Lame ideas have more lives than cats, I swear.

Glancing at the Sequoia National Forest’s website, it appears the “ring around the lake” fee proposal is baaaack. Along with new proposed fee sites along the Kern River up to and including Lloyd Meadow.

Heck, why not just put a gate at the top of Highway 178 and charge an entrance fee? Oh, wait, since this is the PUBLIC’S land, that would be illegal, wouldn’t it?

I’m not sure how making every square inch of useable space a fee site is any different, but then I don’t work for the federal government.

Right now visitors must pay $10 per vehicle for day or overnight use at three so-called HIRAs (High Impact Recreation Areas) — Auxiliary Dam, Old Isabella Road and South Fork. This is all under the new year-round Southern Sierra Adventure Pass program.

Those are actual camping sites that are supposed to have certain amenities, such as garbage service, bathrooms and picnic tables, so the Forest Service can charge a fee.

Those things cost money and it makes sense to charge a little extra. Whether the forest service is actually providing the required amenities , however, is debatable.

Either way, if the “2009 Proposed” map (which you can find online at http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/seq... comes to pass, it could mean you’d have to pay $10 to stop and dip your toes in the water for a few minutes.

Last summer, Kern River Valley residents hit the roof when they first heard about a similar proposal.

They blasted the Forest Service for wanting more fee sites when conditions at current sites were awful with garbage strewn everywhere, filthy bathrooms (if there were any at all) without any significant Forest Service presence.

On top of all that, the Forest Service couldn’t account for how it’s been spending fees it had already been charging the public.

When I say officials couldn’t account for those fees, I mean the numbers on the charts they gave the public didn’t add up and they mixed up calendar and fiscal year monies.

There was NO accountability.

The Forest Service quickly pulled back its ring-around-the-lake proposal and Forest Supervisor Tina Terrell told me several months ago she had no intention of bringing it back up until the money issues were sorted out.

To that end, she told me and the public, Sequoia National Forest had spent $24,000 (yes, using public fees) on a software program called CASH, which she said would follow the income and outgo of those fees.

Nope.

Turns out the CASH system, in use for the last decade on Southern California forests, will only track sales of Southern Sierra Adventure Passes, not how the Forest Service  spends that money.

“That isn’t really an accounting system that the Sequoia bought, it’s the CASH system, which is a web-based system that tracks collections,” Tamara Wilton, of the Forest Service’s regional office in Vallejo, told a meeting of the Recreation Resource Advisory Committee on May 13. This is the same committee that OK’d doubling the HIRA fees and making them year-round at its meeting last fall.

Wilton also said during the meeting, according to audio tapes, that her staff spent 50 hours creating a method to track how fees on the Sequoia were spent in the first quarter of 2009.

And still there were problems.

Wilton didn’t include the “real” total collections amounts because a percentage goes to administration. That percent is just left off the spreadsheets.

She also didn’t calculate expenses associated with some rental incomes and itemized incomes and expenses for two campsites separately, except for the cost to collect fees for each site. She lumped that together so it’s impossible to see which area made or lost money.

Sigh!

I wanted to ask Terrell, or anyone at the Sequoia National Forest, why the public was misled about the CASH system and also whether the the ring-around-the-lake HIRA proposal is something they’ll be pursuing.

No one called me back.

I don’t disagree that people should be charged for using some areas around the lake and river. They’re pretty much loving it to death up there.

Lets face it, people are pigs. Cleaning up after them costs money.

But unless the Forest Service can A) show that it’s doing that job and B) plainly tell us how it’s using the public’s money, allowing the service to conjure up more fee sites is absolutely out of the question.

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

BILL AIMS TO CURB FEES

I’ve been bugging Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, ever since I found out that Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana, had a bill up to repeal fees charged by the Forest Service for the public to use its own lands.

McCarthy told me Tuesday he’s been working with the House Resources Committee on a similar bill to match Baucus’ effort.

“I’m working with other offices to bring in greater accountability to any fees charged by the Forest Service.”

