Armando Antonio Morataya, 54, Bakersfield, July 18. Visitation 5 to 9 p.m. with wake at 7 p.m. July 22, Basham Funeral Care Chapel; graveside service 10 a.m. July 23, Greenlawn Mortuary.
i just got through reading his obit in the paper. i am not attempting to whitewash the city workers for what they did, i am bashing the family that is all too quick to make some cash
where the hell were you, people named in the obit, while this man lived on the streets? obviously absent in this man's life when he needed you most, you now attempt to profit monitarily off of his horrible death? it doesnt get much lower than that. your actions speak volumes about what kind of people you are.
Man assaulted at beer festival on life support
BY STEVE E. SWENSON, Californian staff writer
e-mail: sswenson@bakersfield.com | Tuesday, Apr 29 2008 8:55 AM
Last Updated: Tuesday, Apr 29 2008 1:34 PM
Kevin Johnson, who was assaulted at a beer festival, is in critical condition on life support, his sister reported Tuesday.
him unconscious, Stacey Brown reported.
Bakersfield police confirmed that the initial report that an argument preceded the assault was incorrect.
Witnesses said the suspect, Matthew Reed, 33, came up from behind Johnson, struck him in the neck and ran away, Sgt. Greg Terry said.
Johnson, the father of four children, is at San Joaquin Hospital. He is in critical condition, nurses said.
Brown said the family would be making arrangements to donate his heart if he should die.
“He has a good heart,” she said.
Police arrested Reed on suspicion of felony battery in the Saturday incident at the Festival of Beers in Stramler Park. Reed has since posted $25,000 bail and has been released from jail.
If Johnson dies, the charges against Reed could be increased, police said.
The two men had a longstanding feud over a guitar, Brown said.
But Johnson wouldn’t fight Reed because Reed has a bad heart and Johnson didn’t want to cause any serious problems, Brown said.
Johnson, who was born in Los Angeles and attended South High School after coming to Bakersfield in 1989, “was very fun loving and talkative,” his sister said.
“You automatically liked him,” she said.
“He loved to go to car shows and he loved tattoos,” Brown said. “He was full of tattoos.”
Brown said her son loved his uncle and is devastated by his injury.
She quoted her son as saying, “I want him to wake up and come over and fix my car.”
Johnson is the father of two boys and two girls, ranging from a baby to grade-school age, she said.
The three older children are staying with an aunt, and the baby is staying with her mother, Brown said.
He was not employed at the time of the incident, Brown said.
it is unfathomable to me how one could have 4 kids, be unemployed, and yet be able to fork out 40 bucks to go drink beer, while your 4 responsibilities are somewhere else
believe me, i feel bad for the family, especially the kids, but come on...a little personal responsibility,something this community has seemed to lack in the last few years, would have went a long way, and maybe even stopped this attack
Pencil her out: Sen. Dianne Feinstein resigned after six years on the Military Contruction Appropriations subcommittee.
Feinstein Resigns
Senator exits MILCON following Metro exposé, vet-care scandal
By Peter Byrne
SEN. Dianne Feinstein has resigned from the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee. As previously and extensively reviewed in these pages, Feinstein was chairperson and ranking member of MILCON for six years, during which time she had a conflict of interest due to her husband Richard C. Blum's ownership of two major defense contractors, who were awarded billions of dollars for military construction projects approved by Feinstein.
As MILCON leader, Feinstein relished the details of military construction, even micromanaging one project at the level of its sewer design. She regularly took junkets to military bases around the world to inspect construction projects, some of which were contracted to her husband's companies, Perini Corp. and URS Corp.
Perhaps she resigned from MILCON because she could not take the heat generated by Metro's expose of her ethics (which was partially funded by the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute). Or was her work on the subcommittee finished because Blum divested ownership of his military construction and advanced weapons manufacturing firms in late 2005?
The MILCON subcommittee is not only in charge of supervising military construction, it also oversees "quality of life" issues for veterans, which includes building housing for military families and operating hospitals and clinics for wounded soldiers. Perhaps Feinstein is trying to disassociate herself from MILCON's incredible failure to provide decent medical care for wounded soldiers.
