What is it about the word "open" that sends chills down the spines of some
political types?

In this case I'm talking about the open primary Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa
Maria, strong-armed the Legislature into putting on the 2010 ballot in
exchange for his vote to close the state budget gap.

I've always liked the idea of an open primary because it would give me a
greater range of choice. Like most voters, I'm not a die-hard party
faithful. I've never given money to any candidate, cause or party.

Under Maldonado's proposal, I and other voters like me, could vote for
whichever congressional or state level candidate we wanted, regardless of
party affiliation and the two top vote-getters, again regardless of party,
would face off in the general election.

That's perfect for me. I like to weigh each candidate's track record and how
they approach the issues that matter most to me, regardless of the letter
after their name.

Besides giving voters more choice, many political reformers believe an open
primary would produce more moderate candidates instead of the wild-eyed
ideologues now roaming the Capitol who create more confrontation than
forward movement.

Even in lopsided districts where one party vastly outnumbers the other, the
theory is that if you had a slate full of Democrats, the strongest candidate
would be one who also appealed to moderate or even conservative voters in
order to win a slot in the general election.

As for possible mischief being a major concern, A.G. Block, longtime former
editor of the political magazine California Journal and now director of the
public affairs/journalism program at University of California Center
Sacramento, shrugged it off.

"You hear all the time that the Dems could vote for the weakest Republican
or vice versa,² he said. 'So what? The Republican would still win. But I
don't think that happens much anyway.

"The more logical conclusion is that the Democrat, or Republican,  would
look for the candidate who was closer to their own views."

Over time, that could help put more open-minded legislators in Sacramento,
he said.

We made a stab at having an open primary in 1998. But the major political
parties sued and it was declared unconstitutional because it interfered with
the parties' right of free association.

Another attempt in 2004 was thwarted after leaders in the Legislature pulled
a really scummy trick and put a competing measure on the ballot at the last
minute that included an unrelated sweetener calling for the sale of excess
state property to pay down the deficit. (Kevin McCarthy, now our
congressman, and state Sen. Roy Ashburn both voted for this.)

The flim-flam worked and we still have a closed primary, sort of.

If you're a "decline to state" rather than a registered party member, you
can sometimes vote in another party's primary IF that party allows it in
that election and only for certain races as designated by the party.

Not exactly "open."

A quick poll of our legislators found that Sen. Dean Florez, a Democrat, is
for an open primary and Ashburn, a Republican, is against it.
Assemblyman Danny Gilmore, R-Hanford, voted for Maldonado's measure, even
though he voted against other portions of the budget package.

"I think it possibly could help,² he told me. "I'll tell you there are some
real strong opinions in that building far to the left and right. I find it
interesting and frustrating, honestly." Gilmore noted the growing number of
independents, people who¹ve left both parties, in his home district. He
expects that trend to continue.

Assemblywoman Jean Fuller, R-Bakersfield, did not return my calls.

Ashburn, who stood by his 2004 vote, said an open primary is bad for
democracy.

"If people who don't share the same philosophies, principles and ideals of a
certain party get to select that party's nominee, it seems to me it would be
the end of political parties and they are fundamental to our way of
democracy," Ashburn said.

Still, he said, it should be up to voters to decide.

Florez predicted a fight.

"The chamber and business interests would probably support it given the
likely outcome of more moderates being elected," Florez said in an email.

"However, would this be another fight where the Congressional Dems and Reps
try to kill the initiative so they don¹t have to worry about playing in a
different game.

"Both parties will will oppose it."

He couldn't be more right about that.

"I don¹t think it's right for Republicans to chose my candidates," said
Candi Easter, chair of the Kern County Democratic Central Committee. "My
position in my party IS to influence candidates and legislators to bring
them closer to my way of thinking."

"I'm 100 percent opposed to it," said Stan Harper, long-time local
Republican campaign consultant. "It's totally unfair that Democrats or
Republicans would have the opportunity to vote in a primary to help elect a
nominee from the opposing party in order to make them more conservative or
more liberal."

Well, at least they can agree on that.

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

California’s never-ending “fiscal crisis” is starting to remind me of the weather — everyone complains about it but nobody ever does anything to change it.

