This first lady starts off saying I'm not facing reality and the teens involved in the incident should have "known better" (I suppose fully grown Ken Mettler didn't need to "know better"). Ultimately, she's just NOT happy with my articles. PERIOD! 

This second lady thinks not only that you should be able to punch anyone if they "hit on" you, she doesn't believe what she sees on video.

Given the number of people who've hung up on me when I've answered the phone today, I'm wondering if callers secretly want to leave a voice mail just to get on this blog!

OK, if that's what floats your boat...I'm going downstairs for a soda so you have about 10 minutes to voicemail up....annnnnd...DIAL!

Just catching up on voice mails on the fire fighter/paramedic column.

Here are two I got from a man whose logic I'm having a hard time following.

But the end of his first voice mail  (left at 9 p.m. the other night) is pretty funny.

This second message seems even more convoluted to me, but maybe I'm not following it closely enough.

Ken “Boom Boom” Mettler wants to have it both ways. Despite his now-legendary fisticuffs prowess, I’m not gonna let him.

He kicked and punched a protester Friday night at a rival Proposition 8 rally.

The Kern High School District trustee and local Yes on Prop. 8 chairman says he was defending himself and that he is the victim, going so far as to call the man he hit the “perpetrator” because, Mettler says, he swung first.

You can’t tell that from the video. All we know for sure is Mettler was kicking and punching at someone.

Hmmm. I wonder how that’d go over if he were a student at KHSD?

He’d be suspended, at the least.

How can Mettler now legitimately have a say in disciplinary action over fighting, except perhaps to comment on technique?

When I asked Mettler what kind of example he set by his actions, he said, “Violence is not acceptable, except I do believe people have a right to defend themselves.”

Further: “I’m a passionate person. But I think I conducted myself in a reasonable manner.”

Reasonable?

He knowingly put himself in an overheated situation, grabbed signs that demonstrators said belonged to them, didn’t leave even when people were screaming at him and lashed out like Napoleon Dynamite in a cage fight when someone got too close.

Instead of justifying the incident,  Mettler should publicly apologize and acknowledge his actions were wrong.

But he insisted to me that while he’s embarrassed by the incident and wishes it hadn’t happened, he doesn’t think he did anything wrong given the circumstances.

Circumstances, shmircumstances. It was wrong and his refusal to acknowledge it makes it even worse.

“He should of course resign immediately,” said Christopher Meyers, a philosophy professor at Cal State Bakersfield and ethicist. “A morally mature adult does not hit others over a sign; rather, he walks away, winning the war by losing the battle. That the alleged assailant is a KHSD trustee really puts the action over the top and I would certainly hope Mettler would realize his ability to effectively oversee the high school district has been deeply compromised. That is, I would hope he would do the right thing and step down.”

Yeah, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

While Mettler was chatting with Inga Barks Monday on her radio show on KERN 1410 AM about the scuffle, they both lamented how Proposition 8 proponents have been labeled haters and bigots and now they have to fear for their safety.

What?!

Let’s recap the facts:

Mettler belted Rob Badewitz in the face. Badewitz, not Mettler, is the one with the swollen jaw.

Even assuming someone did take a swing at him, Mettler’s judgement and self-control are seriously up for question.

The demonstrators opposing Prop 8 at the so-called “peace” corner, where anti-war and human rights rallies routinely have been held for several years, were rude and obnoxious, hollering the f-bomb every few seconds and generally acting like idiots.

Then here comes the silver-haired, buttoned down Mettler, Prop. 8 signs in hand. People are screaming and cussing at him and yet he plods on. It’s like a bad horror movie.

Is he hard of hearing? Does he not sense the level emotion? Is he reckless? Spoilin’ for a fight?

“I just wanted to pick up our signs,” he told me.

Ah. The irresistible siren song of the campaign sign.

Apparently, campaign signs in this election are interfering with the higher mental functions of fully grown adults (OK, “adult” is a stretch in reference to radio host and admitted sign stealer Scott Cox) and we should ban them immediately.

That or, I don’t know, maybe we could all conduct ourselves with little more common sense and courtesy.

Nah! That’s crazy talk.

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

My word of the day for county supervisors: Leadership.

Public safety is a basic government service that shouldn’t be shrugged off by elected officials and left in the hands of community activists.

That’s how the supes have handled emergency medical care for outlying areas like Pine Mountain Club, Buttonwillow, Stallion Springs and a handful of other communities.

“If they want metro service when they move to a rural area, they’re going to have do what Pine Mountain is doing,”  Supervisor Don Maben said in reference to a Pine Mountain Club ballot measure that would add $70 a year to each parcel to pay for a paramedic at that fire station.

