I don’t care about brown lawns.

If other members in my household didn’t insist otherwise, I’d let the Bermuda go dormant during winter and never plant rye.

So when I read that the Bakersfield City Council’s Legislative and Litigation Committee was considering an ordinance requiring owners of foreclosed homes to keep lawns green, I scoffed and rolled my eyes. (OK, I admit it, I do that a lot.)

What a waste of time, effort and water, I thought. And how ironic that as other cities are citing homeowners for watering lawns too much because, you know, we’re in the middle of a drought, Bakersfield wants to fine them for not watering enough. Classic.

Well, a little research changed my mind. Not so much on the lawns, but on the overall need to deal with vacant buildings not just because of the current tidal wave of foreclosures but especially for low-income neighborhoods battling crime and drugs.
We don’t have a vacant building ordinance in Bakersfield.

A building has to fall into obvious disrepair — fire-hazard-sized weeds, vandalism or trash heaps in the driveway — before the clock starts ticking on code enforcement.

Once the process does start, it’s time consuming and can take up to 45 days with notices and appeals before significant action is taken, according to Phil Burns, the city’s Building Director, which oversees code enforcement. Foreclosed properties can be even trickier as ownership is in transition.

As I said, if it were just dead lawns, I wouldn’t care. But as code enforcers in Sacramento and Fresno told me when I asked how their vacant building ordinances were working, empty houses can, and do, quickly attract vandalism and crime.

Both cities have vacant building ordinances that allow code enforcement to jump on complaints before buildings become serious problems.

Fresno enacted its ordinance two years ago when speculators were buying up multiple properties and just letting them sit.

The process there, which can take 90 days (officials are working to shorten it to 30), is to notify the owner about the mess and not only demand it be cleaned up, but get a written maintenance plan, according to Howard Lacy, a senior inspector. Fresno doesn’t have a landscape ordinance, so he said they don’t go after lawns just because they’re brown.

“We don’t have the authority to go out and make it ‘nice,’ but it needs to meet the standards of the neighborhood.”

Sacramento’s ordinance, about a year old, is very similar except the total notice/appeal process is only 30 days. And the city does have a landscape ordinance, so brown lawns are a no-no that can attract code enforcement attention.

Code Enforcement Manager Randy Stratton praised the ordinance for giving banks and mortgage companies a heads up on what they need to do to button up foreclosed houses before they get to the penalty stage.

If we do adopt an ordinance, Bakersfield should take note that it will require hiring more code enforcement officers. Sacramento and Fresno had to add three bodies each.
So, brace yourselves — if we want more services, we will have to pay for them.

This is a more complex issue than just a few dead lawns. It will require study and careful crafting so the city doesn’t bring a chainsaw when only a scalpel is needed.

But, hey, if Fresno can do it, it can’t be that hard. (Just kidding, Bulldogs!)

Difficult or not, with more than 2,000 foreclosures already on the books in Bakersfield and adjustable rate mortgages going up again this spring, the time is now.

Lois Henry’s column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. E-mail her at lhenry@bakersfield.com or call her at 395-7373.

Kern County needs an Alan Tandy.

Seriously.

Whatever you think of Bakersfield’s “beloved” city manager’s, er, aggressive tactics, his ego, or even his priorities, you can bet a B.A. Jinadu mess wouldn’t have happened under his watch.

Jinadu, the former County Public Health director, was outed by the state several years ago for bilking Medi-Cal via a string of clinics he owned in Southern California where, by the by, he was moonlighting while he was supposed to be working for us. Then it turned out he never paid the state his court-ordered settlement, something Kern County supes didn’t know until San Diego County rescinded a job offer to Jinadu after they did a background check. Jinadu has since retired from Kern County.

Now an audit of Public Health shows a department rife with “vision problems” where some employees apparently couldn’t distinguish between personal and public money.

Why am I not surprised?

The problem is the county’s structure.

The bulk of the county’s 26, non-elected department heads report directly to the supervisors. Each department operates independently, its own little fiefdom. If the department head is conscientious — as the vast majority no doubt are — no problem. But bad apples can get away with a lot before they’re caught, if ever.

They don’t have a boss, like Tandy, breathing down their necks, holding them accountable on a day-to-day basis.

Supervisors, technically their managers, have four-inch thick binders to go through every week on major policy issues affecting business, people’s well-being and the future of this county.

They do not have time to chase around after department heads to make sure they’re actually at work when they’re supposed to be, aren’t calling Nigeria on county cell phones, aren’t charging double mileage or aren’t having taxpayers foot the bill for their valet parking.

The county needs a Tandy. 

I wish I could say this was an original idea, but Supervisor Michael Rubio actually proposed it nearly three years ago. He’s continued to bring it up in the intervening years as other issues with department heads have emerged. But the board wouldn’t go for it, wanting to keep department heads reporting directly to them.

Supervisors Don Maben and Mike Maggard told me Tuesday their feelings haven’t changed. They don’t want to give up control to a strong manager or CEO (chief executive officer).

“I’ve had some experience with that,” said Maggard, who formerly served on the City Council.