Budget debate has ground to a halt in Sacramento AH-gain. Dems don’t want to cut and Repubs don’t want any new taxes.

Bleh!

Can’t they at least come up with some new excuses for not doing their jobs?

Actually, um, I think we (the voters) might be part of the problem.

I looked over some past propositions and when you add them up, they leave very little negotiating room when it comes to producing statewide budget.

Prop. 98, passed in 1988, requires the state to maintain a minimum funding level for kindergarten through 12th grade that adds up to about 40 percent or higher of the general fund.

That’s a big swipe right there.

Then there are restrictions on the rate government can increase appropriations, brought on by Prop. 4, passed in 1979.

And there certain no-nos for where government can get new money. Consider Proposition 163, which not only repealed the snack tax in 1992 but prohibited the state from ever reinstating a tax on candy, cookies, chips and other junk food.

When the state does find a way to wheedle more money out of taxpayers, it’s quickly locked away into specific programs, such as when Proposition 10, passed in 1998, created a 50-cent per pack cigarette tax. Or when Prop 63, passed in 2004, created a surcharge on income taxes for those making $1 million or more.

Both have generated millions but in the case of Prop. 10, that money is exclusively used for childhood development programs and Prop 63 money is for mental health.

And these are just a few of the proposisions directly budget related restrictions.

So the voters have told the Legislature: DON’T cut any vital services such as medical care and education but at the same time, you can’t touch up to half the money coming in; don’t even think about new taxes on certain things and just forget about that other money streaming in for special programs.

Wow, we sound, well, like state regulators setting the poor Legislature up for failure.

“The general answer is, yes, it (proposition process) is a constraint to the budget process,” said Fred Silva, fiscal advisor for a government reform group called California Forward. Silva was also a top fiscal advisor in the Senate for years, was with the Constitution Revision Commission and with the Public Policy Institute, so he knows he way around the state budget.

“But I don’t want to overstate the notion that the reason we have such gridlock is because of the initiative process,” he told me.

For instance, some propositions have language in them that would allow them to be suspended if the Legislature so chooses. Prop 98 has that language.

He said the initiative process in California, which he called a parallel power to the

Legislature, acts as a release valve for those issues too thorny for our representatives, such as property taxes, auto insurance, mental health funding and more.

Ahh, I said, so the proposition problem (as I characterized it) is because our legislators are lazy?

Yes and no, Silva said.

“Most of the big measures are on the ballot because they’re constitutional amendments, or bond measures, which both require voter approval,” he said. “So it’s been a mixed bag.”

While Silva and California Forward aren’t ready to dump the initiative process, Silva did tell me of some reform ideas floating around, such as creating some kind of intermediary commission to give more scrutiny to initiatives or making sure any initiatives that mandate new programs come with their own funding mechanisms, such as Prop. 10 and Prop. 63 did.

OK, so how much sympathy should I squeeze out for legislators now locked down in the Capitol trying to hammer out a budget?

Not that much, said California Forward Executive Director Jim Mayer (a former Californian reporter, by the way.)

“Lawmakers like to say they have no discretion,” he said. “But this is all a human construct, we created it and we can change it. Over time, everything can be put on the table.”

That’s exactly what the bipartisan California Forward intends to do with legislation aimed at reforming the budget process. Launched in March 2008, the group has been meeting with legislators as well as business and community members up and down the state to come up with a viable plan to keep this from happening again.

“We’re not a think tank,” Mayer told me. “We look at other people’s reports and say, ‘OK what are we going to do about it?’”

Finally, maybe there’ll be a break in the weather.

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

Several women have emailed to say they KNEW there was something out of whack here and thanks for putting the numbers to the sense that women with higher education and professional jobs far outnumber single men with those same demographics.

One lady told me she'd be taking up golf ASAP as that's where the single professional men are all "hiding."

ON THE OTHER HAND!!!

I've received a fair number of emails from MEN both in the blue collar and white collar crowd saying they haven't been able to find any quality women to date here. Some have taken me to task for the stats I presented and others are just outright asking for names and numbers.

Clearly this is an issue that strikes at a lot of lonely hearts here in old Bakersburg.

