There’s a reason Bakersfield’s fire and police unions have been working without a contract for more than a year and negotiations are dragging on, no end in sight.

The city manager’s office is not only rigid, but I believe unreasonable in its bargaining position.

I know, I know, you can’t believe Alan “old softie” Tandy would ever be unreasonable.

But, um, it’s true.

“Oh yeah, he comes in and thumps his hand on the table and acts like a big bully,” Bill Ware, president of the Bakersfield Police Officers Association, told me. “We’re not intimidated by that. We’re cops. We intimidate those who intimidate others.”

As a result of all that hand thumping, the police officer’s union contract expired in July 2007 and the two sides are now at impasse. The firefighters’ contract expired a year ago but they’re still talking with the city.

The real nut here is retirement, not pay.

Both unions have 3 at 50 (employees retire at age 50 and receive 3 percent of their last year’s salary for every year of service).

The city — two councilmen in particular — wants to increase that to 3 at 55. And Tandy is going to the mat over it.

Hey, I agree 3 at 50 is a overly luxurious for Bakersfield’s wallet.

But going to a two-tiered system where new employees have a different deal doesn’t save us any money until people start retiring, potentially years out.

There are other ways to lower retirement costs that the unions have indicated they’re willing to consider.

Getting there, however, requires reasonable attitudes and a willingness to set politics aside. (You knew it was really all about politics, right?)

That’s where Councilmen Ken Weir and Zack Scrivner come in.

Both made “unfunded liabilities” a major issue during their campaigns and vowed to right the city’s financial ship by cutting back on the city’s retirement largess.

I’m not convinced we’re going down the tubes because of a couple of grim years on the stock market, which in good times helps fund the retirement accounts and in bad times sucks out money like a Hoover vaccuum stuck on high.

We’ve always had unfunded liabilities — not just in the form of future retirement costs, but in future medical benefits for retirees as well. It’s only been in recent years that municipalities have had to actually SHOW those costs on their books. And much hoopla has ensued ever since.

Even so, if you want to cut costs (always prudent) you could do that by asking employees to pay more into their own retirement fund. The city currently picks up the entire retirement tab after an employee’s sixth year on the job.

Firefighters have offered to “give back” 3 percent of their proposed pay increase of 8 percent over two years, asking the city to give them 5 percent in pay and fund the retirement and retiree medical accounts with the remaining 3 percent. That may sound like they’re paying themselves, but the money would help pay the city’s current retirement costs so they wouldn’t have to dip into the general fund for quite as much.

That 8 percent, by the way, is exactly what other city employees, including managers, have received over the last two years. Truth be told, though, unions would be much better off in the public’s eye not asking for any raises right now, or offering it all to help defray retirement costs considering what’s happening in the private sector, not to mention layoffs that have already hit the police deparment.

Ware told me the police union has also tried to talk with the city about what they might get in exchange for bumping the retirement age to 3 at 55, such as longevity pay. But no dice.

“It’s ‘take it or leave it,’” Ware said of the city’s attitude.

Firefighters thought they were close to a deal when they offered the give back, but then Tandy brought a new issue to the table — staffing minimums —according to union president Derek Tisinger.

So, they’re back at Square One.

I asked Tandy about that via email (he won’t talk to me on the phone anymore) and he wrote, “Sorry — I do not think it is productive to conduct complex collective bargaining sessions through the media!”

Yes, I’m sure the citizenry couldn’t possibly understand such complex issues as staffing and pay.

I do know a political stink bomb when it goes off under my nose. And this smells like Tandy taking marching orders from Weir and Scrivner so they can crow over their “fiscal conservative” credentials when they next run for office.

Goody for them, but I’d rather have a reasonable contract with members of the two agencies that provide for the safety of this city.

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

In a recent column on the California Air Resources Board's new diesel rules, I took them to task for a number of things, not the least of which was that the researcher who wrote the report on which they based their draconian rules  LIED about having a PhD in statistics from Davis.

Hien T. Tran WAS listed as the manager of the "Health and Ecosystems Assessment Section" under the research division of CARB (which is HUGE by the way, I had no idea.)

But a recent look at their org chart shows that position is now vacant.

I didn't find out about it until Saturday and took a chance and emailed their flak. He emailed back that Tran hasn't been fired but he doesn't know whether he stepped down voluntarily or was demoted. He did tell me CARB's investigation into Tran's misrepresentation of his credentials may soon be finished.

Though the head of CARB, Mary Nichols, wrote a letter (two posts down ) saying Tran's indiscretion isn't important, I disagree. He did far more than simply compile studies. He interjected a lot of his own methods for how to use the results of those studies and apply them to California.

So I think his willingness to lie about his credentials — particularly when a PhD wasn't even required for that job! — is pretty revealing about his willingness to play fast and loose with the facts to achieve a desired outcome.