OK, maybe a slightly modified Tandy.

Either way, the current county system is just not working.

In addition to the Jinadu debacle, supervisors discovered on Tuesday that the former head of KMC changed a contract without going through the board and it’s now become a nightmare that the current KMC director is struggling to fix.

How many of these rotten apples do we need before we figure out it’s the barrel that needs fixing?

At least supervisors are kind of looking in that direction. They asked staff on Tuesday to see if the CAO’s duties could be altered to include some checks and balances on other departments.

Not good enough.

The CAO (County Administrative Office) handles a heavy load already — the budget, managing employee health insurance, union negotiations, research and some financial monitoring of departments, among a host of other important tasks. I don’t want them saddled with more duties but no added staff or authority. That’s a recipe for failure.

This county has an annual $2 billion budget and thousands of employees. Government is bigger and much more complex now than ever before. Long gone are the days when supervisors knew every department head and their family members by name.

If we don’t adjust to that fact, we will continue to be “shocked” and “dismayed” at more and more Jinadus taking advantage of the system.

We need a strong CEO with the authority to investigate departments and take action when needed. Someone who can monitor audits, respond quickly when there are problems and provide clear communication to department heads. Hiring and firing at the department head level could still be done with board approval, but the ticky-tacky business of daily management should be left to a CEO.

Yes, creating a CEO would increase the county’s cost of doing business.

But how much does it cost now when department heads go bad? If not in dollars and cents, in public trust?

Lois Henry’s column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. E-mail her at lhenry@bakersfield.com or call her at 395-7373.

For a town that professes no great love for the Sierra Club, they sure do a lot of our heavy lifting.

First it was lawsuits against developers over air pollution.

Now, it’s ag land preservation.

For the uninitiated, a couple of years ago, the Sierra Club sued over several developments that had been blithely rubber stamped by our elected officials with zero air pollution requirements.

The Sierra Club argued that because the developments would create more air pollution, developers should pay a fee used to reduce pollution elsewhere (that’s known as “mitigation”). Developers settled, and, in some cases,  voluntarily entered into contracts with the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District to avoid lawsuits.

You’d think the people elected to represent us would have our best interests (such as the ability to breathe) in mind and require air pollution mitigation right off the get. But no, the Sierra Club had to push the issue.

The same with farmland preservation.

Over the last three years, the Sierra Club has sued several projects saying they need to replace the prime farmland lost to housing, said Gordon Nipp, with the local Sierra Club.
Again, developers settled. The Sierra Club now has 15 ag land preservation agreements in place.

Farmland preservation, however, is more complicated than air pollution mitigation.
With air pollution, the Sierra Club simply gives the money to the Rose Foundation, a Bay Area based environmental group, which has used it to replace diesel school buses with natural gas ones for the Kern County Superintendent of Schools, among other things.

Ag land involves finding farmers willing to sell conservation easements on their land, meaning it can never be developed. Then an entity is needed to hold those easements.
Enter the Sequoia Riverlands Trust, based in Tulare County, which just secured grant money to start its planning phase in Kern County.

If you think these folks are a bunch of posey pluckin’, tree huggers, think again.

“We are not the Sierra Club,” Executive Director, Soapy Mullholland stressed. “We are a not for profit that holds easements.”

Mullholland, who used to be in real estate development, has seen both sides. She knows developers want a level playing field, a set of standards they can rely on and plan for when figuring costs. 

To that end, the trust will hire an outside expert to assess the land here, soil quality, water availability, etc. So, when a developer needs to replace land, the trust can make an equitable trade and the developer will know the costs ahead of time.

Right now, Mullholland is looking at an up front cost to developers of $2,500 per acre, plus a 1/4 percent transfer fee on each home’s sale price after the initial sale.

“That may not be enough,” she said. “But we’re sensitive to developers’ needs and that there’s a limit to how high those fees can be.”

Even with a structure in place to handle farmland preservation it still comes down to local planners and politicians saying this is a priority. Otherwise, we’re right back to the lawsuits.

The city and county are now looking at farmland preservation using a “menu” of options.

I have a few issues with the options, such as allowing developers to preserve land outside of Kern County, or even the San Joaquin Valley. Still, it is a step in the right direction.

It’s frustrating, though, that it had to come at the muzzle end of litigation.

The Sierra Club and others have complained about air pollution and loss of farmland for years. Nothing changed until developers got thrown for a loop and they put pressure on the city and county to come up with guidelines.

Talk about the tail wagging the dog.

Lois Henry’s column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. E-mail her at lhenry@bakersfield.com or call her at 395-7373.

The average Thanksgiving dinner packs on 3,000-4,000 calories!

That's just ONE MEAL.

Average daily intake for men should be no more than 2,500 calories and 2,000 calories for women.

I found this site that gives a few alternatives to try and hold back the calorie tide on turkey day, if anyone's interested.

Of course, if this is your "blow it" day, go for it and happy gobble gobble!

http://www.dietbites.com/ca...

There was no clearer example of the tiresome lack of leadership in this town than witnessed earlier this month during the City Council discussion over a possible mandatory recycling program.