“But the county’s not going to go out and beat the drum for them. That’s something each community has to decide for itself.”

Well, that’s one way to handle a hard decision — do nothing and then blame your constituents for not taking charge.

I kind of think “leaders” ought to “lead” by looking at tough issues and coming up with solutions, even if they’re unpopular with some people, such as creating a paramedic program in the Kern County Fire Department for outlying areas.

This is a big deal for our country cousins who can expect waits of 30 minutes or more for an ambulance. Firefighters often arrive sooner, but they aren’t paramedics.

In Kern County, including Bakersfield, firefighters are emergency medical technicians (EMTs) — a significant notch below paramedics in training — and can’t perform a number of procedures, including administer life-saving drugs.

This issue was thrust back into the spotlight in an embarrassing public burp recently when Kern County Fire Chief Dennis Thompson publicly apologized for one of his firefighters who mouthed off about it.

The firefighter said, in a letter to the editor and then on Channel 17 news, that Bakersfield Mayor Harvey Hall, who owns Hall Ambulance Service, uses political influence to stymie any effort to get a fire-based medic program (thereby putting lives at risk) all in interest of the mighty buck.

That’s not only a bit melodramatic, it’s also unfair.

Everyone I spoke with, including Kern County firefighters, praised Hall’s service as exemplary. If you’re in a Hall ambulance, you are in good hands.

Big “but” here — BUT — if you can’t get into that ambulance for 30 minutes to an hour, firefighters should be trained and equipped to help as much as they can while you wait.

To that end, putting a paramedic firefighter in the 12 outlying fire stations makes sense.

Private ambulance companies have fought the proposal on a number of fronts, including accusing unions of wanting to pad members’ paychecks. That’s just as unfair as the accusations against Hall.

Please. This is about human life. Let’s cut the snark and stick to real arguments.

It’s too expensive.

True, there is substantial coin involved. It would cost an estimated $800,000, according to a February report by the county’s Emergency Medical Services Department. That could be paid by a special tax, which is before Pine Mountain Club residents this election after nearly three years of agitating by locals.

The need doesn’t justify costs.

Sure, if you’re running a business. But that’s not the standard in government for basic services such as public health and safety.

The EMS report found that in 2005 15 percent of the 55,265 emergency care calls in the county required paramedic care.

Likewise, 15.1 percent of the 2,695  calls (408) in remote communities required paramedic care.

Those 408 people would likely argue the need is there.

Even with a paramedic firefighter, you still have to wait for an ambulance to get you to the hospital.

True again. But firefighters on average get to the scene in these remote areas 20 minutes before the ambulance, according to an April update to the EMS report that took a closer look at patient outcomes in Pine Mountain Club.

When time matters, 20 minutes can mean a lot.

“It is plausible to assume that having paramedic services immediately available...might make a difference in life or death a few times each year,” according to the report.

I don’t know about you, but if my mom were one of those “few times each year” calls, I’d want that paramedic.

A lack of practice will lower skills.

Studies have shown that when paramedics don’t use their skills on a regular basis, those skills diminish. Having a firefighter paramedic who gets 15 calls a year in which he or she may need to use those skills would be a recipe for disaster.

Easy fix: Move the paramedic firefighters around to busier stations or work in regular training with ambulance crews or in hospital ERs.

A fire-based paramedic system would drain the already strained field of skilled paramedics locally, “crippling” private ambulance companies, according to a November 2007 paper by the Kern County Ambulance Association.

That’s hard to know for sure. I couldn’t find any empirical data, just anecdotal information from the EMS director in San Joaquin County who remembered that when most fire departments in the Bay Area started paramedic programs, private ambulance companies lost most of their medics who were under 30.

There are arguments on both sides.

But we only have to look to California City to see that fire-based paramedics have been extremely beneficial without destroying private business.

Back in 1998 one paramedic per shift was added to the one-engine department’s roster.

The medics are kept busy, with over 2,000 calls per year, according to Capt. Marcus Martinov. Because of the area’s popularity with off roaders, he said, his is the fourth-busiest fire station in Kern County. The two Hall ambulances in town are just as busy and work seamlessly with the fire department, he noted.

Martinov said the town’s established parcel tax pays for the service.

“It operates at a loss,” he said. “Except when you consider human life.”

Given that example, I’m confident there is common ground to work from.

Without leadership from our supervisors, however, we’re never going to find it.

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
 

As the Big West of California oil refinery expansion lurched toward approval Tuesday, I found myself thinking not of mud acid, toxic clouds, jobs or even increased fuel supplies and how that might affect our local economic security.