He hasn’t seen the final wording yet as Congress is out on break.

That would dovetail nicely with Baucus’ S868, which would repeal the 2004 Federal Lands Recreational Enhancement Act.

It would bring the Forest Service back to the 1965 policy which limited what the agency could charge the public.

The Baucus bill, similar to one he and Republican Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, wrote in 2007, is awaiting a hearing in the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

The Forest Service contends that budget cuts have made it impossible to keep up with trash, toilet needs, vandalism and enforcement. The fees, it has said, are necessary, though still inadequate, for basic upkeep.

I would be fine with the fees, except they don’t seem to have improved service dramatically at heavily used areas and the Forest Service has been incapable of accounting for how it’s spent the money. My suspicion is that’s not exactly unintended.

If the Baucus bill or its House cousin passes, I have a feeling the Forest Service will find some way to use the tax dollars we already give them to keep our lands open, safe and trash free.

— Lois Henry

I have a noggin full of rants rattling around in my head and it’s time to dump ’em out. Lucky you! You’re the dumpees.

The theme this week: Your Government In Action.

Big, ugly pile
More than a few readers have asked about that huge pile of dirt (which I’m affectionately deeming “Mount Tandy”) at 24th and Oak streets.

The dirt is from a storm drain project completed several months ago. The city says it has nowhere else to put the dirt. Besides, the dirt may be needed when they remake that intersection. They don’t want to move it only to have to move it back again all at taxpayer expense.

Understood, but the problem is, construction won’t likely start until 2011 at the earliest.

So, ol’ Mount Tandy will be with us for a while.

I had to wonder, could you or I get away with that?

Not no, but HECK NO!

According to code compliance rules, that much dirt can’t just be lumped any which way. It has to be engineered and requires a grading permit.

There has to be a plan as to how long the dirt will sit and regular inspections to make sure it doesn’t shift or erode, as loose piles of dirt like to do, onto neighboring properties or public streets.

I called over to the city to see about that permit and whaddaya know, no permit.

“We had a permit when we did the grading for the sump,” Public Works Director Raul Rojas told me. “But a specific permit for the pile? No, that we do not have.”

As many complaints as the paper has received, he said, the city has likely gotten more and he understands it’s an eyesore. The city will be cleaning Mount Tandy’s crop of weeds over Memorial Day Weekend and will look at fencing it off.

And he assured me the city does have funding to complete that intersection, so Mount Tandy won’t be there forever.

As for a permit, OK, he said, they would look at the need for a permit.

“I really don’t think that pile of dirt is that dangerous, though,” he said.

Is he kidding? Where does he think it got its name!?

Keep it short
By the by, if you were to climb Mount Tandy and peer across Oak to Beach Park you would notice that the grass is dead. Brown and dead. But very nicely mowed.

Recreation and Parks Director Dianne Hoover told me the well used to irrigate Beach Park went down about two weeks ago and they only got it up again on Friday.

So the grass died. But the mowing continued.

“That’s  not a bad thing,” Hoover said. “Even when the grass is brown it still needs to be clipped.”

Call me cheap, or lazy, or both, but I always figured one of the benefits of a dead lawn was no need to mow it.

That may come to pass, Hoover said. Budget constraints mean they’ll be watering less throughout the park system and they may have to cut back mowing if they have to cut people. Oh, er...that’s not good.

Double scoop

During our latest special election (are they really all that “special” when we have them every couple months?) 1,147 poll workers helped direct voters and collect ballots.

A little more than 100 of those people were county employees who not only got the $110 to $150 state stipend but were also paid regular wages for “volunteering” their time.

Now, I know that’s only about $10,000 and I don’t begrudge them the stipend; that’s what all poll workers get. But if I were to work the polls, my employer would require that I take a vacation day.

Not so for county workers.

It’s been that way for several years, ever since the Auditor/Controller told Supervisors they were having trouble mustering up enough people to adequately staff the polls.