Two years ago, before the Washington Post became belatedly involved, the online magazine Salon.com exposed the horrors of deficient medical care for Iraq war veterans. While leading MILCON, Feinstein had ample warning of the medical-care meltdown. But she was not proactive on veteran's affairs.
Feinstein abandoned MILCON as her ethical problems were surfacing in the media, and as it was becoming clear that her subcommittee left grievously wounded veterans to rot while her family was profiting from the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. It turns out that Blum also holds large investments in companies that were selling medical equipment and supplies and real estate leases—often without the benefit of competitive bidding—to the Department of Veterans Affairs, even as the system of medical care for veterans collapsed on his wife's watch.
As of December 2006, according to SEC filings and www.fedspending.org, three corporations in which Blum's financial entities own a total of $1 billion in stock won considerable favor from the budgets of the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs:
Boston Scientific Corporation: $17.8 million for medical equipment and supplies; 85 percent of contracts awarded without benefit of competition.
Kinetic Concepts Inc.: $12 million, medical equipment and supplies; 28 percent noncompetitively awarded.
CB Richard Ellis: The Blum-controlled international real estate firm holds congressionally funded contracts to lease office space to the Department of Veterans Affairs. It also is involved in redeveloping military bases turned over to the private sector.
You would think that, considering all the money Feinstein's family has pocketed by waging global warfare while ignoring the plight of wounded American soldiers, she would show a smidgeon of shame and resign from the entire Senate, not just a subcommittee. Conversely, you'd think she might stick around MILCON to try and fix the medical-care disaster she helped to engineer for the vets who were suckered into fighting her and Bush's panoply of unjust wars.
she's lucky she hasn't been the subject of an FBI investigation yet....
Duke Cunningham did far less than this political whore, and he is in jail....where's the equality??
Report details BCSD's efforts to enact reform
BY LISA SCHENCKER, Californian staff writer
e-mail: lschencker@bakersfield.com | Tuesday, Apr 24 2007 11:10 PM
Last Updated: Tuesday, Apr 24 2007 11:17 PM
Bakersfield City School District trustees ruminated on two topics Tuesday night: change and improvement.
Bakersfield City School District Assistant Superintendent of Accountability Marvin Jones presented a report detailing the district's attempts to improve student achievement since July.
He said a team of educators has been working since then to figure out ways to boost the district's test scores. He talked about the importance of good leadership both within the district and at individual schools, staff development, data analysis and accountability.
"If we stick with it, then we will realize true school reform," Jones said of several strategies.
Trustee Lillian Tafoya said it concerns her that three of the district's schools were among the five lowest performing in the county this year based on last year's test scores.
Jones said the district is working to help those students who are most behind -- two grade levels or more -- by placing them in intensive classes. He said the goal is to get those students back into regular-level classes within two years.
"That may take a little bit of time," Jones said of drastically improving the lowest-scoring schools. "I think it will be about three years before we realize significant changes."
Twenty-three of the district's 40 schools ranked in the bottom 20 percent of schools statewide on tests taken last year, a slight improvement over the year before.
Jones said he's optimistic the district will continue to improve.
"We're not there yet, but August is coming and we're going to celebrate," Jones said, referring to the month when the state releases test scores and its annual progress report on schools.
It is trully sad that some of the smartest people regarding education were sitting in that meeting, and didn't address the obvious:
A child cannot solely rely on 5 hours of educational time in a big class, without it being echoed at home. You cannot argue that the public schools are the primary educator of kids. That is the parent's job. When the parents don't do their job, where does that leave the public school system? obviously in the toilet, with the state breathing down their necks.
Parents play the biggest part of education in a child's life, not the school. When the parents are educationally absent from their child's life, it leads to where Bakersfield City School district is now.
Those schools do not achieve the lowest test scores in the county because of the teachers. The teachers that I personally know at those schools work hard to educate those students. they pour their heart and soul into their job. It isn't solely the school's fault that their students didn't perform well on a test
I wonder when our government will see fit to begin to release a parenting report card on everyone that has kids, especially those that are on welfare? which brings me to my next point...
What do those schools in the BCSD all have in common? Poverty. Those schools are in some of the poorest areas in Bakersfield. Why does that matter? poverty can be equated to low parent educational level. I don't think it is right for teachers to attempt to make up for the child's parent(s) lack of education.
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