Whether you were for or against the proposal (applying for a $1.5 million state grant, which would have required Bakersfield to go mandatory) the machinations employed by council members to avoid the issue were almost painful to watch.

“I don’t know that we should be mandating until the state has its foot on our back driving a diversion rate,” said council member Zack Scrivner.

Everyone agreed the state will likely tell cities and counties they must keep more refuse out of dumps than the current state-mandated 50 percent. We already divert about 57 percent of our waste so, Scrivner’s point was, why bother improving until we’re forced?

Good plan. Hey, I know, let’s not improve our sewer system to handle growth until effluent is running down the streets. Or until the state makes us, either way.

Councilman Harold Hanson was no better, saying he’d rather wait and pay more for a bigger system down the road.

Yes, waiting and paying more has worked so well for us on other issues, like, I don’t know — roads?

Then there was Councilwoman Jacquie Sullivan’s simpering dismissal of the proposal as “premature.”

She didn’t say when it would be time to start taking recycling seriously. Hopefully, she’ll let us know before that "foot on our back" thing happens, but I have my doubts.

The coup de grace came from Councilwoman Irma Carson. She was on the committee that recommended the measure. But she torpedoed it in the council meeting after suddenly coming to the realization that people on fixed incomes wouldn’t like the added expense of mandatory recycling.

No one wants to hurt folks on fixed incomes. But it would only have cost $36 a year — $3 a month.

Instead of facing the fact that sometimes there’s no way to avoid adding to the taxpayers’ burden, Carson simply said she wouldn’t support the proposal and swatted away her microphone. No discussion. No other ideas. Just nope.

Councilwoman Sue Benham, also on the committee that recommended the proposal, tried to come up with different ways to make it palatable to her fellow council members. But she couldn’t find any wording that would salve their angst over having to vote for something that some people might not like. Ultimately, she gave in and voted against the proposal herself.

I wish she had stuck by her guns, if for no other reason than to make the point that A) services cost money, so grow up about it and B) unless we have any better ideas, mandatory recycling is coming.

Councilman David Couch, who supported the measure abstained, and Councilman Ken Weir was absent.

So, here we sit, still the largest city in California without a comprehensive curbside recycling program. That’s not to say no one is doing anything.

The city and county are looking at costs to build a material recovery facility (MRF), which would take everything all in a single can and sort out the recyclables later. Though costs aren’t in yet, City Manager Alan Tandy predicted a MRF would be much more expensive than the $36 a year council members rejected in the grant proposal.

Numbers on costs and effectiveness for such so-called “dirty MRFs” aren’t very strong, according to Lisa Skumatz, owner of Skumatz Economic Research Associates in Superior, Colo., which specializes in studying the economics of solid waste management. Such MRFs can do OK on commercial waste where things come in big lumps, such as paper, she said.

What really gets the most bang for taxpayers’ bucks, Skumatz said, is a “pay as you throw” system in conjunction with mandatory recycling. Residents can choose from different-sized cans or bags for garbage, paying less for less volume, which addresses the issue many seniors have of paying extra for mandatory recycling with no break on garbage.

Fresno went to this system in 2005 and it’s worked exceptionally well, Patti Toews, the recycling coordinator told me.

She said Fresno had a 20 percent diversion rate and the state was about to fine them $10,000 a day. So they moved fast to create pay-as-you-throw/mandatory recycling for all single-family homes and have been slowly bringing businesses and multi-family dwellings into the recycling fold. They have a team that visits each business and multi-family dwelling to work with the owners to create recycling plans that best suit those sites. It’s time-consuming and expensive, she said, but works best in the long run. Fresno now diverts 68 percent of its waste from the landfill.

Hmmm. Thinking long term. What a concept.

By the by, even if we went to a MRF, I’m told by Bakersfield’s solid waste folks that the equipment the $1.5 million grant would have bought would still be useful. But the council thumbed its nose at that free state money, so we’ll have to buy the equipment on our own whenever we decide what we want to do with recyclables.

That’s how Bakersfield thinks long term.

Lois Henry’s column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. E-mail her at lhenry@bakersfield.com or call her at 395-7373.

http://weblogs.newsday.com/...

Trustees of the California State University system voted last week to ask the Legislature for an extra $73 million next year.

CSU’s request, though, came with a nasty little threat — give us the money or we’ll bump student fees 10 percent.

OK, I’m fine with more funding for higher education. In my view, education should be one of our highest priorities.

Given that California is on track to spend more on prisons in the next five years than higher education, however, I’d say our priorities need a slap upside the head.

As for the trustees’ request, lets see, the state is facing at least a $6 billion shortfall and the Governor just asked departments to cut by 10 percent. So what are the chances CSU is going to get more money?

Uh, none.

The same threat didn’t work last March when trustees demanded an additional $65 million or they’d up student fees. The state said “no” and students got jacked for a 10 percent increase.

Adding insult to injury, as students were paying that increased amount this fall, trustees approved a nearly 12 percent increase in salaries for presidents and top execs.