Oh, and this lovely gentleman emailed me the following advice:

"Allow me to offer you a suggestion: Windbags like you will have the most luck securing a date and relationship at your local gay bar. Try being a lesbian or find a nice sissy boy who doesn't mind women of your ilk."

Should my former Marine, truck-drivin', football-loving, cowboy of a husband be offended? Eh, he's pretty tough...look who he married!

It’s true.

Single women in Bakersfield have said it for years and now I have the stats to back them up: There are no eligible men here!

Specifically, if you’re a single, highly educated professional woman between the ages of 25 to 44 looking for same, the pickin’s are slim to none.

This being Valentine’s Day weekend, I asked The Californian’s market research department if they could statistically determine whether love truly is a battlefield in Bakersfield.

Battlefield? No, it’s a massacre.

The problem isn’t that there aren’t any single men here. There are scads of them.

But when you break it down by higher education (Bakersfield’s ever-aching Achilles heel), eligible men drop off faster than dumb blondes in a zombie movie.

Even though there are 10.6 percent more single men than single women ages 25-44 (38,786 vs. 31,330),  the women with college degrees outnumber the men by 17 percent (6,836 vs. 4,829).

That’s a seriously small fish pond.

We also broke things down by income looking at singles with any income and those with incomes of $35,000 a year or better, which gave a more definition to numbers from Scarborough Research on metro Bakersfield from Oct. 2007 to Sept. 2008.

More definition, however, didn’t mean a better outlook for single women.

If it’s true that many people meet their future mates at work, Bakersfield’s singles are working, literally, at cross purposes.

For single men of any income, only 13.5 percent work in white-collar jobs. And only 22.9 percent of single men who make over $35,000 a year are white-collar workers. But for those same categories among single women, the numbers are 42.4 percent and 57.1 percent.

Meanwhile, blue-collar jobs are where you’ll find 58.7 percent of single guys and 50.8 percent of those making $35,000 and up (compare that to 28.1 percent and 18.2 percent of single women, respectively).

Please don’t think that the world of an educated, professional single woman revolves around degrees and tax brackets. It doesn’t. But just like age or religion, those can be compatibility issues.

I’m not saying love couldn’t blossom between a Harvard-educated psychologist and a backhoe driver — sure it could. But having basic experiences, values and interests in common helps.

That in mind, I gleaned a few tips from the stats on where — exactly — to find Bakersfield’s elusive single males (between the ages of 25 and 44, with college degrees and professional jobs).

No. 1 hunting ground — the golf course.

Nearly 12 percent of single men any income and 18.6 percent earning more than $35,000 play golf.

Meanwhile, ZERO (0!) percent of single women in those categories hit the links.

That means no competition, gals. (I’ve heard the same about rock climbing, but don’t have stats on that sport.)

Cycling is also chock full o’ men and low in women, especially for the $35,000 and more category (22.2 percent men to 18 percent women).

Go to a Condors hockey game (9.5 percent of single men do compared to 5.5 percent of single women). Or better yet, the Los Angeles Dodgers (11.8 percent, men/0.9 percent women!)

When you’re making dinner reservations think Basque (13.1 percent single men/5.8 percent single women) or any steakhouse (26.8 percent men/18 percent women).

Vacation? Save up and head to England or any European country. Three times as many affluent, educated single guys are hopping the pond as women.

But, girls, I have to warn you, if any of you do happen to land one of these slippery singles, you might have even more work teaching them how to hang on to YOU.

The stats show that in the past 12 months only 5.5 percent of Bakersfield’s single men of any income and only 7 percent of single men earning $35,000 and up shopped at a florist.

During that same period, nearly double the number of single women in both categories shopped at a florist.

Come on, guys. Being sought after is no excuse to slack off in the romance department!

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 admit it: A website that’s popped up pinpointing the exact addresses, names and occupations of donors and the amounts they gave to “Yes on Proposition 8,” which denied gays the right to marry, made me feel a little icky.

The site gets you right down to the donors’ block on a lovely, easy-to-use Google map.

What some crazy might do with that information is disturbing to think about.

Squeamishness aside, though, I stand by the anonymous website creators’ right to splash this information all over the Internet.