Supervisor Michael Rubio said elections are so important he’s willing to err on the side of overpaying in order to make sure polls are adequately staffed and there’s never even the hint of discouraging someone from voting due to lack of workers.

I agree with him in principal, but I’m pretty sure the county would get the people it needs through a little creative advertising (maybe someone might even write a column about it?) or working with the local colleges (something Rubio also suggested).

But double-paying county workers when our unemployment rate is hovering around 15 percent and we’re looking down the barrel of even more budget cuts doesn’t set right.

Supervisors Don Maben and Ray Watson agreed. Maben said he intends to bring the issue up in the next few weeks.

What’s in a name?
When Kern County Superintendent of Schools Larry Reider steps down and his second in command, Associate Superintendent Christine Frazier, is appointed in his place by the Board of Education (as I and everyone else expect will happen at their June 9 meeting), a whole lot of letterhead, envelopes, business cards, forms, signs and more will suddenly be wrong.

How much will taxpayers spend to replace all that stock?

Nada.

“We’ll probably just X out his name,” growled the lovably gruff Jim Varley, director of communications for the superintendent’s office. “That’s the way we did it when Kelly (Blanton) left and that’s the way we’ll do it this time.”

It would be an irresponsible use of taxpayer dollars to throw out what they have, so they’ll find a way to make do, he said.

“There’s no other way to do business. And since I’m in charge of printing and graphics, I guess I’ll make that call.”

Too bad Varley’s call, or even just his attitude, doesn’t extend a little further.

So, you want to open an off-road track in Kern County?

You must be stubborn or crazy. Best if you’re both.

Oh, and a good, strong pair of legs is essential for all the hoop jumping you’ll be doing.

Since the state has failed miserably at building new off-road parks (despite an $86 million annual budget and $90 million generated  by fuel taxes and green sticker fees paid by off-roaders for, um, new parks), it’s basically up to regular Joes to take up the slack.

That’s no easy feat when you consider the byzantine world of CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act.

Even so, Darrell Melton, Darin Layton and Charlie Comfort were crazy enough to wade into that world more than four years ago to open Honolulu Hills Raceway east of Taft.

And they’ve been stubborn enough to stick with it over four years of stutter-stepping through paperwork, meetings, reports, studies and countless phone calls.

They’ve been operating under a temporary use permit from the county that allows for some races and practice days, but haven’t been able to go full-time without a Fish and Game permit.

They should have that golden permit in about three months, I was assured by Fish and Game’s senior environmental specialist, Julie Vance.

I was all set to slam Fish and Game for dragging its feet. After all, a safe, legal riding park can only help cut down on illegal riding and actually protect more critters than it harms, I thought.

But Vance, curse her common sense ways, agreed that Honolulu Hills is a good project that desperately needed.

“One of the reasons we were interested in seeing this happen is that trespassing by OHVs is a big problem, and we recognize that,” she said. “You need a place to relieve the pressure. Our lands are hit with that, too. It’s a constant enforcement issue.”

Part of the delay was inexperience on the owners’ parts, she said. And they also weren’t sure whether to apply for a permit for the immediate race track (which is already built and involves 160 acres) or the ultimate vision (640 acres of trails, camping and concessions).

Yeah, in hindsight, Melton said, it would probably have been better to hire a Roger McIntosh-type development consultant who can work through permits in his sleep.

“I think even he would have had a difficult time with this one though because it was so unique,” Melton said.

No one seemed to know what to do with the Honolulu guys and their raceway.

Even the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District wasn’t sure what to ask for.

Melton said they had a friend who works with oil companies on air mitigation do a report and the district was so pleased with it, they asked if they could use it as a model.

Melton, a substitute teacher with a psychology degree, agreed he may have made some missteps along the way.

“I’m no dummy, but I’m no genius, either,” he said. “It should really be up to the state to put in more riding parks. They have all the money, they know all the hoops with Fish and Game and all the other agencies. It’s a lot easier for them than a private person.”

Actually, Melton and his partners could probably teach the state a few lessons, considering how a state riding park east of Bakersfield proposed a few years ago fell through at the last minute.