CSU’s formally stated policy is to continue increasing top-level pay over the next five years to make up for what it calls a “salary lag” of 46 percent compared to universities around the nation.

Wow, those poor campus presidents must have been barely scraping by.

Not exactly.

Cal State Bakersfield President Horace Mitchell was making $259,000 and the raise bumped him to $285,000. That doesn’t include the $50,000 a year housing allowance, plus the $1,000 a month car allowance and the pile of cush health and retirement bennies presidents get.

The rationale for the fat raises was that CSU wants to be able to attract decent candidates for its top positions.

Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, a member of both the CSU and University of California boards who urged CSU not to go forward with the raises, pointed out that there has never been a lack of candidates for CSU president positions. Trustees went ahead anyway.

Setting the raises aside, I could still get behind CSU’s request for more money if there wasn’t the other troubling issue of paying retired presidents ridiculous sums for “advisory” work at the Chancellor’s office.

CSUB’s Tomas Arciniega, for example, retired in 2004 but stayed on at the Chancellor’s office for three more years sapping taxpayers for $204,156 the first year, $232,128 the second and $104,457.60 in the 2006-2007 school year.

His duties included being a leading voice for CSU on low representation of students of color, promoting creation of the CSU Presidents’ Committee on Underserved Communities, facilitating meetings with Hispanic community leaders and sitting on various boards. Come on! A leading voice? What does that even mean? I promote creation of stuff all the time, where’s my $200k?

An investigation by the San Francisco Chronicle in July 2006 found this was a common practice and that CSU trustees were squandering millions in extra pay to outgoing CSU big wigs. The story prompted AB 1413, which would have prohibited CSU trustees from hiring an exec outside a public meeting and would have restricted pay to no more than they made in their last year on the job. The governor vetoed the bill last month.

Too bad. Clearly someone needs to be watching the cookie jar besides CSU trustees.

But the CSU is an autonomous body. Once it has its money from the state, there aren’t any strings attached.

The latest shenanigans, however, have raised more ire in the statehouse.

Our own Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, plans to introduce a bill in January mandating that any time CSU trustees institute a system-wide pay increase for top brass that’s more than the cost of living, they’ll be barred from raising student fees for the following four years.

I like it. It allows choice but includes consequences. Something the rest of us know as reality.
Stop the gravy train for fat cats, increase spending on instruction, faculty and needed student services like libraries, equipment and classrooms. Focus on the reason CSU exists — education!

Until CSU trustees are ready to ingest a large dose of that reality, the state should keep the ATM

closed.

Lois Henry’s column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. E-mail her at lhenry@bakersfield.com or call her at 395-7373.



Student fees at CSUB for fulltime undergraduate students in the 2007-2008 school year:
Fees per quarter - $1,238
What it pays for:
State fee - $924
Health facility  - $2
Photo ID - $4
Associated Students - $97
Instructional related activities - $22
Student union - $117
Health services - $72
If CSU trustees increase fees next year by 10 percent, it will only affect the $924 “state” portion, so fees would increase by $92.40 per quarter, or $277.20 per year (three quarters).

To read the original post and hear the audio, you have to register for the Capitol Alert at the SacBee's site. It's very simple and I highly recommend it because the Cap Alert has great stuff!

Go here and click, how do I sign up?
http://data.sacbee.com/capa...

Then the Parra/Florez stuff is at this URL.
http://www.sacbee.com/stati...

Anyhoo, here's the post:

November 14, 2007

Florez-Parra: The feud continues

If at first you don't succeed, try to maneuver around Nicole Parra.

That seems to be the motto of Sen. Dean Florez, who the AP reports this
morning is planning to steer his package of bills to regulate the lettuce
and spinach industry away from the Assembly Agriculture Committee, which
Parra chairs.

The two Central Valley Democrats represent overlapping districts, but have
a fierce rivalry.

Florez's package of legislation, which he authored in response to the 2006
E. coli outbreak, came to a screeching halt in Parra's committee in late
June.

As Florez presented one of his bills, which seemed destined for defeat, he
accused the Parra-chaired committee of waiting "for something bad to
happen."

Parra interrupted: "Senator, I'm going to warn you, this is not the message
this committee is sending."

"I know you're going to go out to the press and probably say that if
someone else dies, it's on our back. Well, don't blame the members of this
committee, senator," Parra continued. "Blame me if you have an issue, but
that is not the message that we want to get out of this committee."

Capitol Alert has the audio of the heated exchange, so listen in.

So in January Florez plans to ask the Assembly leadership to ship the bills
out of the Ag panel and to the health panel, the AP reports, where they
could find a friendlier audience.

Ultimately, the bills would have to return to the Agriculture Committee,
but hopefully "with a little more momentum," Florez said.

Read here for background on the feud.

Posted by Shane Goldmacher on November 14, 2007 10:38 AM

ANOTHER possible student fee hike is in the wind at the Californai State University system.

I pasted a wire story about the regents' meeting yesterday below.

CSUB folks, told me the regents voted today to ask the state for more money and would only increase fees if they don't get it. Lets see, the state is $6 BILLION in the hole right now. What do YOU think's gonna happen?