No, my thoughts instead were with Rosedale Highway — the traffic beast of Bakersfield I battle each day.

Construction of Big West’s expansion means two years of fresh hell on Rosedale with increased trucks, heavy equipment and construction worker traffic.
After construction, the operation will bring 70 extra truck trips per day in and out of the refinery as well as about 60 new permanent workers, 40 more contractors and their cars and trucks.

The environmental documents shrug off the extra traffic saying, basically, it is what it is and it can’t be fixed.
I have always supported the expansion — with greater public disclosure and safety caveats — and I still support it even as I anticipate grumbling behind more tanker trucks.

But we have got to get our behinds behind us, so to speak, and address what’s about to happen to Rosedale Highway, not just from Big West’s traffic, but also massive retail and housing developments planned further to the west.

After checking up on road projects that have been touted as our saviors from the beast, I’m not at all convinced Rosedale motorists will get relief anytime soon — if ever.

There were two key projects on the TRIP (Thomas Roads Improvement Program) list for which I had high hopes.

One was the Rosedale widening project that would increase lanes from four to six between Highway 99 and Calloway Drive. The other is  the Hageman “flyover” that would take traffic on Hageman Road over 99 and connect it to Golden State Avenue (Highway 204).

Of those two, the Hageman flyover is considered a linchpin to our traffic troubles in the northwest by offering commuters an alternative to Rosedale.

“Hageman is the answer,” Kern County Roads Department Commissioner Craig Pope said.

And though both projects are still “alive” in that they’ve begun the environmental review process, according to TRIP spokeswoman Janet Wheeler, roads insiders have told me there isn’t money to build the flyover.

One possible source of money could be revenue from about $150 million in local transportation bonds. Of that, the county has pledged $70 million toward TRIP projects. That money could go to the flyover.

Wheeler said the financial plan for the flyover and the Rosedale widening, as well as the 24th Street widening, the West Beltway, the Morning Drive interchange and Highway 178 widening is being “updated” and would be done in about a month.
If there just isn’t enough money in the pot, though, I’m not sure how rejiggering the numbers will help.

The other Rosedale fix I’d fervently wished for was an overpass over the Landco Spur railroad crossing that routinely snarls traffic on Rosedale.  The city had asked for state money but we were turned down.

Great.

Guess I’ll have even more time to admire those shiny Big West tankers.

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

There are few reasons to be hopeful when discussing domestic violence.

The stats are grim — more than 1,600 arrests by the Bakersfield Police Department and more than 1,400 by the Kern County Sheriff’s Department in 2007. And that, of course, doesn’t count the silent suffering.

But being a hard-headed optimist (yes, me) and this being Domestic Violence Awareness Month, I went in search of hope anyway.

Turns out there’s a glimmer of it shining from a unique local program initiated by Greater Bakersfield Legal Assistance.

GBLA mainly assists the poor and elderly with non-criminal legal issues. But has also worked for years with domestic violence victims obtaining restraining orders and divorces.

Helping clean up the legal tatters, though, did nothing to staunch the continuing cycle of violence.

So, the folks at GBLA put their heads together and created a program that not only helps address legal issues, but also the victims’ safety, employment, housing, health, children’s care, mental health and other issues.

“The focus is to take away the barriers that would keep people from going forward and having productive lives,” GBLA Supervising Attorney Phong Han told me.

GBLA got a $300,000 one-year grant through First 5 Kern last year and hired case managers to take clients on the journey from victim to independent householder.

That means case managers help with everything: Getting the family into a safe living environment; helping find a job or job training; going back to school; finding day care; getting counseling for the parent and kids; and on and on.

If they can’t figure out how to feed their kids, many victims will fall back into a violent relationship because they feel they have no other option. This program is all about options.

While case managers help the parent, the focus is really on the children, Han said.

To be eligible, clients must either be pregnant or have children ages 0-5.

Having physically warring parents is so damaging to children that studies show it can impede brain development even in newborns, Han said. And we’ve all heard how children in abusive families often grow up to become abusers or victims themselves.

“We’re trying to stem that as early as possible,” Han said.

Clients, he said, hail from all walks of life. About 25 percent are Spanish speaking only, a testament to the hidden domestic violence problems among immigrants. But others are in high-paying white collar jobs.

The program is not quite one year old, but has taken on 225 clients so far. Han told me in the last three months they’ve been picking up 30 new clients a month.

First 5 Kern requires monthly reports on the program and was so pleased with its success they opted to fund it through June of 2010, according to Han.