Another person who's been watching this situation closely emailed me this timeline and posed a question:

Time Line:

1) March 10, 2009 (3+ months after CARB members were notified of his phony Ph.D.) CARB Research Division Organizational Chart still showed Hien Tran, Ph.D.

2) March 15, 2009 Lois Henry Bakersfield Californian Column on Dodgy Science Strangles Industry.

3) March 17, 2009 CARB Research Division Organizational Chart no longer shows Hien Tran, Ph.D.

Question for Lois Henry, NO Ph.D.:
Is Time Line above a spurious association or a causal relationship?

This is very cool news!

I did a column a few weeks back "Not so happy trails" explaining how the city and county hadn't made good on plans to include equestrian trails in the northwest part of town as development exploded out there a few years ago.

Now the only real riding to be had in town is along the Kern River corridor. But even there, trails are being squeezed out or allowed to fall into disrepair.

Equestrians in town thanked me for my column and asked what else they could do.

Get organized! I said. There are a lot of them out there, but they're into their own thing, Lone Rangers as it were.  They need to band together and become a squeaky wheel in government and demand a seat at the table.

I suggested a blog to one lady and lo and behold she took my advice and started one.

It's a really good blog too, very informative. Now she just needs to get the word out to more equestrians.

So if you know a horse person in town, send them to THIS SITE.

Mary Nichols, the head of the California Air Resources Board took me to task in a letter we published today (3/25) in our Editorial Section.

While I appreciate that she took the time to write (though put me off on underlings when I called for an interview..) I stand by my stories and note that her letter relies, again, on epidemiological studies which have not had their results independently verified and replicated.

Also, I disagree that it's not a big deal that their researcher, Hien Tran, lied about having a PhD from UC Davis in statistics because all he did was compile information from the studies.

First, he did a bit more than just throw together other people's work. He interpreted it, averaged findings and picked numbers, sometimes at random, to determine the safety of PM2.5 levels.

And that report, not the studies, was what CARB board members used to create the diesel emissions rules that will kill California's trucking and heavy equipment industries.

So, nice try and thanks for playing, but no cigar!

Here is Nichols' letter:

Lois Henry gets it wrong in her March 14 column, “Dodgy science strangles industry,” which she uses to criticize the California Air Resources Board’s new regulations aimed at reducing emissions from aging, dirty big-rigs and off-road construction equipment. 

The State Bus and Truck Regulation, adopted in December after exhaustive research and peer review, and which Ms. Henry would like to “redo,” will prevent 9,400 deaths between 2011 and 2025; greatly reduce days of missed work, school and hospitalization; and lower health care costs by billions of dollars.

Asthma symptoms, cancer, heart and lung disease will all be affected for the better, once emissions from these one million vehicles are successfully controlled. 

The same can be said for CARB’s Off Road Regulation, adopted in 2007, which will slash toxic and cancer-causing diesel emissions from the state’s estimated 180,000 “off-road” vehicles used in construction, mining, airport ground support and other industries. 

Over its lifetime, the rule will prevent at least 4,000 premature deaths statewide and avoid $18 billion to $26 billion in premature death and health costs.

It is very important to CARB that we scrutinize economic as well as health impacts during the rule development process.

As part of that, we meet with the hundreds of business owners and stakeholders impacted, so for almost two years, we went up and down California. As a result, the Truck and Bus regulation was revised more than once to accommodate concerns voiced by the trucking industry.

With regard to the harm that stems from exposure to PM 2.5, there have been several studies produced within just the past few years that support CARB’s need to regulate emissions from the nearly 1 million trucks and buses driving California’s highways.

These include a 2008 report by Cal State Fullerton researchers that found dealing with the health impacts of air pollution, especially diesel emissions, costs the state $28 billion annually. 

If the myriad studies attesting to the harm posed by “tiny bits of soot” are not enough evidence, I encourage you to visit the websites of the American Lung Association, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, Union of Concerned Scientists and countless other respected organizations for further proof that CARB’s steps are critical to saving lives.

The weight of scientific evidence clearly supports an increased risk of dying before your time if you are exposed to elevated PM 2.5 levels. 

Ms. Henry’s whole premise for questioning the science behind the diesel regulations is a red herring.

Though we do not take lightly the false claim of a PhD in Statistics from UC Davis by one of the writers of the PM 2.5 health report, Ms. Henry greatly overplayed the significance of this misstatement as it relates to the truck regulation.

The individual in question simply pulled numerous studies together into one document. 

He did not produce one single piece of new health evidence.  More importantly, the report that he helped compile went through four levels of independent, external peer review. 

Three nationally recognized scientific advisors from Harvard, Brigham Young University and the State’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment assessed all aspects of the work, including all publicly released versions of the report. 

The UC Berkeley Institute of the Environment selected six formal peer reviewers for the report.  We also convened a panel with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the World Health Organization and internationally recognized PM health effects experts. 

And at the request of the Engine Manufacturers Association, the diesel soot exposure estimates were reviewed by Philip Hopke of Clarkson University. 