Meanwhile, here are some numbers I dug up.

In the 2001/02 school year, CSUB's quarterly fees to students (full time, undergrads) were $601.

After a 10 percent hike in fees LAST YEAR, students are now paying $1,225 per quarter at CSUB.

And now they're facing another possible 10 percent increase!

Meanwhile, the regents voted earlier this year to increase executive and CSU president pay by nearly 20 percent.

Does this system have it's priorities right?

Personally, I think education is the key to most of our problems. I WANT people to be educated and to have access to more education.

I'd willingly pay more taxes if I could be assured ASSURED that it would be spent on education and access for everyone..

But I ain't gonna increase my burden so some state employee can drive a better luxury car.

Am I crazy here? Something just does NOT seem right!


@Body:
<B>BC-CA—CSU-Student Fees,0469<P>
<B>Trustees consider 2008-09 budget; CSU fees may be going up<P>
<B>By MICHELLE LOCKE<P>
<B>Associated Press Writer<P>
BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) — California State University trustees have tentatively approved a budget for next year that could mean higher student fees.
Trustees haven’t taken a formal vote on fees and won’t until next year. But a budget proposal for 2008-09 approved by the board’s finance committee Tuesday includes the possibility of a fee hike unless the state provides more funding.
The approval came over the objections of Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, who is also a trustee. He urged the board, meeting in Long Beach, not to leave the door open for a fee hike.
“It’s time for trustees and this institution to take a different tack, instead of assuming that student fees will continue to be increased,” he said.
Leaders of the state’s other public university system, the University of California, were scheduled to take a similar step Wednesday with consideration of a budget request that includes a potential fee hike unless there is extra funding.
Garamendi, who is also a member of the UC governing board, is proposing capping fees there, too. As at CSU, UC leaders are not expected to formally vote on fees until next year.
University administrators will get a clearer picture of the funding outlook in January, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger presents his budget to legislators.
However, early forecasts are that the state is facing a deficit of at least $6 billion.
CSU Chancellor Charles Reed said Tuesday that CSU’s proposed budget is the responsible way to go.
“I only think it’s fair for students to get early warning,” he said.
The committee, whose actions were scheduled to go before the full board for ratification Wednesday, approved a proposed budget of about $4.7 billion. Last year’s budget was $4.47 billion.
The request includes $322.7 million more than last year, as laid out in a long-term agreement reached earlier with the governor. In addition, CSU is asking for $155.2 million above the agreed-on figure to pay for enrollment growth and other priorities.
The budget includes $73 million that could come out of extra state funding or through raising student fees about 10 percent.
Trustees said they will decide on fees no later than the March board meeting.
CSU, the nation’s largest four-year system with 450,000 students, now charges undergraduates about $3,400 a year.
An increase would be highly unpopular since CSU fees have gone up steadily in recent years.
CSU officials note their fees are still among the lowest in the nation.
However, administrators have come under fire for their spending priorities.
A state audit released last week criticized pay and perks given to executives of the 23-campus system, and urged the system’s trustees to change their procedures and make future compensation decisions public.
AP-WS-11-13-07 2122EST

Shafter and Bakersfield are suing each other to kingdom come.

Three each so far, but who cares?

Certainly not me. And I bet you don’t care, either.

What I do care about (and you should, too) is that we don’t blow yet another opportunity to do something smart with our roads.

I’m talking about 7th Standard Road.

It could become Bakersfield’s antidote to Rosedale Highway, taking people effortlessly from Highway 99 all the way to Interstate 5. It could even relieve commuter traffic on Rosedale as people halfway between the two chose wide-open 7th Standard instead of clunky old Rosedale.

Ahhh, dreamy, huh?

Well don’t start snoozing yet.

Sure, there’s a plan on the table to make 7th Standard six lanes from 99 to Santa Fe Way with a 22-foot-wide divided median and signals every half mile to limit access.

But remember Highway 58. It had a plan, too, and look what happened — it dead-ends smack in the middle of town.

What could be the death knell for 7th Standard Road as an expressway is, what else? Cooperation. Or the lack of it.

The “C” word is needed from the county of Kern, Shafter and the city of Bakersfield.

So far, Shafter has kicked in for the environmental study, Kern has paid for the design phase and socked away about $21 million toward the $50 million project (that’s just to get it to four lanes). The county also is looking into bonding. And the project is up for $5 million in state money.

Mmmm, mmm, funding stew.

What about Bakersfield?

It won’t be ponying up any money for the four-lane phase.

As for the six-lane phase:

“The city’s general position is that the lion’s share is paid as a development requirement,” Bakersfield City Manager Alan Tandy told me.

Shafter has the same plan for the sixth lane on its side of 7th Standard.

I like that plan in theory. What could be better than making developers pay to upgrade roads that their subdivisions are clogging with traffic? It’s fair.

But it hasn’t worked real well so far.

Olive Drive and Fairfax Road are prime examples of how the develop-first-build-roads-later approach can create traffic nightmares.