Very few GBLA clients have backed out of the program, which is often not the case in criminal prosecutions for domestic violence.

“We don’t have an exact percentage, but it’s more the rule that victims do recant,” said Deputy District Attorney Lisa Green, who supervises the unit that prosecutes domestic violence. That unit had been able to ramp up prosecutions thanks to two state grants. But on of those, the “Spousal Abuse Grant,” was cut in the state budget debacle. That grant paid for part of one of the two prosecutors dedicated to domestic violence cases.

Green, however, said the office is committed to keeping both prosecutors in place and will continue its caseload.

Using those two grants, the DA charged more than 300 defendants with domestic violence in 2006-2007.

Most of those (154) did result in some type of felony conviction. The next biggest chunk (114) pleaded to misdemeanor charges. Nearly 90 defendants did some jail time with felony probation and 58 actually went to prison, according to stats from the DA’s office.

Prosecuting these criminals is obviously important for the victims and the community at large. But if victims won’t, or can’t, go that route, they can use other paths to escape the violence.

GBLA’s case managers, who work closely with other county agencies in all parts of Kern, put no pressure on clients to prosecute abusers. They aren’t even required to have a police report to get into the program. And there are no punitive measures such as being kicked out for missing a counseling session.

 “Most people really want this,” Han said. “By they time they get to us, they understand they can’t put their children through this.

“Their kids deserve a better life.”

I couldn’t say it better myself.

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

WHERE TO GO FOR HELP (this is, I'm sure, not a complete list, but it's a start)

If you or our children are in immediate danger, call 911.

You can also get help and services quickly if you are working Kern County Mental Health, Department of Human Services, Child Protective Services, Adult Protective services or any of the local non-profit health services agencies.

Other specific helping agencies include:
Greater Bakersfield Legal Assistance
615 California Avenue
Bakersfield, CA 93304
Bus: (661) 325-5943
Fax: (661) 325-4482
http://www.gbla.org/ez.php?...

Alliance Against Family Violence and Sexual Assault
Outreach Center 1921 19th Street
Bakersfield, CA 93301
661-322-9199
24-Hour Hotline (661) 327-1091
Toll Free 1-800-273-7713
http://www.kernalliance.org...

Family resource centers under the umbrella of the Kern County Network for Children can also get services for victims of domestic violence
• 34th St. Neighborhood Partnership - KCNC Accredited
Kern County Museum, 3801 Chester Ave., Bakersfield, CA 93301
Sandy Morris (661) 326-3051

• Arvin Collaborative
A Partner In The South Valley Neighborhood Partnership
207 South A St., Arvin (661) 854-6525
Karen Davis (661) 854-6526


• Buttonwillow Collaborative
42600 Hwy 58, Buttonwillow, CA 93206
Lucette Garcia (661) 764-9405

• California City Community Collaborative
21000 Hacienda Blvd., California City, CA 93505
Steve Colerick (760) 373-8606

• East Bakersfield Collaborative
Boys and Girls Club, 801 Niles St., Bakersfield, CA 93305
Renee Stancil (661) 325-3730

• East Kern Collaborative
15662 K St., Mojave, CA 93501
Larry Garcia (661) 824-4118

• Fairfax/Brundage Partnership
1408 Marion Dr., Bakersfield, CA
Debbie Johnston (661) 979-2635

• Frazier Park Collaborative
3015 Mt. Pinos Way #102
Anne Weber (661) 245-4303

• Greenfield Collaborative
5400 Monitor St., Bakersfield, CA 93307
Linda Raygoza (661) 837-3720

• Indian Wells Valley Collaborative
825 N. Downs, Ste. A, Ridgecrest, CA 93555
Nancy Ribultan (760) 375-4357

• Kern River Valley Collaborative
5109 Lake Isabella Blvd.
Nancy Puckett (760) 379-2556

• Lamont Collaborative
7839 Burgundy Ave., Lamont
Jennifer Wood (661) 845-2724

• McFarland Community Collaborative
Browning Rd School, 410 E Perkins Ave.
Margie Perez (661) 792-1883

• Richardson Special Needs Collaborative
Richardson Center, 1515 Feliz Dr., Bakersfield, CA 93307
Bill Reifel (661) 336-5482

• Shafter Collaborative
331 Shafter Ave., Shafter, CA 93263
Laurie Roth (661) 746-8690

• Southeast Neighborhood Partnership
1509 E. 11th St., Bakersfield, CA 93307
Linda Estelle (661) 322-3276
1301 Cannon Ave., Bakersfield, CA 93307
Rodrigo Vasquez (661) 836-4165

• South Chester Collaborative
800 Ming Ave., Bakersfield, CA 93307
Anne Bistany (661) 496-3017 or Debbie Wood (661) 631-5895

• Taft Collaborative
915 North 10th St., #34, Taft, CA 93268
Sandy Koenig (661) 765-7281

• Wasco Collaborative
Patrick Flores (661) 720-5835 or Sam Torres (661) 758-7115
1600 Palm Ave, Wasco, CA
 

I have a feeling Karen King is going to become my hero.