The result? All levels of review agreed with the basic conclusions of the report.

What CARB knows after more than 40 years in business is that diesel exhaust is an insidious and pervasive enemy, responsible for 70 percent of the known cancer risk that comes from air pollution.  It can and does kill. 

To delay enactment of either the Off-Road Heavy Duty Diesel or Statewide Truck and Bus regulation would waste precious time and only cause further pain and suffering to those whose health has already been compromised by diesel air pollution.

Mary D. Nichols is chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board. The Californian reserves the right to reprint Another View commentaries in all formats, including on its web page.

I like the energy and innovation I’m seeing at Kern County Animal Control these days.

First, they’re working more with rescue and transfer operations, WAY more.

For the first quarter of 2008, 575 animals went to rescues compared to 847 so far this year, and only 17 animals were transferred to other, less crowded shelters in 2008 compared to 381 so far this year.

That’s huge!

But even huger (uh, more huge?) is what’s happened on the spay neuter front.

The county took its time but finally came up with a very smart voucher program that allowed low-income families access to spay/neuter services for nearly free.

And 864 families took the county up on its voucher offer. So far 73 percent of those have been redeemed.

That means 630 dogs and cats that may otherwise have left a legacy of multiple litters of unwanted puppies and kittens, were fixed (yes, I know it’s unPC, but I say fixed).
 

Here’s how quickly unaltered animals can add to overpopulation, according to a rescue Web site called Ahimsa Rescue Foundation.

A cat can produce an average of three litters a year with seven to 10 kittens per litter.

Over seven years, that could add up to 420,000 offspring.

A female dog can produce two litters per year with six to 10 puppies per litter. So over six years, that can add up to 67,000 offspring.

Dogs and cats come into puberty as early as four or five months, so for some animals, that’s a long reproductive life.

I heartily applaud Animal Control’s efforts to work more liberally with rescue groups and transfers. Even their efforts at creating a local network of foster families to keep animals out of the shelter, and harm’s way, have been earnest if slow.

But I remain steadfastly convinced that the only way out of our mess is to stop it at its source, and that means spaying and neutering as many animals as we possibly can.

Which, of course, translates to money, not an easy topic these days.

The voucher program has been so successful that Animal Control has finally depleted the $80,000 Supervisors gave them a few years ago specifically for spay/neuter projects.

It started as $100,000 but Animal Control spent about $20,000 on several special spay/neuter events held with other groups.

The voucher program, though, has greater potential impact and sustainability, I believe, and here’s why.

It targets low-income families only. The families have to buy the vouchers at $20 a pop.

They can chose from nine participating veterinarians who agreed to discount their fees and they have four months to get their animal fixed before the voucher expires.

That $20 per voucher, by the way, goes back into a fund to seed future vouchers along with, hopefully, more money from supervisors.
In this economy, that could be a major sticking point, said Guy Shaw, director of Animal Control.

“When we’re being asked to cut our budgets by 15 percent, it’s kind of hard to ask the board for another $100,000,” Shaw said.

Still, he’s going to crunch the voucher numbers at the end of April and make a pitch.

I hope Supervisors are listening closely.

Because even just keeping the voucher pot funded for 800 or 1,000 surgeries a year could make a big, big difference, as results from similar programs across the country have shown.

If the board can’t cut loose with the money, what about creating a non-profit foundation so donations could be used to keep the voucher program going?

Or how about partnering with HOPE, the group in Fresno that does high-volume low-cost surgeries and transports Kern animals twice monthly? That could further cut costs and spread vouchers out to even more people.

Shaw said he’d be interested in seeing if that’s possible.

I appreciate Shaw’s willingness to work all the angles.

But it’s up to us to make sure he gets the support he needs.

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

Taking advantage of HOPE
Since the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals on Gibson street took over the paperwork and logistics in July last year of getting animals on the twice-monthly transport to Fresno for low-cost spay/neuter surgeries, they’ve sent 985 animals to be altered.

By the first of April, the count will be at least 1,000, according to Sandy Dralle, executive director of SPCA.

“We’ve had no problems, no mishaps and everyone’s been really happy with the service,” Dralle said.

She said most clients are in the middle- to working-class income and a lot of young families who might not otherwise be able to afford to fix their animals.

Costs for cats are: $55 for females and $45 for males.

For dogs, the costs vary depending on size.

Prices range from $75 for a female and $65 for a male weighing up to 64 pounds and $115 for a female and $105 for a male weighing over 100 pounds.

All appointments must be made through the SPCA at 323-8353 and must be paid in advance.

The animal must be brought to the SPCA before the appointment to be weighed and medically checked. On transport day, the animal must be at the SPCA on Gibson Street off Rosedale Highway by 6 a.m.

Owners must pick up the animal the following day between 11 a.m. and noon.

The transport schedule is April 13, April 27, May 11 (only one in May because of Memorial Day holiday), June 8 and June 22.