Why not build the road first and get reimbursed by developers later?

The other fear I have about 7th Standard is pressure to let projects slip in that don’t adhere to the six-lane vision.

I can just see a strip mall developer salivating over a prime spot hugging 7th Standard. I can even more easily see politicians caving to that demand.

That’s where the “C” word comes in.

Those lawsuits, though, make cooperation tricky.

Bakersfield is suing Shafter to keep it from using water for development. Shafter sued Bakersfield over two developments south of 7th Standard Road and over the massive West Ming housing project in southwest Bakersfield.

Shafter is in the process of settling the suits near 7th Standard after the developer agreed to pay more toward a portion of the widening project.

While most people thought the West Ming suit was in retaliation for the water lawsuits, Shafter City Manager John Guinn told me it was really all about 7th Standard Road.

With the “funding stew” for 7th Standard, Guinn told me the West Ming suit could “go away.”

“We’re very, very near to doing that,” he said of dropping the suit.

Now about those water lawsuits...

Lois Henry’s column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. E-mail her at lhenry@bakersfield.com or call her at 395-7373.

Not everyone put on the uniform, picked up a rifle and prepared to walk into the line of fire for their country.

But some did.

Whether they were drafted or volunteered, saw combat or not, these men and women —  these veterans — put their lives on hold and sometimes in danger in service to this nation.

Today we officially say thank you for that service.

There will be speeches and parades and, here in Bakersfield, a beautiful new memorial will be unveiled.

That’s as it should be.

But this is a debt that requires far more from us than we’ve been paying.

Vets continue to struggle to get the health care they are due (especially difficult in Kern County, which has only one limited-service clinic) and a new report out last week shows California leading the nation in the number of homeless veterans.

I can’t decide which situation makes me more ashamed.

In a Californian story last May, most veterans we spoke with said they were grateful for the Veterans Administration benefits they received.

They told us about their experiences during a 2 1/2 bus ride to the VA hospitals in Los Angeles.

Imagine spending 2 1/2 hours getting someone you loved to the doctor’s office. Now imagine that trip on a daily basis in order to save their life.

That’s what 59-year-old Howard Maros endured in May to get radiation treatment for prostate cancer. Five days a week the former Army sergeant who repelled enemy rocket attacks as part of his job in Vietnam rode the bus to LA because he couldn’t afford to drive.

Things are slightly better now, he drives down about two or three times a month, he said. But the radiation didn’t show any result and the cancer has metastasized.

“They gave me a 50-50 chance,” he said in a clipped, matter-of-fact way. “Won’t know anything until February.”

He didn’t complain about his situation, though he  did say it would be easier to see a doctor in Bakersfield. I asked if he at least felt his care was top-notch.

“According to them,” he chuckled. “But that’s the VA for you.”

Maros may not complain, but I will.

This is not good enough, not for Maros, not for any of our vets.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, seems to be on the right track.

He’s working on a bill that would create pilot programs to look at handling veterans’ health care more like HMOs.

“The VA is really a bricks-and-mortar operation,” he said. “They build the hospitals and then you have to go there. That’s not how health care works anymore.”

McCarthy’s idea is to create health care savings accounts with a certain amount of money allocated to them yearly. The vets would be issued health cards to use with local doctors and hospitals that contract with the VA. He anticipates introducing the bill within a month.

That’s a good start, but what about mobile units as well? Can’t this country afford to contract with local operations such as Clinica Sierra Vista and reach out to vets? We do it for other populations, why not our veterans?

Homelessness is even more intractable.

Of the 2,800 to 3,000 homeless people Clinica’s Baker Street clinic serves each year, between 600 and 700 are veterans, said coordinator Marie Wall.

That number will likely only increase as more young men and women return from Iraq and Afghanistan.

There are programs, such as the Kern Veterans Assistance Foundation, that help. And the VA funds a large chunk of the program, said manager Charles Robinson.

But this is out-patient treatment with only 41 beds. What’s lacking in Kern County is VA-funded in-patient treatment for mental disease and alcohol and drug abuse, the hallmarks of homelessness.

Again, why can’t the government contract with local organizations to get those services to vets?

For the last nine years, Chuck Bikakis, director of Kern County’s Veterans Service Department, has been the champion of Kern’s “stand downs” in Stramler Park for homeless vets. It is a massive four-day event that gives homeless vets respite from the streets and a chance to salvage their lives. But the stand down held last month may be the last of its kind.

“I’ve been waiting for a nonprofit or some other organization to step up and take it over.” No one has and Bikakis can’t continue going it alone so he’s rethinking next year.

I applaud his efforts but I have to say it’s outrageous that the federal government has gotten a pass on this issue.

We know the need, we know what works. All we need is a government that lives up to its promises.

After all, the veterans kept theirs.

Lois Henry’s column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. E-mail her at lhenry@bakersfield.com or call her at 395-7373.

A pair of “enviro knights” have joined together in an epic battle to defend the beleagured Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

 

Who are these eco system avengers? Coalition for a Sustainable Delta  — the giant Paramount Farming company; Committee for a Reliable Delta  — Kern County ag water districts.