Vance said that if Melton and his partners talked to Fish and Game first, the permitting probably would have taken much less time.

Vance will have the chance to prove that possibly in the near future if all goes as planned for Ron Pierce, who’s scouting for land east of Bakersfield to open a similar off-road race track.

He had a permit to hold a handful of events on his own ranch at Breckenridge and Comanche roads, and they were so well received, he’s decided to jump into the pond with the Honolulu guys.

Having spent a career as a builder, however, he’s a bit more prepared for the process.

“If you’re not stubborn as a mule, you’re not going to get anywhere,” he said.

Crazy helps, too.

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

If all goes as I expect it will — and I expect it will — the first female Kern County Superintendent of Schools in the 143-year history of that office will be appointed on June 8 as soon-to-retire Superintendent Larry Reider nods his approval.
Looking at more recent history, Christine Lizardi Frazier will remain in that elected office until she decides to retire, at which time she likely will choose
our next Superintendent of Schools — who will be in office until he or she picks a successor and retires. And so on and so on.
That’s how it worked for Reider, who was appointed by the County Board of Education in 1999 when former Superintendent Kelly Blanton retired mid-term.
I’m not complaining about the job any of these people have done or will do.
Reider has been an exceptional public servant — smart, experienced, honest, plain-spoken and hard-working.
Frazier, now the associate superintendent (as Reider was before her and Blanton was before him), is all of the above. Plus, I can’t lie, I’m ecstatic to see a highly qualified woman breaking that 143-year-old glass ceiling.
But I can’t help wondering at the fairness factor.
Shouldn’t we, the voters, pick our own Superintendent?
More important, shouldn’t anyone seeking public office have to prove themselves to voters before they’ve held the office (in Reider’s case for nearly three years and, if she’s appointed, in Frazier’s case nearly a year)?
Some political insiders e-mailed me as soon as they heard of Reider’s impending retirement asking the same questions, even calling the mid-term retirement an “affront to voters.”
That’s because it would give Frazier instant incumbency in the 2010 election.
When it comes to this little-understood office, name recognition is often all voters have to go on. Incumbency virtually locks in a win, and that’s only IF someone else runs, which hasn’t happened since Blanton’s second election in 1994.
“I understand why some people feel that’s not fair,” Frazier told me. Reider said the same thing.
But, they both said, the best person for the job is someone who knows the job.
Despite its under-the-radar profile, the Superintendent of Schools office in Kern County is massive.
It provides various school districts with, among other things, legal services, insurance, financial services, transportation, special education services and technology. It even has its own television studio and broadcasts its own shows.
It owns and operates the Kern County Museum, California Living Museum and Community Connection for Child Care.
And the little old Superintendent of Schools office also runs the state’s fiscal crisis team, which parachutes in to troubled districts after the state takes them over to restructure and help get them going again. In fact, Frazier was the point person on the Kern team that helped revamp the Compton Unified School District in half the time it was estimated to take.
Kern’s Superintendent of Schools’ general fund budget is $254 million and it employs 1,920 people.
Overseeing all that is the superintendent, whose salary can range from $190,624 to $210,939 a year (Reider makes the max, by the way).
Taxpayers have a clear interest in who’s in that seat.
Absolutely, agree both Frazier and Reider.
But (there’s that “but” again)... “This office can’t be left up to chance,” Frazier told me. “I know that sounds tough and I do believe in local control and the people having a voice. But I also believe voters should have a choice of someone who has the experience and knowledge to do the job and then they should make the choice.”
She likened the superintendent appointment — and yes, she’s hoping to get the job — to a “test run.”
“Then the public can say yes or no.”
True, that might weed out undesirables such as the pay-for-play poster boy Rod Blagojevich or closer to home, Mack “we’ll kick your ass” Wimbish. Even so, that’s not how our system works, and this “heir apparent” way of doing things goes against the grain for me.
Reider told me anyone interested in running for Superintendent is required to have a teaching credential and an administrative services credential.
Beyond that, he said the right person also needs a deep understanding of the byzantine world of educational finance and strong relationships with the many districts that dot Kern County. All of which, he said, Frazier has in buckets.
He said he doesn’t make a recommendation to the Board of Education about who to appoint, but strongly supports Frazier.
Frankly, I’d probably vote for her, too.
But I’d prefer to make that choice on my own.
The 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, or call Lois at 395-7373 or send e-mail to lhenry@bakersfield.com

Trying to make democracy more “efficient” is never a good idea.