All animals are required to have a rabies vaccination. If proof cannot be provided at the time of registration, owners will be charged $12 for a vaccination before boarding the transport.
 

Hypocrisy is so much fun.

Off-highway vehicles are legal in the state of California. In fact, they’re so darn legal, the state has extra special stickers for you to buy (at $50 a pop every two years) to show how legal you are.

But try and ride that thing anywhere and ohhhhh noooo, can’t do that! It might stir up some dust, make noise or crush a special weed.

OK, I exaggerate, but only slightly.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you might have noticed The Californian’s reporting on how the Forest Service wants to keep off-road and other vehicles off of long time trails and roads around Lake Isabella and throughout the Sequoia National Forest.

The same thing is happening on all Forest Services lands, by the way, under so-called “travel management” plans.

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Land Management has closed trails and at least one massive and extremely popular riding area east of Coalinga.

That got me thinking about the failed attempt to create a state off-highway park here a few years ago and whether a new park is even in the works anymore. And where in the world CAN off-roaders ride these days?

Personally, I don’t ride OHVs and don’t particularly like them. But they’re a legal, tax-paying form of recreation for a lot of people. And frankly they, and all of us who’d like to see them contained to specific areas, are getting hosed.

In answer to the second question, off-roaders are only supposed to ride on designated trails on public lands or private land, with the owner’s permission.

There are eight state parks, nine parks maintained by cities, counties or other jurisdictions, 25 BLM sites and about 60 sites on national forest lands, according to a website about where to ride in California maintained by Don Dieterich (http://www.employees.org/~c...

That may seem like a lot of options, but not when you consider the number of registered off-road vehicles has gone from 356,000 in 1996 to more than 1.1 million currently.

As for any new parks, there are none on the horizon, according to Phil Jenkins, chief of the  Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation division of the State Parks, which has a budget of about $86 million a year.

Two things are keeping the state from spending green sticker and fuel tax monies designated to build and maintain off-road areas:

• Staffers and commissioners haven’t seen eye-to-eye on the division’s direction for about the last 20 years.

That was kind of good because it allowed the trust fund money (from green sticker fees and special fuel taxes paid by off roaders) to build up to $90 million. But it was bad because, well, we have no new parks.

Commissioners in the past haven’t been willing to open the purse strings for new parks, insisting instead on using the trust fund money to fix environmental damage caused by off-roaders riding illegally.

Staffers, meanwhile, wanted to open more parks to give off-roaders recreation areas that would keep them from riding illegally in the first place. Hmmmm....ya think?

To settle this chicken-and-egg situation, the two sides have been creating a strategic plan over the last year (you can read a draft at http://ohv.parks.ca.gov/?pa... and submit comments through March 25 at OHVinfo@parks.ca.gov).

Part of that plan includes a priority list for new off-road parks.

I might be slightly encouraged by that, except for the second reason there are no new parks on on the horizon:

• The state took nearly all of the Off-Highway division’s $90 million during its most recent budget meltdown.

But, hey, the state promised to pay it back so no worries, right?

Two Kern County Supervisors, however, aren’t waiting around.

Ray Watson has been working with two landowners west of Taft who want to turn their 640 acres into a private OHV park but have run up against resistance from adjacent oil field operators leasing land from the BLM. The oil operators are worried about liability and don’t want the OHVers out there.

“But I’ve argued that it’s better to have them in one place with fencing and the ability to monitor them,”  Watson said. So far, he hasn’t won the oil companies’ lawyers over, but the landowners are plodding through the environmental documents and plan to apply for a conditional use permit with the county.

Meanwhile, Mike Maggard has been doggedly pursuing land for a new park locally since 2007, when his attempt at working with the state on an 11,000-acre parcel north of Bakersfield fell through.

“The state’s process is inept, inefficient and obviously unsuccessful,” Maggard said.

He’s narrowed his search to two pieces of land but wouldn’t give me any more intel for fear that could drive up the price.

With tax money scarce locally, Maggard said he envisons some kind of public-private partnership to buy and maintain an off-road park.

“Green sticker money could be used and concievably a private operator could run it. Not the government.”

Particularly a government that doesn’t mind taking money from OHV riders with one hand and then smackin’ them around with the other.

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

We have lots of plans here in Kern County.

General plans, specific plans, adopted plans, tentative plans and on and on.

None of them mean bupkiss, however, without the public’s watchful eye.

And nothing shows that so starkly as the disappearance of horse trails lost to development despite multiple plans that once had them meandering throughout the metropolitan area.

I recently attended a meeting hosted by the county’s Parks and Recreation department as it gears up to produce yet another plan, this one a master plan for parks in the next 20 years.

More than 50 people showed up, all of them equestrians fed up with vanishing trails.

“It’s not just equestrians,” horseman Bob White told me. “Everyone’s getting the shaft.”

He said county and city officials spend countless hours of staff time and money creating plans that are ignored because as development comes in, the trails are considered on a case-by-case basis.