She’s the new executive director of Golden Empire Transit, the bus lady.

And she’s here to clean up this town. Or at least devise a smarter system that uses what resources we have to maximize ridership, help unclog our streets and de-foul (OK, I made that word up) our air, all in a single bound.

If I could sew, I’d make her a cape with a giant “T” on it for transit.

Perhaps you think I gush too much, but I truly believe public transit is one of the best ways to reduce our traffic congestion and improve air quality. Because it’s been ignored, discounted and downright kicked to the curb in this town for so long, it now holds the greatest potential of any solutions on the horizon.

And King has been a shining star in the transit trenches.

Seriously, I was amazed we could lure King — most recently the head of the North County Public Transit District near San Diego. So I asked her, “How’d we lure you here?”

Turns out she loves a challenge.

Bakersfield is nothing if not a big ol’ fat challenge.

“I don’t have unrealistic expectations,” she said of how fast and how much she can change things. “I’m a marathoner, not a sprinter.”

For example, she had two marching orders when she took her last job: Redesign the bus system and get a new light rail line built.

The bus system was relatively quick and painless compared to the Sprinter light rail line, which she did get done after 10 long years and half a billion dollars. It now zips 7,600 riders a day along a 22-mile route between Oceanside and Escondido.

“GET is a diamond in the rough,” she said, using words like “basic” and “solid” to describe the service. “But (Bakersfield) is changing. The future is changing.”

You wouldn’t know it from the way city and county officials continue to approve far-flung housing developments without even the hint of a thought toward public transit.

Hopefully, that’ll start to change soon as planners adapt to the new law (SB 375) that requires more compact, transit-oriented development. Public transit holds a key position in that mandate.

Oh, and Attorney General Jerry Brown hasn’t been shy about suing cities and counties when he feels their general plans aren’t aligned with the state’s goals for cutting greenhouse gases (AB 32), which puts a heavy emphasis on public transit. (That threat alone, I’m told, has pushed back the Kern/Bakersfield joint general plan by several months, maybe even a year.)

All of which puts King and GET in prime position to get transit back into the planning process.

If you’ve ever read environmental impact reports on housing developments in Bakersfield (great insomnia cure, by the by), you would see the same pattern I have over the years.

Such reports have to go to all affected agencies, including GET, for comments. Invariably, GET sends the same pathetic form letter stating that if the development is built as planned, it will be too far outside current service areas and won’t have the density to allow bus service.

The letter goes in the back of the report and that’s that.

Not anymore.

King will be right in there with the Kern Council of Governments helping create a new development plan for the region, as required by SB 375.

“I’m looking forward to GET formally becoming an integral part of the planning process,” she said.

And she’s already brimming with short-term ideas from just a quick look around the community.

Parking, for instance, in downtown and out at Cal State Bakersfield is dirt cheap. Maybe if costs went up, it would be incentive to get people on the bus, she suggested.

Of course, she acknowledged the bus has to be so convenient people won’t just shrug and pay extra to park their cars.

On that score, she said, GET commissioned a service study last year, which was finished when she came on board in June. She was careful to tell me any service changes GET might make are up to the board of directors.

But she did mention there has been interest in an express route to downtown and said the system needs to focus on what areas it can best serve. I asked specifically if that meant cutting out routes to the northwest and southwest, but King was cagey.

Some longer term ideas, such as making sure new roads include dedicated bus/bike lanes and possibly even room for light rail, will take consensus from city and county planners. And by long term, King is looking 25 years into the future.

“Transit isn’t the only answer,” she said. “It’s one of the pieces. And now with AB 32 and SB 375, it can’t be ignored.”

Hallelujah, sister!

•••

An update on my last column regarding the Kern High School District trustee election:

I did a very informal survey and one of the questions was whether the candidates had ever flunked a class.

Candidate Bill Perry, whose career was spent in education, inadvertently missed that question.

He later answered it with an unequivocal NO, he has never flunked a class.

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

I'm not sure, but I think this lady is accusing me of hastening the Second Coming of Christ for my column stating that Chad Vegas should not be re-elected to the Kern High School Board of trustees because of of his attempts to insert religion into students' lives.