Huh? Farmers and water guys going all environmental on us?

Well, yes and no.

A federal judge in August ruled state and federal pumps sending some 6 million acre feet of delta water south to Kern County and other users each year were hurting the endangered smelt (a fish) so the pumping must be curtailed, by as much as 35 percent. If the cutback is that big and over several years, local water agency folks predict it could ruin Kern’s economy.

The ruling, combined with the current drought, sent local ag water districts into a frenzy.

They’re firing back with both barrels.

The massive pumps that feed water to farmers and Southern California residents aren’t the only culprits in the delta, said Paramount spokesman Bill Phillimore.  And it’s past time to start pointing fingers at those other problems, he said. So the Coalition fired off a one-two set of intent-to-sue notices, first against Mirant Power Company last month and last Thursday against the California Department of Fish and Game.

The timing is what caught my attention.

Though Phillimore and other local water agency folks told me the lawsuits were prompted by the judge’s ruling in August, that lawsuit was bubbling for quite a while. And it was pretty clear where it might go.

Drought? We’ve had a few in the last 10 to 15 years, nothing new there.

As for other factors degrading the delta, invasive species, pollution, greater municipal and industrial uses, that’s all been looked at, studied and double studied for years, decades even.

So why now?

“Hindsight is 2020,” Phillimore said. “If I’d been more perceptive and had perhaps been paying more attention to what was going on in the delta and not relying on represntation from state agencies this would have happened a couple years ago.”

These two potential lawsuits are just the beginning, Phillimore told me.

Meanwhile, the Committee, made up of water districts, has been amassing a lot of money (more than $450,000 and counting) that it will use for research to back up the Coalition’s lawsuits.

I wondered, though, if the timing has anything to do with a few other water-related issues churning around the state right now, such as proposals that could resurrect the peripheral canal, which would route water around the delta entirely.

Northern Californians hate the canal with a passion and are gearing up to fight it tooth and nail just as they did when they defeated it 25 years ago.

No, Phillimore and others told me, these lawsuits are not any kind of threat or political move to get the northern interests to back off their opposition to the canal.

Even if the canal were approved tomorrow, it wouldn’t be built for more than 10 years. If supplies to Kern were cut by 35 percent every year during that time, it would devastate the economy, said Bill Taube, manager of the Wheeler Ridge-Maricopa Water Storage District.

“This is a matter of survival,” he added.

So far, the only things government agencies have tweaked when trying to “fix” the delta are the pumps, Phillimore said. There are other problems lurking in those waters and Kern’s ag and water folks are determined to bring them to light.

At least one group isn’t biting — fishermen. (Get it? Ha.)

Judging by posts on well-known fly fisherman Dan Blanton’s blog (http://www.danblanton.com/v... some folks just aren’t convinced these lawsuits are about saving the delta so much as keeping the water flowing. The posters are upset by the Coalition’s most recent intent to sue the Department of Fish and Game for regulations that prop up populations of striped bass, which it says is an invasive species that kills the little smelt.

• “This is all about the $$$ to be made by stealing more NorCal water so cotton and houses can be grown in the desert.”

• “They now want to blame the striped bass for the decline of delta smelt and other fish in the California Delta in order to take away the blame from the state and federal export pumps, even though the fish successfuly coexisted for over 125 years.”

Yikes. Almost makes me feel sorry for Paramount!

I do understand their frustration. Whatever you think of ag and water, they have contracts which they’ve paid for, water or no water, faithfully year in and year out.

They’ve changed farming habits to use less water, grown more permanent crops than row crops, which typically take more water and yield less profit, depending on the market.

For example, in Kern County the number of almond orchards have gone from 73,383 acres in 1996 to  101,000 acres in 2006. Meanwhile cotton (a major water sucker) has shrunk from 293,750 acres in 1996 to 94,075 acres in 2006.

Granted, many of those cotton acres have been paved over for houses, but that state project water hasn’t been converted to urban use to accommodate growth. Metro Bakersfield has its own supply courtesy of the Kern River.

But still, more lawsuits just seem counterproductive to me.

Judges aren’t water experts and addressing the delta’s massive array of issues one drawn-out, years-long lawsuit at a time isn’t going to work.

It hasn’t so far.

There are efforts to try and work on delta problems overall, including the Bay Delta Conservation plan, which Mirant Power Company is a member of, as well as the Kern County Water Agency. Mirant has also been supportive of a peripheral canal, said Greg Gartell, assistant general manager of the Contra Costa Water District, also a member of the Bay Delta Conservation plan but an ardent foe of the canal.

“I was stunned,” Gartell said of the Coalition’s intent to sue. “It’s like shooting at one of your own.”

His take was the lawsuits will just cause more trouble and slow headway on real solutions.

 

 

I have to agree.

 

Lois Henry’s column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment here, e-mail her at lhenry@bakersfield.com or call her at 395-7373.

I just hate it when people come to work sick becuase they have some warped hero complex and think they're being valiant by "working through" their illness.

