A blog about News.
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Appointments stall, valley air still polluted Enough already with "pledges" Focus on educating children Kern keeps luring film crews Keep the legal drinking age at 21 We must change the way we think about growth Labor Day: Save gas, lives Terrorists targeting researchers Protect Panorama Park Ruling protects election system 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 August 08 September 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 6/29/08 ----
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...
PUBLISHED 6/24 -----
If you’ve ever lunged for the mute button because an ear-splitting commercial has suddenly interrupted the TV program you’d been watching, this bill’s for you.
Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, has introduced legislation that would force federal regulators to crank down the volume of commercials.
The broadcasting and advertising industries are none too happy about it, but fellow members of Congress increasingly like the idea.
The Federal...
PUBLISHED 6/22/08 -----
What are 13-, 14- and 15-year-olds? They should be innocent, happy children, who are nurtured by their families and communities. But Bakersfield police and prosecutors say they also can be brutal murderers.
That is what five young Bakersfield teenagers are accused of being after their arrests in connection with the vicious beating, robbery and murder of 81-year-old Ezequiel Perez last weekend.
The suspects are so young; the crime so brutal and senseless. It is...
PUBLISHED 6/20/08 -----
Democrats and Republicans agree: Economic woes are increasing, tax revenues are declining and if legislators don’t act quickly, California will slip deeper into debt.
Democrat ideas for fixing the state’s budget problems focus mainly on raising taxes and closing tax loopholes. But they are vague about what taxes they want to raise and what loopholes — or tax breaks — they want to eliminate.
Republican ideas for fixing budget problems...
PUBLISHED 6/19/08 -----
Graduation might be too lofty a goal for some high school students.
That’s the alarming conclusion of a new study that looks at funding for tutoring programs tied to the California High School Exit Examination. Those funds might be better spent elsewhere — like the primary grades, according to the report by the Public Policy Institute of California.
“By law, current funding for tutoring those at risk of failing the CAHSEE is...
PUBLISHED 6/18/08 -----
One million California drivers can ignore red-light cameras, park illegally, drive for free on the state’s growing number of toll roads and, in many cases, avoid tickets for speeding or other infractions.
Some are on-duty police officers hot in pursuit of criminals. Others are “privileged” members of the Legislature. They are also people holding a wide range of unremarkable government jobs like social worker, court employee and park ranger.
They...
PUBLISHED 6/17/08 ----
We’re still not getting it.
Kern County residents cite air pollution, traffic congestion and the loss of open space among their biggest concerns, but the vast majority of us still want single-family homes on big lots.
We fret about lengthening commute times but three-quarters of us still drive to work alone and won’t consider carpooling, public transit or any other alternative means of transportation.
If the Kern Council of...
PUBLISHED 6/15/08 -----
It only takes a moment for a child wading in a lake or river to drop into a submerged hole or be swept into a powerful current. A supervising adult need only look away for a few seconds to lose track of a young swimmer — forever, in the most tragic cases.
With that in mind, Sacramento County supervisors recently enacted a new ordinance that requires children under 13 to wear life preservers when they frolic in public waterways. Parents or guardians who fail...
PUBLISHED 6/13/08 ----
If it seems like Kern County has seen an unusual number of motorcycle wrecks in the past few weeks, that’s because it has.
The California Highway Patrol reports 17 motorcycle crashes in the past 30 days — and that’s just within its jurisdiction, which is generally outside the city limits of the county’s 11 municipalities.
Overall fatalities are slightly up as well. Twenty motorcyclists were killed in Kern County in all of 2007, according...
PUBLISHED 6/12/08 ---
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom in 2004 defied California voters who had defined marriage as being between a man and a woman. Believing a 2000 ballot initiative, which was passed by more than 60 percent of the vote, was unconstitutional, Newsom ordered city clerks to issue marriage licenses to nearly 4,000 same-sex couples.
His act of defiance provoked public outrage. To the cheers of traditional family advocates, the California Supreme Court nullified the...