Besides, there are far worse sins — such as cutting people out of the process.

That’s exactly what the Bakersfield College Student Government Association did in its election April 29 and 30 when it decided to reduce the number of voting days from four to two, prohibit online voting, provide only one polling place on the main campus and require students to present not just any photo ID card, but a new, specific student card that many didn’t yet have.

Add to that the lack of any real pre-election information, such as sample ballots or even a list of election dates and voting requirements and this was close to a stealth election as you can get.

Apparently, operating that kind of “controlled environment” was nothing new for the administration. They’d already cut off any meaningful communication with the campus newspaper, the Renegade Rip, and nearly ignored to death a movement by students of the Delano satellite campus to form their own governmental body.

Perhaps you think I’m too harsh. This is, after all, a learning environment. And how much harm could a handful of student officers do being in charge of homecoming and spring fling?

Well, like any government entity, these “kids” are in charge of public dollars, public business and public policy. This small group makes decisions on behalf of 18,600 students. One of those decisions recently was to put two propositions on the ballot that would ban smoking on BC (passed) and increase health fees by $4 per semester up from $13 (failed).

So what they do — and how they do it — has real life implications for many of those 18,600, students.

Oh yeah, and they get paid, by the by, minimum wage for a maximum 19 hours a week.

Not a lot, but that’s still money students (or their parents) had to fork over, whether they wanted to or not.

Yes, a community college campus  IS a learning environment and I think these student officials should have been taught by their advisor, interim Dean of Students Angela Guadian-Mendez, that this was not the right way to do things.

I called her several times over the course of two days, but got no return.

BC’s President Greg Chamberlain did call me back, however, and agreed this election was a learning experience.

“Really, there are three key areas that need to be improved,” he said. A better election process, making sure everyone is truly represented and — the biggie — communication.

“Should we have had a polling place on the Delano campus? Of course and next year, we absolutely will,” he said. He’ll be meeting with the new student officers over the summer so they understand his priorities.

Outgoing student president Lyne Mugema told me the student government wanted to make sure the election ran smoothly, voter turnout was good and that they avoided the kinds of fraud accusations that cropped up last year. None of the accusations were ever proved and it was unclear if the main concern was over online voting or fraudulent paper ballots.

“We didn’t have a single complaint (about fraud) this year, not one,” said Mugema.

As for voter turnout, she said last year was the highest ever on campus, at 800.

Only 700 students voted this year, but with the number of days cut in half, she said, that’s actually a higher percentage. (Voting students also got free t-shirts, food coupons and other goodies, which probably helped.)

When I mentioned complaints from Delano students who felt cut out of the process because they got no pre-election information and had to drive to the main campus to vote, Mugema said none of the satellite campuses, or centers, have everything a student needs. At some point, they have to come to the Bakersfield campus.

Funny, that’s exactly what outgoing Vice President Justin Salters told me. Politicians and their talking points know no age limits.

It was Salters who also instituted the new “media relations,” or non-relations, policy under which government officers refused to speak to the press. Instead, they issued releases through the campus public information officer.

According to Mugema that was an effort to be more professional and avoid inaccuracies.

“Unfortunately, they (the Rip) didn’t like that very much,” she said.

No kidding.

Salters and Mugema both also told me the election was conducted according to their bylaws as far as the number of days and the “convenient location” of the polling place.

Yeah, I read the bylaws and, yeah, they didn’t have to do more than they did. But that’s one of those spirit/letter-of-the-law kind of things. I tend to favor bending in the direction of public access.