You know what? NO, they aren't being valiant. They're not as productive, they're making their colds worse and they're spreading germs! They should be rounded up and kept away from other humans who have more courtesy than to infect a whole office because of some misplaced idea that we couldn't get a paper out without them.

SHEESH!

Why am I on this rant?

Yeah, because I'm the hapless sucker who wasn't sick but caught the ick from some "hero" at work and now I  AM  SICK!!!!!!

GRRRRR!

What's really galling is this is the 2nd cold I've had this fall. That NEVER happens. One cold a year is all I allow!

At least I have the sense to STAY HOME. Not that anyone will appreciate it.

AND it's boring as all get out.

 

Newspaper people love to recap.

We like marking anniversaries and keeping track of things like statistical information and people.

Maybe it’s the constant forward motion of what we do, this blurry snapshot we create every day of history as it unfolds. Sometimes it’s comforting to look back.

This is my 24th column since starting on Aug. 5. How am I doing? Here’s an accounting.
I had a strong start, if I do say so myself (and apparently I will!), with Brent Scheibel, the snake eater.

Scheibel brought what he said was a rattlesnake to an audition for the Survivor television show. He pulled it from his backpack, skinned it and took a couple bites out of its still wriggling body.

I said he shouldn’t be charged with animal cruelty — and he wasn’t. (No one was more surprised than me, this being Kern County and all.)

My take was the law was too squishy. Besides, you can’t tell from the video if the snake was dead at the time of the chomping, and Scheibel insisted later he thought it was dead after he whacked it a couple times with a metal rod. Though he says in our video it was alive. Gross! (go to my blog to see this truly disgusting vid!)

OK, I’m one for one.

Later, I lamented the lack of women in local politics and mentioned there were only three women judges out of 33.

I’m ecstatic to say that Deputy District Attorney Judy Dulcich was sworn in as a Kern County Superior Court judge last Friday. Not only does that bring our female judges on the bench to four, but Dulcich possesses a fine legal mind so it’s a win-win. Then I learned Judge Sharon Mettler plans to retire next summer so unless more women are appointed, we’ll be back to three.

I suppose I should count that as a draw. But since Mettler is still on the bench right now, I’m putting it in the “W” column.

Moving along, I applauded the National Cemetery Administration for planning a “water-wise” veteran’s cemetery in the foothills above Arvin. It shouldn’t be covered in lawn, I said, because we don’t have the water and the natural landscape is beautiful as is.

I learned there was a meeting recently between National Cemetery officials, local veterans, and reps for congressman Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, and County Supervisor Mike Maggard. The government is still drilling test wells to assess groundwater, but they’re sticking to their xeriscaping guns, I was told.

Good for them!
Of greater interest at that meeting was the timetable. When will burials start? With so many veterans now passing away, it’s become a pressing issue. They hope to be ready by October 2008, I’m told.

I’m putting this on the “win” side of the ledger, too.

I have to admit there have been times my suggestions have been ignored (gasp).

There was the time I called for mandatory spay/neuter laws. Not gonna happen.

Then I spewed about the need for an overpass at the Landco rail spur that crosses Rosedale Highway. Nope.

I whined about the county and several other government agencies not coughing up what I believed were public documents. Result: nothing. No documents, nada, zip.

Oh yeah, and I said teens shouldn’t have unprotected sex. Ha!

But I did say we shouldn’t create a special real estate fraud unit in the District Attorney’s office and we didn’t. (OK, really I just parroted DA Ed Jagels.)

And, of course, I said the Kern High School District board should not approve trustee Chad Vegas’ proposal to put “In God We Trust” posters in every classroom. I said it was just a religious ploy and statements by Vegas and Bakersfield City Councilwoman Jacquie Sullivan, who approached Vegas with the idea, proved me correct.

The board is set to vote Monday night on this issue, but trustee Bryan Batey, considered the swing, has said he would not support it. We’ll see what happens.

So what’s my batting average?
Who knows? Really, who cares?

It’s just fun stirring the pot!

Lois Henry’s column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at people.bakersfield.com
/home/Blog/noholdsbarred, e-mail her at lhenry@bakersfield.com or call her at 395-7373.

What do you think?

State Sen. Dean Florez is really pushing for schools, especially low income schools, to get the funding that's out there to provide breakfasts for students.

He's holding a meeting tomorrow (Friday) with several superintendents to talk about funding and how some schools, such as an elementary school in Shafter, have really  done the breakfast thing well.

It's true that children learn better on a full stomach and it's not their fault that their parents don't or won't get them breakfast.

But is it the schools' job to take on this task?

Personally, I think it's bogus that we HAVE to do this. But these are kids, they ARE our future leaders. I want them to get the absolute most out of their education possible. I'm already paying for that!

I do wish we could somehow bring it back to the irresponsible parents, but I have no idea how to do that.

This video is kind of long.

This is from Brian Todd's website. It's very polished, if a bit melodramatic with the music and all.

I'm not sure why he included the photo of himself and another man in front of the Grand Canyon.

Is he suggesting that he's spearheading a measure to build in it, or something?


http://www.briantoddconsult...