PUBLISHED 6/12/08 ----
Ann Barnett is Kern County’s elected auditor-controller-county clerk. Despite the recent attention paid to her marriage license responsibilities, she is — above all else — the county’s financial watchdog.
On behalf of taxpayers, it is her job to track every penny the county collects and make sure it is spent correctly. It’s her job to help make government “transparent” — keep government accountable and records open for...
PUBLISHED 6/10/08 ----
The nation’s organ donation program needs a priority transplant.
Serious lapses at three California organ transplant hospitals underscore the need for renewed, aggressive scrutiny — and promptly, lest the failings by the agencies that oversee the nation’s transplant system damage confidence in a donation system that already falls short in public confidence.
The Government Accountability Office says problem programs have...
PUBLISHED 6/10/08 ----
Nothing gets the point across like a big, hefty fine.
At least that’s what Kern County Supervisors hope, having approved a county ordinance authorizing $1,000 fines for people caught partying it up in vacant houses.
The nation’s foreclosure crisis has created a host of challenges for cities and towns, among them the sudden availability of unoccupied houses ideal for unauthorized gatherings — often involving minors and...
PUBLISHED 6/8/08 -----
A soldier headed to Iraq. A struggling young couple without enough money to pay for a fancy wedding. People wanting to get married but not affiliated with a church.
These are the people who turn to the Kern County Clerk’s Office by the thousands every year to obtain marriage licenses and have civil weddings performed.
Going to the courthouse to get married is a decades-long tradition. Wedding duty used to fall to Kern’s judges, but some years ago...
PUBLISHED 6/6/08 ----
It’s bad enough that the foreclosure epidemic has sent tens of thousands of California homeowners into the streets. Here’s the silent subplot: Tens of thousands of renters have been driven from their domiciles by the crisis, too. They face a rental market plagued by high rents created by surging demand.
But the state Assembly has taken steps to give renters a small measure of protection. AB 2586, written by Assemblyman Alberto Torrico, D-Fremont, would...
PUBLISHED 6/5/08 ----
The voter turnout Tuesday in Kern County was anemic. But those who cast ballots spoke loudly to benefit this community.
From a field of four candidates, Bakersfield Mayor Harvey Hall was reelected to his third term with 73.77 percent of the vote.
Some may credit the victory to other candidates in the race being inexperienced and weak challengers. But the fact that others did not step forward to contest Hall’s reelection is a testament to the good...
PUBLISHED 6/5/08 ----
Let the general election begin.
Now that Sen. Barack Obama has secured the required number of pledged delegates and superdelegates to assure himself of the Democratic Party’s nomination, the stage is set for a historic campaign.
Obama will be the first black man to carry the nominee’s banner into a major party convention — let alone, should he prevail, serve as the nation’s first black chief executive.
But Obama...
PUBLISHED 6/4/08 ----
A baby discarded like yesterday’s garbage in a Dumpster. How sad. How unnecessary.
Taft police and Kern County coroner’s officials are investigating why a newborn was found dead in a trash can in the westside city and if it was alive when it was abandoned.
The tragic discovery highlights the recent findings by the state auditor: California’s Safely Surrendered Baby Law program is failing some of our state’s most vulnerable and tiny citizens.
...
PUBLISHED 6/4/08 ---
Kern County has been on the leading edge of power generation for decades, starting with the petroleum industry and the various extraction technologies it has developed or refined over the years.
Now Kern County will be the site of another power-generation innovation — this one unique for its greenhouse gas-fighting potential rather than its energy production.
Rancho Cordova-based Clean Energy Systems plans to build a 50-megawatt power plant on Kimberlina...
PUBLISHED 6/01/08 -----
Kern County Supervisor Mike Maggard to Big West refinery officials: “If we don’t take all the precautions, our first responders, and therefore the public, is at risk.”
Maggard wasn’t referring to the company’s controversial plans to expand its Rosedale Highway refinery and use a potentially deadly acid to produce a cleaner-burning gasoline.
He was talking about Big West’s recent failure to notify local fire and public safety...
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