I don't know about the Second Coming. But I am going to flat out disagree with her assertion that modern day vocational education can be taught using nothing more than the Bible.

When I got my surveys back from the Kern High School District trustee candidates, I noted that Bill Perry did not answer one question in particular, whether he'd ever flunked a class.

He sent me this email:

While completing three different questionnaires for the Bakersfield Californian, I completely missed the question: "Have you ever flunked a class, if so, which one and when"?  For the record, the answer is no. I have never flunked a class in my life.
 
I'm requesting that this oversight be corrected. If this is not possible, I want the record clarified with the Californian, so if this information is referred to in the future you have an answer to that question.
 
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
 
Bill Perry
 

When you settle in to vote for two Kern High School District trustees on Nov. 4, remember your ABCs — Anyone But Chad.

As in Chad Vegas, the lightning- rod trustee who has polarized the district with unnecessary religious debates that have no place in public education and take away from real problems that need attention.

Aside from pushing to change winter/spring breaks to Christmas/Easter and mandating “In God We Trust” posters be put in every classroom, he has also publicly stated that he would not follow a law if it crossed his religious beliefs.

“My oath was not to uphold every statute or decision made by the courts,” he wrote in a letter to this newspaper.

Actually, that’s exactly what it means. If a law or court decision so offends, quit your office in protest and work against the law as a private citizen.
But you can’t have it both ways.

In a recent Californian Editorial board meeting with all the KHSD candidates Vegas said that, if elected, he doesn’t plan to introduce any more social/religious proposals. He wants to focus on education now, he said.

Too late.

The other trustee up for re-election is Bob Hampton, who has parried Vegas’ religious thrusts, saying students’ spirituality should be up to their families, not school teachers and administrators. Hear, hear!

You will also see five challengers on the ballot and possibly one or more write-in candidates.

So, now that I’ve recommended who we should not elect (Vegas), who should we elect?

Hey, that’s up to you!

But to help with your candidate homework, I did a small survey (separate from The Californian’s Opinion department) that I think adds greater dimension to the hopefuls seeking your vote.

The biggest news out of my totally unscientific survey was that one candidate actually copped to cheating — Vegas!

The question was whether they had ever cheated on an exam. All the other candidates said no.

Vegas said: “I never cheated on an exam, but I cheated on numerous quizzes. I learned that it was easy to cheat and that my heart is far more sinful than I thought at the time.”

Despite my dislike of Vegas’ social/religious agenda, I admire his honesty. And I have some sympathy, as I had a geometry class in high school I would never have survived without a bit of, er, creative test-taking skills.

But I digress.

None of the trustee candidates owned up to ditching, per se. I asked if they attended the last day of their senior year (wasn’t that a free day?). Most said yes, except Vegas, who wanted clarification as to whether I was talking about “Senior Week.”

Charles Cournyea did not attend the last day of his senior year because he had quit school in his junior year and was serving in Vietnam, which I’m counting as an excused absence.

I also wanted to know if any of the seven trustee hopefuls had flunked a class.

Five candidates admitted that, yes, they had. Hampton said no and Bill Perry skipped that question. Hmmm.

The flunkers (flunkees?) were: Charlie Rodriguez, Spanish his junior year; Robert S. Frank II, government his senior year; Cournyea, algebra his freshman year; and both Vegas and Larry W. “Captain” Bly, geometry their sophomore years. I can relate to that last one.

OK, I did ask some serious questions, such as what to do about KHSD’s high drop out rate and low test scores and whether the candidates supported trustees sitting in on job interviews for teachers and administrators.

Here are some highlights.

Most candidates except Vegas and Bly did not like the idea of trustees sitting in on job interviews. Though Bly said he probably never would sit in on an interview, he didn’t feel it would be a bad precedent for a trustee. Vegas supported it as a means of evaluating the performance of Superintendent Don Carter.

Cournyea was most passionate about the dropout issue, having dropped out himself. He wants to create a mentoring program.

More parental involvement was Hampton’s answer to the dropout rate. He felt it was most important to be “positive in every part of the instruction process” regarding test scores.

On test scores, Perry, a long-time educator himself, laid out a plan for doing more work to understand the underlying reason for low test scores.

Bly felt scores would improve if teachers tested students at the beginning of the year and developed self-paced, individual instruction so the student could improve in areas they were deficient.

Rodriguez worried that low test scores might be a result of busing and that students are focused more on fitting in than academics.

Frank said he didn’t know how to fix either problem. But, he said, he knew enough to ask the right questions to find an answer.