“It’s totally ridiculous,” he said. “Developers only have to notify people within 100 feet of their development so when they have a meeting about it and the planning commission asks if anyone cares if they don’t do this trail, of course no one’s there.”

The plans, he said, should be set in stone.

I’m not sure about stone, but plans crafted by the entire community should definitely be treated as more than an afterthought.

That’s clearly been the case with the Western Rosedale Specific Plan (created in 1994, long before the major building boom that sent sprawl barreling out that way) that shows horse trails winding throughout future developments connecting all the way to the Kern River.

The specific plan talks a lot about maintaining the rural feel of the area and how horses and trails are a major part of that. (Ha. It also says they shouldn’t do piecemeal planning and that growth should be constrained until proper sewer and water services are hooked up out there, but that horse left the barn long ago.)

Of the many multi-use and specific horse trails planned for the western Rosedale area, only a fraction have actually been constructed. And they connect to nothing.

When I spoke with the county and city planners, they didn’t have a lot of good answers.

The trails are built as development happens. If one piece is developed without a trail, or before the trails were required, it messes up the whole puzzle, so, um...oh, well.

“If you could go back and research who the first guy was who didn’t put in a required trail, then you could see who the culprit is,” City Councilman David Couch told me, half joking.

Sigh. I suppose he’s right.

But he did point out, and the horse folks I’ve spoken with agreed, that the Kern River corridor is perfect for horse riding  — that is, if trails and staging areas are properly established and maintained.

To that end, White was frustrated that a highly touted new horse staging area behind the baseball diamonds at Jewetta Avenue and Stockdale Highway has been constructed with horses, again, as an afterthought.

The way it’s configured now, horses have to be unloaded, saddled and ridden on a “path” slanted at a 30-degree angle right next to a chain-link fence topped with concertina wire at about waist height.

“It’s unsafe and they’re gonna have a lawsuit,” White said. He called the city and was told someone would get back him.

The city, county and horse people I spoke with all agreed that the Kern River is a great place to ride. But, as White pointed out, there are only three areas in the city for horses to access those trails. There’s no signage or amenities and horses often have to cross over bike and other trails blocking their paths.

White is willing to do his part.

“But you can’t go to every meeting,” he said in frustration.

Unfortunately, with the way “planning” works around here, if you want your trails, you might have to.

Or as one equestrian’s email to fellow riders put it:

“We can grump and complain, or we can start getting organized, show up to planning meetings, document loss of trails with pictures and maps, and ‘make a STINK!!!!!’”

Absolutely. Stink it up!

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

CHECK OUT THE PLANS

You can download the Kern River Specific Trails Plan from the County’s website.
Go to this page http://www.co.kern.ca.us/pl... and look in the chart for Kern River Specific Trails Plan and click on that. It’s a large PDF so give it some time.

You can also take the Kern County Recreation and Parks survey by going to this page http://www.co.kern.ca.us/pa...

We are about to cripple California’s trucking and construction industries for absolutely no good reason.

If I really believed the California Air Resources Board’s draconian new diesel emissions standards would save thousands of lives a year, I might say, sorry guys, you gotta suck it up for the greater good.

But when you scratch the surface of the alleged science used by CARB to justify these rules, there’s just no “there” there. Our air is NOT killing us, despite what the “environmental alarmist complex”  would have us believe.

And, oh yeah, CARB’s lead researcher, Hien T. Tran, who wrote the report on which the diesel rules are based lied about having a Ph.D. in statistics from University of California, Davis, according to a CARB spokesman.

That’s right, he made it up to get a CARB management job for which a Ph.D. isn’t even required. No Ph.D. requirement seems more than a bit loose to me, but that’s another story.

The CARB spokesman said they’re standing by that report, as well as their diesel rules, which were to go into effect in 2011 but likely will be delayed two years under a state budget deal as a nod to the crumbling economy.

Some people are calling for the rules to be eased while we get through this econ-aggeden, but I say that's a Band-aid on an axe wound.

The rules need to be scrapped. We need a redo, this time using a group of bonafide scientists who don’t have to lie about their credentials.

The object of the new standards, by the way, is to reduce PM2.5 (tiny bits of soot) from diesel emissions, which CARB adamantly believes kills thousands of Californians every year, despite studies to the contrary.

The agency has mandated that all diesel trucks and heavy equipment be retrofitted with devices to reduce PM2.5 emissions by 80 percent by 2020 compared to what they were in 2000.

The report on which the rules were concocted is valid, insists a CARB spokesman, because it underwent “peer review” by other scientists.

Yes, but only the draft version. Not the final one with comments from the public, including a number of scientists who disputed its conclusions and the fact that it discounted studies showing little to no increased death rate in California from PM2.5. (Even a map from one of the studies CARB did value, showed little to no PM2.5 deaths in California, but that was also ignored in the report.)