The bright spot here is that Delano students who were all but shut out of the election and who had waited in vain all year for the BC students to meet with them about their own government are steaming ahead.

They’ve written their own constitution and are drawing up bylaws that they’ll present to the Kern Community College District board of trustees in hopes of creating their own associated student government, according to Loy Salarda, who ran unsuccessfully for president in the BC election.

The Delano campus now has more than 1,000 students, Chamberlain said, acknowledging that it has definitely grown beyond satellite status.

“We pay the same fees as the BC students and we deserve representation too,” Salarda said. “We just got tired of waiting.”

Interesting how democracy always seems to have that effect.

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

A couple of local school districts are spending hundreds of thousands of
taxpayer dollars to send people to conferences in Las Vegas and Hollywood
after they just laid off teachers, cut programs and reduced class sizes.

I think that's a good thing.

Sure, on the surface, it looks bad.  But the surface is never where the real
story lies, as you know.

Most of the money they're spending on these "Professional Learning
Communities" conferences -- $250,000 by Panama-Buena Vista Unified and
$180,000 by Kern High School District --  is from federal and state pots and
can only be spent on training. As with anything in the wacky world of
education some of it is from sources that can be spent on training, or could
be spent elsewhere.

That whole "restricted money" argument is a cop-out anyway. It's all tax
dollars and right now none of us is in the mood to see it wasted whether
it's local, state or federal.

What I really wanted to know is whether it's money well spent.

Yes, it is. And I wish more districts would jump on the Professional
Learning Communities bandwagon.

PLC (I think educators might actually shrivel up and blow away without their
daily quota of acronyms) was created by a husband and wife, Richard and
Rebecca DuFour, who spent their careers turning around bad schools, even
entire school districts.

And they've done it by focusing on - wait for it - children learning.
While that seems intuitive, it's not nearly as simple as it sounds.

We stick teachers and kids in a factory setting and expect standardized
results forgetting that they¹re all a bunch of squirrely human beings, just
like the rest of us.

PLC puts the focus on whether kids are learning what we want them to learn
and, if not, why not. It gives teachers ways to figure out why Suzie gets
long division and Johnny doesn't and how to get Johnny on board.

No, it doesn't involve magic beans or special origami hats.

It's real work, restructuring the school day so teachers can focus
relentlessly day-by-day, week-by-week, month-by-month on how each kid
learns.

PLC really starts after the conference, when employees start putting what
they learned to work.

* Teachers get together in teams on their campuses and trade ideas about
better ways of teaching.

* They create tests so they can figure out what each kid has and hasn't
learned.

* If even one kid isn't getting something, they brainstorm together with
that kid and his or her parents to find the right button.

* The teams find ways to motivate students who¹re coasting to make them
shoot for the high notes.

*Finally, they find ways to measure results, and the only result that
counts is whether kids are learning.

By the by, I had to read through reams of information with sentences like:
"Powerful collaborative teams are the fundamental building block of a
professional learning community and a critical component in building a
collaborative culture..." to figure out the above bullet points.

The horror of edu-speak! These people need to add a course on how to write
like a cowboy (or cowGIRL). OK, end of self-pity pit stop.

This summer will be KHSD's first large foray into PLC, though they've had
some smaller training sessions in the concept over the last few years.

Trustee Joel Heinrichs said the district has high hopes for this training,
which is sweeping the country.

"The bottom line is, whether we have 1,700 teachers or 1,600, we have to
invest in them if we want to improve student achievement," he said,
referring to the layoffs KHSD has undergone. "Just preserving bodies isn't
the way to go, they have to have the right training."

PLC isn't, or shouldn't be, an ongoing money-sucker program. Once a district
gets the majority of its people involved in the new way of doing business,
then it¹s up to the district to keep it going.

That's already happening at Panama-Buena Vista, which has sent groups to PLC
training over the last three years.