The alternative — keeping campaign donations secret — is anathema to the American way.

I want to know who’s giving money to campaigns and candidates. And so do you, no exceptions.

You may recall that a U.S. District Court judge recently ruled exactly that way last month when a Yes on 8 group challenged the constitutionality of requiring people to publicly state their names, addresses and occupations when giving more than $100 to political campaigns.

Scores of Yes donors had suffered harassment, even death threats, the plaintiffs said.

Too bad, but no dice.

“The court finds that the state is not facilitating retaliation by compelling disclosure,” Judge Morrison C. England Jr. ruled.

There is some speculation that the donor website, www.eightmaps.com (sorry, but not giving the name won’t make it go away now!), was created in direct response to that suit.

It may be “in your face” but the website is no where near illegal.

All of that information is open to the public on the Secretary of State’s website.

But you gotta hunt for it.

And, of course, the Secretary of State gives information about donors to both sides of that contentious proposition, not just the Yes folks.

A brief catch-up for those who haven’t paid close attention:  Prop. 8 won by a 52 percent margin statewide (75 percent in Kern County). Opponents promptly sued and the California Supreme Court will hear oral arguments March 5.

So, clearly, neither side is giving in.

I was encouraged, however,  by one very, very small patch of common ground I discovered when talking to local people about this map website.

No one, even people whose names are on the site, thought the information should be secret.

“I would never advocate for legislation or court action to curtail transparency,” said Ken Mettler, former chairman on the Kern County Yes on 8 campaign who dealt with a spate of threatening and rude calls after his infamous fisticuffs with a No on 8 supporter during a street rally.

“I will say that if they’re (the website creators) using our very freedoms to thwart expression and civil discourse then they need to be exposed for that kind of tactic.”

I agree and actually hope the veil is lifted on the identities of the website creators. I know it isn’t legally required, but hey, fair is fair.

On the other side, Whitney Wedell, former chairwoman of Kern’s No on 8 campaign, also said donor information should never be shielded.

“But the website makes me uncomfortable,” she said. It went up on her group’s website and was sent out in their email, but Wedell said she hasn’t hyped it.

“I oppose anything that could lead to violence,” she said. “And there’s no reason to put addresses out there. Why would I need Ken Mettler’s address unless he’s inviting me to dinner? Which he isn’t!”

Even those listed on the website met it with a grimace and a shrug.

“It’s public disclosure,” said Bakersfield College professor Dennis Jorgensen. “What can I do?

“I’m just an average, middle class guy that had a view on this issue.”

He wondered if this kind of map would hinder anyone else from getting involved in campaigns but he wasn’t worried about himself.

“What are they gonna do to me? Picket my house?” he asked. “They’re sure not going to win any converts with this, it’ll just make us more adamant in the future.”

Beyond that, the Department Chair for Engineering and Industrial Technology appreciated the technical acumen of the website creators.

“I would have to give them a good grade,” he said and sighed. “This is the blessing and the curse of the Internet.”

True.

And if our democracy isn’t strong enough to weather this new brand of digital political give and take, we have bigger problems than a website.

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.

I could understand it if we were seeing an uptick in burglaries, robberies or smash and dash crimes right now.

The way this economy is going I half expect to see Bonnie and Clyde reincarnated on my next trip to the bank.

But abduction/sexual assaults?

Whatever it is that causes these cowardly freaks to think it’s OK to grab women, girls even, off the street — enough already. Two abductions and one attempted grab in five days!

Maybe us gals need to pack some visible heat (I’m sure Coach makes a smart bandolier).

Or we could set up a “sting” and when one of these creeps takes the bait we beat him senseless, cut off certain parts of his anatomy and leave his twitching body hanging from a pole in front of City Hall.

Hey, that’s how this stuff makes us feel — angry, vulnerable, scared, angry, suspicious, angry. Did I mention really, really angry?

Revenge fantasies aside, the real question is how we can protect ourselves in the future?

My answer always has been and always will be that the best protection against all crimes is awareness and information.

But here’s the thing, being even hyper-aware of our surroundings doesn’t help much without key information, such as knowing if sexual assaults are happening in your neighborhood.

Which brings up a sticking point between the newspaper and law enforcement.