Almost every candidate — with the exception of Vegas, of course — stressed that KHSD absolutely must stop the side-show religion-based distractions and focus on education.

Now that’s a concept I can endorse.

See the complete candidate surveys on bakersfield.com

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

I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many cowboy hats in one place without a major piece of meat on the grill.

But there they were, more than 120 cowboys and cowgirls (even a few cowgrammas and grampas too) crowded into a tiny hall above Frazier Park on the last day of September waiting to have their say.

It had been a long time coming.

This was the first — and only — public meeting held by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service inviting open discussion of its plans for managing the Bitter Creek Wildlife National Wildlife Refuge.

The refuge is 14,000 acres of hilly grasslands above Maricopa that was home to a working cattle ranch for more than 100 years before the government bought it in 1986 as California condor habitat.

It’s closed to public use but had allowed limited cattle grazing, for a fee, to keep down fire hazards and encourage native grasses. About three years ago, however, Fish and Wildlife managers kicked the cows off entirely while they crafted a new management plan. The options were outlined in a draft environmental assessment released last spring.

The “preferred alternative” in that document would allow some seasonal grazing.

In case grazing doesn’t work, and ranchers told me restrictions included in the plan would make it infeasible, the preferred alternative also calls for burning on up to 9,000 acres of the refuge. Great idea in this air basin, huh?

In my last column on this issue, I railed about how this plan came to fruition without a public hearing and not even any notification to Kern County.

Well, turns out this lone wolf act is par for the course with the Ventura-based Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge Complex, which oversees Bitter Creek and the entire Condor Recovery Program.

And it’s not just me saying that.

A lengthy and thorough audit of the condor program commissioned by Audubon California and released this August describes an archaic and autocratic management style by Hopper Mountain that is plagued by poor communication and operates under a Byzantine structure that makes information sharing difficult, if not impossible.
Sounds familiar.

To be fair, the condor audit and its lead author, Virginia Tech biology professor Jeff Walters, told me Fish and Wildlife has been operating in such a crisis mode to try to save the condors it hasn’t had time to step back and assess whether the recovery program’s structure is optimal.

True enough, they started in the mid-1980s with 22 birds left on earth. Twenty-two!

Through a lot of hard work and incredible determination, there are now about 300 condors either in captivity or swirling around California, Arizona and Mexico. (The audit is clear, though, that unless lead poisoning from hunter’s ammo is brought under control, there won’t be much more forward movement for the condors.)

Fish and Wildlife’s efforts so far truly deserve praise. And the audit gives that praise. But it also doesn’t stint on the problems.

“Program inequity and lack of shared and effective leadership make new partners feel uninformed and undervalued. They often feel out-of-sight and out-of-mind when it comes to programmatic decision-making and coordination. Similarly, stakeholders outside the program must navigate a confusing programmatic structure to voice concerns and remain informed about recovery.”

The Bitter Creek area ranchers can surely relate to this, having to get a congressman and the newspaper involved before Fish and Wildlife would deign to hold a public meeting about how our own public land should be managed.

In the case of the condors, Fish and Wildlife’s arcane management style, particularly in regards to  Bitter Creek, has led to high turnover among field personnel, worsening communication between the zoos that breed the birds in captivity and the field workers who release them into the wild and monitor their nesting.

“The panel found this situation shocking...” the audit says.

The overall lack of leadership has also created a dearth of independent scientific evaluation from outside the condor program, according to the audit.

Another familiar ring.

The environmental assessment on managing Bitter Creek similarly lacked a lot of scientific backup, prompting Congressmen Kevin McCarthy, who attended the public meeting, to call for a full environmental impact report if Fish and Wildlife insists on keeping burning as an option.

The audit doesn’t conclude that the situation is hopeless and neither do I.

It does, however, make numerous recommendations to open the recovery program to outside expertise and create a streamlined structure that allows more input, information sharing and consensus.

Coincidentally, that’s all the ranchers at that Sept. 30 meeting wanted as well.

Before opening the meeting to public comments, Marc Weitzel, the Hopper Mountain project leader, said he was astounded by the turnout.

Considering Fish and Wildlife did everything to keep turnout low — even picking a tiny public hall in a remote location despite an offer, in writing, to use Maricopa Unified School District’s 300-person capacity hall right there in town — Weitzel’s comment wasn’t surprising.

This agency isn’t exactly a shining example of collaboration, though perhaps things are changing.

“Hindsight is 2020, and we do realize now that we should have held a workshop at the beginning of the scoping process to reach out better,” Fish and Wildlife spokesman Chris Barr told me. “We regret we did not do that.”