"We've already implemented considerable structural changes," said Pam
Bianchi, Panama-Buena Vista¹s assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and
Instruction. They've created the teams and carved out time in teachers'
schedules to work with those teams and evaluate students.

They have seen results, she said, on a daily, weekly and monthly level.

Whether that's due to this new program or a host of factors is hard to say.

But it's certainly not hurting.

"We used to focus on teachers teaching," she told me. "Now we focus on
students learning and we¹re being very proscriptive when they don¹t learn
and asking, 'What are we going to do to ensure that they do learn?¹'"

Hopefully, this will help them find the answer.

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
 

Here are some odds and ends for your entertainment, placed in totally random order so you have to read all the way to the end — because you never know what gems are hidden here.

Our fees are slipping. Well, here’s hoping.

I did a column in March about the Sequoia National Forest Service’s inability to account for how it’s been spending fees it charges the public for alleged maintenance and upkeep on camping areas around Isabella Lake.

The double-talk was bad enough, but it really turned my stomach after residents sent me photos showing disgusting, broken porta-toilets and overflowing garbage that were supposed to be cleaned up by the Forest Service.

My conclusion was the Forest Service has done a terrible job not only caring for the sites, but communicating with the public about how they’re spending our money.

Well, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana, apparently doesn’t like the situation any better than I do and has introduced S868 to repeal the law under which the fees have been charged.

I called Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, to see what he thought of the bill. There is no house version, so he called the Western Caucus to see if they’re going to create one and, if so, asked how he can help.

McCarthy represents the Kern River Valley area where residents have fretted over the fees and lack of service for some time.

“I think this will open the debate so we can discuss whether it’s reasonable for the Forest Service to have these fees,” McCarthy told me. “If so, we can talk about that, but there absolutely has to be better accountability.”

Watch these!

I’ve been writing about how the Califronia Air Resources Board irresponsibly, I believe, adopted new diesel rules that will all but kill independent trucking and the heavy construction industry in this state.

The rules are based on flawed science cobbled together in a report authored by a man who lied about his credentials. I’ve been advocating the whole mess should get a do over.

Alas, no one listens to me.

But a couple of bills have been written that at least try to inject some fairness into the regulatory process.

• SB 356, by State Sen. Rod Wright, D-Los Angeles, would require agencies to determine the impact of new regulations on small businesses before they’re adopted.

This one made it through the Business, Professions and and Economic Development Committee — where our own State Sen. Dean Florez was one of only two votes against it — and is now scheduled for a hearing in Appropriations on May 11.

I thought it was a sound, straightforward bill.

But Florez told me he voted against it because we already have rules that require agencies to get public input and analyze the impact of new regulations.

And he also felt it could lead to endless litigation over regulations already established.

“Under the bill, if a small business (the number of which would multiply under the new definition in this bill) sought an exemption to one of these important protections, the responsible agency would not only have to consider it — the onus would be on them to justify NOT granting the exemption.”

Despite Florez’s concerns, I think it actually might have a snowball’s chance in the Legislature.

The other two bills were introduced by Assembly Democrats, Tony Mendoza, Buena Park and Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, San Jose.

• AB 1085 and AB 1395, respectively, would require the Air Resources Board to show and tell, so to speak, by making public the  methodologies and other input supporting regulations, as well as all changes to draft regulations.

Both have yet to be heard.

Gay is good (well, for now anyway)

A few weeks ago I went to a fundraiser for a new group called “Gay is good.” (The local gay community wants to raise money to put up billboards and find other ways of communicating that it’s not a bad thing to be gay.)

I don’t normally go to fundraisers, but I’d heard through Facebook that State Sen. Dean Florez might show up and I really wanted to be there if it happened. It didn’t.

For background, I was hammering Florez in mid-April after he signed on as a co-author to a bill that would declare a Harvey Milk Day. Earlier, he was the swing vote to approve a Senate resolution that took issue with the small percentage of signatures needed to get Proposition 8 on the ballot.

Florez had, up until then, spent his entire legislative career voting against gay rights issues.

