Faced with a certain $27.3 million projected shortfall locally and possibly/probably at least $145 million in cuts and delayed payments from the state, the county decided to start the belt tightening early.

About time, I say. It’s not like we can’t all see this train wreck coming.

That’s why I found it aggravating last week when the Board of Supervisors decided it was best (for whom?) to make their sausage behind closed doors.

County Administrative Officer Ron Errea hustled up a report detailing the budget gap and recommended a 10 percent mid-year cut.

The board could have done a lot of things, including what they should have done, which was to start the discussion and publicly hammer out what to cut now and make a contingency plan for the likelihood of a greater hit from the state later.

It would have been a long, messy meeting probably leading to a need for more meetings.

But it would have given the public the opportunity to see how their money was being handled in these uncertain times and allowed us what’s known as “input,” meaning we might actually have a say in how our money is spent.

Instead, supervisors got all squirmy and delayed the discussion for a week because they “needed more information.”

Supervisors Ray Watson and Jon McQuiston, though, gave a glimpse of the real reason for the delay.

“...they expect much of the budget debate to be addressed during internal county discussions before...Feb. 3,” they told reporter James Burger.

Uh-huh.

Yeah, why would you have a public discussion about how to spend the public’s money when you can have department heads, unions and staffers (everyone but us!) lobbying supervisors behind closed doors?

Deciding everything beforehand will make for a much tidier meeting, I’m sure.

Burger, sly dog that he is, has requested Supervisors’ calendars and emails regarding the budget, so we’ll at least know who was making the rounds on the 5th floor of the county building.

And, so sorry to the Supervisors who hoped to weasel out of it, but this is PUBLIC information, so cough it up.

In other lamo local government news, I would normally applaud the City of Bakersfield for scrapping over every nickel, especially in these tight times.

But they can’t be serious taking Richard Jennings to small claims court over an outrageous bill to fix 8 1/2 blocks of a city-owned wall broken by a limb from Jennings’ tree.

Jennings offered to get the wall fixed, but nooooo.

The city instead had its regular block-wall-fixing company, Gonzalez Multi-Masonry, do the job — and then billed Jennings more than $4,000!

Some of that, $622, was “administrative costs” by the city, which was reduced (after our stories) to $276 for “actual costs.”

The bigger deal here, of course, is that the city would contract with a company that  charges $3,437 for a simple repair job.

I was told there’s more to it than just the cost of the bricks ($1.50 each at Home Depot), such as the city assessing the damage and finding a contractor who knows what he’s doing, etc.

Yes, yes, yes. And unless the Pentagon negotiated this contract, such repairs should still cost no more than $700.

Jennings said his homeowners insurance would cover the bill, but he asked them to hold off in the false hope the city would charge something more reasonable.

No such luck.

Tomorrow morning, Risk Manager Ralph Korn — at a cost of $46.52 an hour, by the way — will head to small claims court and go toe-to-toe with Jennings over the wall.

“Don’t you think we should protect the taxpayers’ money?” Assistant City Manager John Stinson asked me when I called to gig him about “wall-gate.”

Absolutely!

NOT binding taxpayers to absurdly inflated contracts would be a good start.

In other double talk news, we were tut-tutted during last summer’s gas price run up (mostly by people who sell gas) when we wondered why Bakersfield, with all its oil production and refining, seemed to pay higher prices instead of lower at the pump.

The experts (mostly people who sell gas) told us it was a market thing, that Kern doesn’t make enough fuel to dent our cost.

Now that Big West of California’s refinery on Rosedale Highway is on the verge of collapse, however, we’re being told (mostly by people who sell gas) that our price per gallon could jump by 20 cents.

Many years ago, I covered the oil industry and would periodically do stories on why Bakersfield’s gas was higher than in other areas. I got a lot of answers but here’s what I finally came to understand about why oil companies charge more here:

Because they can.

Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Bakersfield Californian. Her  column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/noholdsbarred, call her at 395-7373 or e-mail lhenry@bakersfield.com

GRAND JURY CLARIFICATION

For those interested in applying to the Kern County grand jury, I listed a web address for the application forms in my column last week.

It’s the right address, but as with any government process, you have to go through the right hoops to get there!

First go here:
http://www.co.kern.ca.us/gr...

Then look on the right-hand side of the page in the first blue box and click on the item that says “FY08-09 Recruitment now open” and it will take you to another page where you can download the form.