and use of fireworks.
...
PUBLISHED 7-4-2007
Bakersfield City and Kern County Fire Departments are joining forces with area law enforcement agencies to dispatch 60 teams today and tomorrow to enforce fireworks laws and issue citations to violators.
Residents who wish to report illegal sale, storage or use of fireworks or explosives should call the city-county HOTLINE at 868-6070.
This is not an emergency phone number to report incidents or situations that require an immediate fire department response.
...
PUBLISHED 7-3-2007
How hypocritical of legislators. Children and school officials are supposed to be focused on promoting healthier lifestyles and decreasing child obesity. Yet, funding is being denied to make that happen.
State lawmakers should approve the Fresh Start program as Gov. Schwarzenegger proposes. Fresh Start, a pilot program started two years ago, gives public school students in California fresh fruit for breakfast and snacks.
The Legislature cut the $11.1 million...
PUBLISHED 7-3-2007
A recent survey reveals Californians are finally on board when it comes to providing a comprehensive sex education for their children.
An overwhelming 89 percent of California parents said they support programs that teach students not only about abstinence, but also about contraception and protection from sexually transmitted diseases.
That type of curriculum is necessary for sex ed to be successful and is currently taught in California schools.
Parental support...
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