For years The Californian has published crime maps provided by the Bakersfield Police Department (Kern County Sheriff’s Department doesn’t provide the same information, instead issuing news releases on selected crimes) showing where and when various crimes happened in the city.

We had been running them weekly, but now get the information on a daily basis and put it on our website.

Never, in all the time we’ve been publishing these reports, however, have sexual assaults been listed.

Many discussions between Californian Executive Editor Mike Jenner and Police Chief Bill Rector had not managed to resolve this issue until recently.

“We are very concerned about protecting victims, not identifying them and not causing them any further trauma,” Rector told me during a visit to his office. “However, we are trying to balance that concern with the value of getting that information out to the public.”

They’re looking at ways to let the public know when sexual assaults happen in certain beats — no street names, addresses or even block numbers would be used — in the next few weeks.

“Ultimately, our goal is to make it clear to the public what’s happening in the community to prevent them from becoming future victims and, hopefully, to help us make an arrest,” Rector said.
 

Yes!

There’s a city full of eyes and ears out here eager to pass on information that might help catch these predatory sickos.

And while we’re on a role, I would strongly urge the police (and Sheriff’s Department, which I’ll get to later) to include at least a clue as to the type of sexual assault that occurred.

Was the victim groped or raped?

No one should be touched in any way against their will. But, honestly, if we’re talking about a rape anywhere near where I live or work, I’m going to be much more vigilant.

The Sheriff’s Department, though interested in keeping the public in the loop, wasn’t as open to such a free flow of intel.

“We do let the public know when there’s a public safety issue,” Commander Dan Leper told me. “But we don’t put out every sexual assault. If it’s an acquaintance rape, how is the public going to be protected by putting out that information?”

He, like Rector, also had concerns about victim privacy and sometimes, he said, they don’t want the bad guy to know he’s being investigated.

I talked to Rector about the issue of acquaintance rapes in publicizing assaults and his take was “rape is rape.”

“How do you define stranger?” he asked. “If a woman meets a man at a bar and they end up going home together and he rapes her, it’s still rape.”

Absolutely. (Scummy bar dudes, please take note!)

Leper was also concerned about frightening the public with the vagueness of the term “sexual assault,” which could be an 18- and 17-year-old. Technically illegal but not exactly a public threat. What if you had several of those in one area of the county, would the public think a serial rapist was on the loose?

I’m not sure how much that happens, but I’d bet not often enough to outweigh the public interest in knowing more about what crimes are happening in our midst.

The issue, Leper said, is really up to Sheriff Donny Youngblood to decide.

Youngblood said he has absolutely no problem putting out information about sexual assaults, but like Leper, felt that information should be based on relevancy to public safety such as in cases of stranger rapes or abductions.

“We put out press releases on everything we feel the news media and public would like to know and should know about,” he said.

I understand his reasoning, but, personally, when it comes to sexual assaults I’d like more information rather than less and decide for myself what’s relevant.

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

PLEASE CALL

If you have any information about these incidents, please call law enforcement.
• Jan. 30, 2 p.m., parking lot of Babies R Us.

A man kidnapped a woman and her toddler at gunpoint, forced her to drive to an ATM and give him cash, then had her drive to the parking lot at Fruitvale Junior High where he sexually assaulted her and then fled.

He is described as a black male in his 30s. He is about 6 feet tall, 200 pounds with a muscular build. He was wearing a green, hooded army jacket.

Anyone with information is urged to call the Bakersfield Police non-emergency line at 327-7111 or call Detective Herman Caldas at 326-3556 or Detective Patrick Hayes at 326-3541.

• Feb. 1, 11:50 p.m., Panama and Stine Roads

Two men kidnapped a 46-year old woman and took her to an orchard off Towerline Road where they tried to sexually assault her. The woman escaped.

The suspects are described as two hispanic males, 30s. They were driving an older model, light blue, four-door compact vehicle.

Anyone with information is urged to call the Bakersfield Police non-emergency line at 661-327-7111.

• Feb. 2, 8:30 a.m., Eucalyptus and Golden drives — two blocks east of Foothill High School.

A man followed a female student in his car, then opened his door and tried to pull her in until she fought him off.