As for the studies that were used in the report, they were weighted by a group of 12 scientists, nearly half of whom wrote or helped author the very studies being graded. And at least a few of those graders are being paid by CARB for more studies.

When I asked Bart Croes, chief of CARB’s research division, and Linda Smith, chief of CARB’s health and exposure assessment branch, how that’s not a screaming conflict of interest, they passed the buck and said the scientists were picked by the EPA.

In my business, that’s what we call  a “non-denial confirmation.”

Digging further into that report, I wondered why it was OK to take results from one air study that found increased death rates from PM2.5 in Los Angeles, mix them with results from studies elsewhere in the U.S., then average those results and apply them to the entire state of California.

I don’t have a Ph.D. (real or fake), but that seems pretty slapdash to me.

Smith told me averaging results is perfectly acceptable because of the volume of studies from all over the world that show PM2.5 is dangerous to health and “PM is PM” — just as hazardous one place as another.

Not quite, according to Robert F. Phalen, Ph.D. (a REAL one!), with the Air Pollution Health Effects Laboratory at UC Irvine and author of the book “The Particulate Air Pollution Controversy:  A Case Study and Lessons Learned.”

CARB simply measures how many micrograms of PM are in a cubic meter of air, he writes, not by size or even chemical composition.

“The use of this crude mass indicator is not only scientifically shaky, but it can also be hazardous to public health,” Phalen writes.

For example, filters that lower particles in emissions by breaking down them into smaller bits could actually increase adverse health effects, Phalen says. And without knowing the chemical makeup of the particles that are actually causing health problems, you could be eliminating harmless material while ignoring real culprits.

“The available science is not sufficient to define the key indicators that determine the health effects of PM,” he concludes.

Even if you believed PM2.5 was knocking off your neighbors in droves, CARB’s own estimates show we’ll be very close to the 2023 emissions reduction goal without any extra regulation at all as old diesel equipment is retired. In fact, we’ll be within four or five tons per day of the goal without any added regulation at all.

I mentioned that to CARB’s Smith and she sharply reminded me that that four tons could represent five to 10 deaths per year, depending on where you looked in Los Angeles.

Which brings me back to the “science” CARB used to come up with its diesel rules.

They relied on a number of epidemiological studies, large sets of observational data (not experiments) queried by scientists to tease out patterns.

The problem with those kinds of studies, according to Stanley Young, Asst. Director for Bioinformatics at the National Institute of Statistical Sciences in North Carolina and who has a real Ph.D. in statistics and genetics, is they can’t control for every factor and often end up with biased conclusions.

“Say you’re looking at a situation where the temperature goes up, ozone goes up, PM2.5 goes up and humidity goes up. Which of those factors, if any, is killing people?” Young said. “It’s a matter of political judgment if you put your finger on ozone.”

When other scientists try to replicate  results from observational studies, the conclusions don’t hold up 80 to 90 percent of the time.

“If you do exactly what the original researchers did, yes, you get the same results,” Young said. “When you look at the way they did their analysis, that’s where things get dodgy.

"There is a lot of freedom to move the answer around.”

It was Young who blew the whistle on Tran for not having a Ph.D. after he read Tran’s report. He couldn’t believe how amateurish and poorly done it was.

“Frankly, I was shocked,” he said. “I asked if they had looked at the raw data from key papers and done their own analysis. They did not have the data and the answer was no.

“It’s a crazy situation. And I’ve just been looking this from the outside.”

The view isn’t much better from the inside.

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

Oh the things people say when they don't have to use their name.

I believe this lady does not agree with my column on Chad Vegas.

There’s political philosophy, there’s principle and then there’s flat out petty.

Kern High School District trustee Chad Vegas should learn the differences.

At Monday’s board meeting, several teachers asked to rescind their resignations so they might be eligible for federal assistance via the stimulus bill to pay a portion of their COBRA health insurance while they look for a job.

Only Vegas and trustees Bill Perry and Bryan Batey were on hand. Perry and Batey voted to allow the take back.

But Vegas, standing on “principle,” said no.

Without three affirmative votes, the requests were denied. (Even without the full board, they still need three votes to pass items, per the district’s lawyers).

That’s harsh on a number of levels, but here’s a biggie: It would have cost the district ZERO money.

Which led me to ask Vegas why he would care.

“It’s a matter of principle,” he said. “They resigned already, and now they want to undo that because it might be better for them benefit-wise. That’s neither here nor there to me.

"I don’t need to be jumping through hoops and rescinding past actions of the board so they can get more benefits.

“If they’d been better teachers, they could have kept 100 percent of their benefits.”

Wow.

To understand just how snake-belly mean that statement is, you have to understand the background.

These aren’t teachers who’ve been laid off. They’re probationary teachers who’ve been told by their schools they would not be “re-elected” the following year. Essentially, they were fired.

Yes, that could mean they were crummy teachers. Or it could mean they had a personality conflict or they just didn’t fit in somehow at that school. Schools aren’t widget factories. Relationships can mean the difference between function and dysfunction.