At least we agree on that.

These are Lois Henry’s opinons,
not necessarily The Californian’s. Her column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Call her at 395-7373 or write lhenry@bakersfield.com.

Actually, this lady doesn't "slam" me. She disagrees with my Chad Vegas/Scott Cox "signgate" column but does so in a very polite way. And she acknowledges that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. A TRUE American!

I do take issue with her assertion that I'm unhappy with Vegas because he believes in God.  I'm perfectly fine with his personal beliefs. I just don't like his attempts to impose them on the students at Kern High School District.

The party is over.

And none too soon.

I’m talking about freewheeling, irresponsible development and Senate Bill 375, which was signed into law on Tuesday.

This law does one very, seemingly, simple thing — it ties development to transportation (and ultimately our wretched air pollution).

And it uses state money as both a carrot and stick to get local officials to go along.

There are a lot of implementation questions still to be settled, but here’s a general overview of how it works:

The Kern Council of Governments will have to create an overall development/transportation blueprint using greenhouse gas emission goals set down by the California Air Resources Board.

To achieve those emission reductions, the blueprint must incorporate things like (gasp!) public transit, the mixing of office, retail and housing so people don’t have to drive as far or as much, and incentives to encourage infill development and discourage far-flung growth.

In other words, age-old, well-known, often-discussed-but-never-used “smart growth” techniques to make our communities more compact so we stop spewing so much crap into the air every time we go out for a bagel.

To make this palatable to developers, the law requires a full environmental impact report on the blueprint. So if builders propose a development within the blueprint, they don’t have to spend their own time and money on a separate EIR.

And to make sure the blueprint is more than just a dust collector on the back of some city planner’s shelf, the state will withhold transportation money (and possibly housing and other types of funding) if a city or county approves a development that doesn’t adhere to the goals in the blueprint.

The law doesn’t say you can’t color outside the lines. Just that, if you do, there are consequences.

Brilliant!

This way, Bakersfield and Kern County can keep doing things the same good old boy way they always have — approving leapfrog development out in the hinterlands to their hearts’ desire.

They’ll just have to pay for the roads all on their own.

Hey, no problem, right? We all know how great we are at funding our own roads.

Bruce Freeman, CEO of Castle & Cooke, was leery that SB 375 will cost developers more money. And he was very skeptical of the public’s desire for higher-density housing.

“We have a cultural issue here,” he said of Bakersfield residents who, he said, want big houses, big yards and wide streets. “It will be a challenge.”

But personally, “I’d much prefer to see higher-density, higher-quality housing than more and more single-family houses on 6,000-square-foot lots, one after the other all the way down to the mountains.”

Local planners I talked to had mixed feelings about SB 375.

They all agreed it will change how we do things here — exactly how is still up in the air.

And they thought it was good, generally, to address green house gas emissions.

But they all felt the new law takes away local control.

To which Ed Thompson, California director for American Farmland Trust, said, (and I agree) “Development was out of control! They weren’t exercising local control. Maybe what they’re really talking about is political power.”

Ya think?

The only problem I see with SB 375 is it was too late to stop yet another boneheaded development approved recently by the Kern County Board of Supervisors.

They gave the thumbs up to three projects in the extreme northwest at Nord and Palm avenues, having already approved a sister project at Nord and Dunn avenues last spring. The so-called Northwest Communities, 800 houses on 276 acres, leap far past existing similar development into “ranchette” land where neighbors have one- to five-acre lots.

Supervisors approved the developments despite recommendations for denial from their own planning staff as well as the Planning Commission. In the process Supervisors made noises about needing to be “smarter” in how we use our land resources and stopping “urban sprawl.”

Puhleeze! These are textbook examples of sprawl.

I asked Supervisor Ray Watson, who championed the developments, how he could say it wasn’t sprawl.

He said the area has scattered development already so it’s not ag land in the purest sense. Besides, he said, he really wanted to get sewer lines out there and the Northwest Communities developers promised sewer.

I’d agree with him if it was a densely populated area all on septic. But it’s not. This is just more haphazard growth based on developer whim, rather than well thought-out planning.

Oh, and of course, there’s a lawsuit. That’s planning the Kern County way.

Hopefully, SB 375 will set a new standard for planning. One that actually involves, you know, planning.

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

This reader takes issue with Ed Jagels' refusal to charge radio show host Scott Cox for the theft of 15 Chad Vegas campaign signs.

I'm sure we can all see where this will lead...

"I didn't STEAL the brand new Jaguar, I was just BORROWING it!"