The man is described as Hispanic, medium build, about 24 years old with black hair combed forward. He was wearing a dark shirt and pants and driving a green-over-tan sport utility vehicle.

Anyone with information is urged to call the Sheriff’s non-emergency line at 861-3110, or Sgt. Craig Rennie at 391-7599 to leave a message and receive a call back.

KERN COUNTY RAPE STATS
Looking over rape statistics from the Attorney General’s office (they didn’t have other sexual assaults, nor stats by city), it looks like Kern County is about on par with the state for the rate of forcible rapes — 25.2 per 100,000 population compared to 24.6 per 100,000 population statewide in 2006.

They also had the percent of rape cases that “cleared.”
In 2006, the most recent year stats were available, Kern cleared 38.3 percent of its 201 reported rapes.

That percentage has gone up and down over the years from a high in 1992 of 70.3 percent of the 212 reported rapes to a low of 20.6 percent in 1999 when there were 134 reported rapes.

Statewide clearances in 2006 were 44 percent and have hovered around the 50 percent mark since 1997.

Clearances don’t always equal an arrest.

Sometimes a case is considered cleared if there isn’t enough evidence to proceed, the victim refuses to cooperate or in unusual circumstances such as if the perpetrator has left the country and can’t be arrested.

When you need people to give you money in order to stay in business, you’d probably want to make it super-duper easy for them to give you that money.

Unless you’re saaaay the city of Bakersfield.

In which case, you put on your city-think cap and decide to make it more difficult for the public to give you money for things like simple permits.

The finance department’s treasury, up till now located in the Development Services Building (Chester and 17th), is about to become part of the great migration into City Hall North (across Truxtun from the current City Hall) later this month.

What this will mean to homeowners and contractors trying to get permits for such things as changing out a water heater or putting up a new patio cover, is instead of being pinballed back and forth inside the same building, they’ll now be pinged back and forth over two blocks, all for the privilege of giving money to the city.

Currently, permit seekers go to one counter in the Development Services building to apply for the permit, then to the treasury counter to pay for the permit, then back to the first counter to pick up the permit.

(The only reason I can divine as to why they can’t just take your money and give you the permit at one counter is that a former DMV official created this system.)

Anyhoo, that was as close as Bakersfield came to a “one-stop” experience for its customers, us pesky little taxpayers who will now have to wander from building to building to get our permits.

“That depends on how you define ‘one stop,’” says Chris Lee with the city’s Building Department.

I define it as at least one fewer stops than the current and future rigamarole, but that’s just me.

Over at the county’s M Street building, they do a similar counter-to-counter dance but they also have a system that allows contractors to apply for and receive permits via fax and then mail in their check.

I spoke with Nelson Smith, the city’s finance director, about moving the money folks down the street, wondering if they might leave one or two in Development Services to handle permit transactions.

Nope.

To be fair, his department is making this move to consolidate finance operations, he said.

Three of the department’s 31 people take cash from the public not just for construction permits, but for dog licenses, commercial garbage collection, business license renewals and more.

Most of their time is spent dealing with cash that comes through the mail, Smith said.  Of the folks coming to the counter, he said about 30 percent are there for permit-related payments.

“Especially with building activity so low, we don’t expect the move to affect a lot of our transactions,” Smith said.

He said he’s not heard any complaints from the public.

Contractors I spoke with were full of complaints but no one wanted to go public since most of them have permits pending and don’t want them to get “lost.”

Why not eliminate the hassle and let people do all, or most, of their city/county business online?

Hey, if Sarah Palin can sell a jet on eBay (or at least try to), we should be able to get dog license and permit fees through the web.

Uh-uh. Neither the city nor the county have web systems that allow contractors or homeowners to apply, pay for and receive permits, even simple ones, online.

The city’s site allows you to submit an application and even schedule appointments, but you gotta pay face to face. Same with the county. You can download forms, but it’s not interactive.

I realize that in the overall scheme of things — foreclosure madness, state budget crisis, global market meltdowns — this may seem like small potatoes.

But it’s also a classic example of potential opportunities missed as government retrenches instead of finding ways to reinvent itself to be more efficient and useful to those who fund 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