Which is one of the reasons probationary teachers can be let go for any reason, or no reason at all.

“The district recognizes that just because they didn’t work out with us, that doesn’t mean they should be out of the teaching profession,” KHSD spokesman John Teves told me. “Thus, the option to resign.”

Even if they resign, however, when teachers apply to a new district there’s a box on the application (KHSD has this, too) that asks whether they’ve ever been “non-re-elected” or resigned in lieu of being non-re-elected.

The California Teachers Association recently sent word that the federal stimulus bill has a provision to help cover a portion (65 percent, with the employee picking up the rest) of COBRA payments for nine months for teachers who are fired.

Mitch Olson, president of the Kern Teachers Association, brought the information to the district and alerted his members that they might stand a better chance of getting the federal aid if they took back their resignations and allowed themselves to be fired.

More than 20 people submitted resignations, but only four asked to rescind them.

One of those four, Olson told me, is a single mom of two adopted children who had taught for 21 years in another district with all good evaluations. Her principal at KHSD, however, told her she just wasn’t a good fit. She was too worried to speak to me directly and didn’t want her name or the name of the high school used, so she can pursue other employment without any stigma.

To be fired was bad enough, she told Olson, but not being allowed to seek coverage for her kids really stung.

“When the district superintendency found out about it, they went the extra step to try and let people know,” Olson said. “We all thought it was just going to be a formality.”

Batey told me he voted yes because, “My thoughts were that we’re experiencing such tough economic times and these are young teaching families, and I was wanting to make sure they had access to the best temporary medical coverage that was available to them.”

Perry said he voted yes because he didn’t think the employees even knew about the federal stimulus option when they tendered their resignations.

So, at least two trustees were able to look this on a human level — apparently a novel concept for Vegas.

Yes, it’s taxpayer money that would have bridged the COBRA gap for those teachers. But if they end up in the ER for lack of care, who pays for that? And we’re not talking about welfare queens here. These people want to work.

Still, Vegas has his political philosophy.

“I’m not going to contribute to overinflating the size of government.”

Hmmm. Wonder if that means he’s going to give back the $10,800 in yearly health benefits he and his family enjoy at taxpayer expense?

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’ve said this before and it never ceases to be true: giving government agencies near-total control with virtually zero accountability is always — always — a bad idea.

This axiom is playing itself out again in the Kern River Valley where Sequoia National Forest Service officials have earned the community’s ire by bumping up day use and camping fees.

Everyone knows it costs money to  keep up with the potties, trash and vandalism massive crowds bring with them over the summer.

What’s sticking in residents’ craws, however, is this: 

• The Forest Service isn’t keeping up with trash, sanitation and vandalism.

•  It isn’t providing better amenities.

•  It hasn’t properly accounted for fees it’s collected and spent over the last several years.

And, in the process of doubling its fees on several sites, it also proposed a host of new fee sites the community feared would ensnare the whole lake and upper Kern River into a scheme that would have seen visitors charged $10 for parking to snap a few pictures.

Oh yeah, and residents tell me they are fed up with the lack of communication, doublespeak and outright misleading information they’ve been given by Forest Service officials over this issue.

Hmmm. An agency with little to no oversight, absolutely in charge of a vast area being unilateral and uncommunicative? Shocking! The local issues mirror problems nationwide — but more on that later.

Because of community outrage, the Forest Service has since backed off creating new fee sites around the lake and upper river — for now.

It did succeed late last year in doubling camping and day-use fees to $10 per vehicle year-round, rather than the old May to September system, at the Auxiliary Dam, Old Isabella Road and South Fork sites. You’ll also now have to pay $10 for day use at Camp 9 across the lake.

Fishing for answers

I spent a day recently at the lake talking to fishermen and others about the fees.

Ed Strange, who lives in Onyx, had heard about the new fees. He normally buys a year-round sticker for his car, which used to be $35 and is now $50.

“I don’t like it real well,” Strange said of the fee. “Fishing is a great experience and it’s, well, it used to be, a cheap, fun thing to do with your family.”

Mostly, Strange was confused about where and when the fees applied.

Kern River Valley residents have been trying to get information and accounting from the Forest Service for months. They had one large and very angry town hall meeting last summer, after which the Forest Service backed away from its plan to encircle the lake in its Southern Sierra Pass program.

Then in early February, Forest Service officials again met with residents to try and show how fees have been used thus far.

It didn’t go well.

Close enough for government work

It should not be that hard to break down how much the forest gets from Congress, how much from fees and how both pots of money are spent in the three districts that make up the Sequoia (Kern River, Western Divide and Hume Lake).

But leave it to government.

I won’t bore you with all the details but here’s just a small taste:

According to the Forest Service power point presented at the February meeting, the Kern River district brought in $191,900 in fees in 2008 and spent $273,450. When I asked how the difference was made up, Forest Service officials said it was  “carryover” fee money.

But the 2007 carryover fee money on their power point, $112,561, is based on the fiscal year (Oct.1 to Sept. 30) and the fee collection and expenditures are based on the calendar year, so there’s no way to see if income and outgo tally up.

In fairness, the Sequoia National Forest did not create this alleged accounting system.

And Mary Cole, who coordinates the forest fee program in the Sequoia, told me they’re working to correct that and other discrepancies I noted.

Forest Supervisor Tina Terrell told me they’ve purchased a new accounting system (which soaked up $24,000 in recreation fees) and hope it will help sort out accounting problems.

Services going down the toilet

OK, switching gears, I wanted to see if locals’ grumbling that the Forest Service was dropping the ball on services had any truth.

Short answer: Yes.

I looked at the number of porta-potties in the “high impact recreation areas” (HIRAs) as the Forest Service has designated the fee sites along the lake, at Auxiliary Dam, South Fork and Old Isabella, where fees have been doubled and which are elbow to elbow with people in summer.

In one document, the Forest Service gave me, it shows there were 13 porta potties in  2007 and 28 in 2008. OK, good.

Except another document shows that in  2002-2005 there were 32 porta potties then and in 2006-2008 there were only 13. So what gives?

Turns out they had planned to buy more potties but had to use the money for their emergency fire fund, according to Cole.

Uh, so we only have 13 porta potties for a two-mile stretch of beach that attracts up to 4,000 people on holiday summer weekends? Ick.

Even so, I understand. Fire comes first.

But it’s funny how that wasn’t in documents given to the public.

No head for numbers

This drama is just one small piece of the Forest Service fee program, which started about 10 years ago as a “demonstration” project to make up for shortfalls in tax money. In 2005, the demo fees became permanent under the Recreation Enhancement Act.

It’s been controversial and poorly managed right from the start.

In two separate 2003 reports by the General Accounting office the Forest Service was skewered for its bad accounting.

Overall, the GAO’s office said, the Forest Service could not give a clear picture of what exactly it does with its 30,000 employees and $5 billion annual budget.

Looking specifically at how fees had been managed, the GAO said accounting was so bad the public could not trust how the Forest Service had spent its money.

Seems things haven’t improved in the last six years.

Public lands not quite so public

Bob Barsch, founder of Free our Forests, which vehemently opposed the Adventure Pass when it was imposed on national forests in Southern California, said the Forest Service has far exceeded its legal authority to charge the public to access its own lands.

The 2005 law states that in order to charge fees, agencies must provide paved parking, toilets, trash, interpretive signs or kiosks, picnic tables and security.
Instead, the Forest Service created “high impact recreation areas” (HIRAs) in which a line is drawn around a large area that may have those services but not all in one spot.

So your toilet could be a mile from your picnic table which could be another mile to the trash, but it’s all considered one so-called HIRA and that means you have to pay up.
In the Angeles and Los Padres national forests south of Kern County HIRAs cover more 200,000 acres, including the popular winter play area near Mount Pinos.

“When it comes to the point that we need a permit to walk on our own public land, we’ve lost a major piece of our freedom,” Barsch said.

It would be one thing if he saw improvements or even adequate accounting, but he sees neither, contending that volunteers mostly keep up the trails (Kern River Valley residents said the same of cleaning trash around Isabella Lake). And, he said, trash and vandalism are taken care of only minimally. Ditto in the Kern River Valley, according to residents.

Barsch fought for three years against the fees, even getting cited seven times for handing out information to forest visitors. Last year, he watched as legislation to repeal the fees didn’t even make it to the House floor.

“The older generation, we tried our best, but government doesn’t care what the people think, they’ll do what they want.”

Which brings me back to the start of this column: Control without accountability are never a good mix.

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

Sequoia Naitonal Forest Southern Sierra Pass

The Southern Sierra Pass is now required year round if you want to fish or camp at the Auxiliary Dam, Old Isabella and South Fork areas along Isabella Lake.

There is also now a day use fee for Camp 9 across the lake. Camping is an additional charge.

Cost is $10 per day for each vehicle, up from $5 per vehicle.

You may buy an annual pass for $50 (up from $30)  plus $10 for a second vehicle, if needed.

Passes may be purchased at any Forest Service district office or at the Golden State Surplus store in Lake Isabella.

I've started a new blog if you're interested.

It's at http://www.bakoview.blogspo...

I'll still post my column here and respond to comments, though, so don't abandon me!

The new blog is just a faster mechanism to post smaller tidbits I come across that don't make full stories or columns.

Anyhow, hope you like it.

Bob Price, meanwhile has a similar new blog http://www.stubblebuzz.com and my boss Richard Beene also has one at  http://www.bakersfieldobser...

Let me know what you think.

I was out skiing last week and then this week my bosses were all gone so I had to play manager.

But my column will be back in the paper on Sunday, posted here Saturday afternoon.

It's about new fees being charged by the Forest Service for day use and camping at Isabella Lake...any comments?