My working theory is he needs to drum up support for his run for lieutenant governor from the much more politically powerful and left-leaning Bay Area and Los Angeles.

Florez told me that creating a “recognized” day isn’t a gay rights issue and there’s a recognized day for just about everyone and anyone so no biggie. He did NOT say he’d changed his stance on gay rights nor gay marriage.

That was mid-April.

The very next week another reporter, E.J. Schultz with the Fresno Bee, ran into Florez at the state Democratic convention and “the gay thing” came up.

Here’s Florez’s quote:

“People change and it’s OK to change,” he said. “My position right now is the same as [President Obama’s] and I think it’s a civil rights issue and I don’t think that people should in essence stand in the way of people who want to get married.”

That reminds me — it’s almost summer and I need buy some new flip flops!

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

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May 3, 2009

People, people, please. Calm dowwwwn! If you’re reading this from anywhere within the borders of Kern County, I can tell you with near certainty that you are far, far, FAR more likely to die from being overweight and out of shape than any kind of flu, swine or otherwise.

So stop crowding into emergency rooms and quit bugging your doctors to get swine flu tests or prescriptions so you can stockpile flu drugs. All you’re doing is running down supplies and clogging up an intricate testing system.
 

Oh, and you might want to turn your television dials to something other than hyped-to-the-max-24-hour cable news shows. Get out and go for a walk instead. That would have the two-fold benefit of maintaining your sanity and helping you avoid Kern’s real health menace — heart disease.
 

If that doesn’t help, here are some common sense things to remember about swine flu: 1)

As of Friday afternoon, there was not one single documented case in Kern County and B) even if the swino virus does eventually affect a few people here, it’s a mild flu. Repeat: MILD flu.
 

Since this whole thing started I’ve been appalled by the breathless reaction to an illness that’s not life-threatening, particularly here in the United States.
 

Maybe the hysteria is amplified because Mexico, the epicenter, is in our backyard as opposed to China where avian flu and SARS originated. Or maybe we’re so freaked out because of the 1976 swine flu episode, which resulted in a vaccine that turned out to be more dangerous than the actual virus.
 

Either way, this outbreak has really brought alarmists to full shrill.
 

State Sen. Dean Florez even started calling it a pandemic before health agencies used the P-word, which unnecessarily scares the jeepers out of people.
 

Please note that “pandemic” doesn’t mean “we’re all going to DIE!!!!”
 

Pandemic means widespread. Cases of skin cancer among people who spend too much time in the sun without protection are pandemic.
 

Even the word “epidemic” doesn’t mean “we’re all going to DIE!!!”
 

It means rapidly spreading. Twittering has become epidemic, particularly among people who like to pass on bad information about swine flu.
 

So, to recap, a mild flu that is widespread could spread even further.
 

“This is a time for awareness, not alarm,” Kern County Public Health Director John Nilon told me.
 

If you wake up tomorrow with the sniffles and a headache, stay home from work. (Even in run-of-the-mill flu outbreaks, it really chaps my hide when people come to work sick. Like I want their crud!)
 

If the sniffles progress to a high fever with other flu-like symptoms, call your doctor and discuss it first before you rush in for a nose swab.
 

Doctor Raj Patel told me his office has received a lot of phone calls from concerned patients, but neither he nor his partner have found any whose symptoms qualified for testing. He’s also received calls from people wanting prescriptions for tamiflu or relenza “just in case.”
 

“Those need to be reserved for patients who really need it,” he said.
 

Besides, they’re expensive, have short shelf lives and if not administered at the right time and in the right manner can make you even sicker than the flu.
 

“Don’t stockpile,” Patel sternly warned.
 

For those of you getting tested “just because,” here’s the fallout you’re causing:
 

There’s a checklist that needs to be filled out. If not fully completed, the lab has to backtrack through your doctor, then the lab screens the list to see if you’re a priority case.
 

To be a priority case, first off, you have to have flu symptoms. Sniffles don’t cut it. Then they want to know if you’ve returned from Mexico in the last seven days and become ill. And so on.
 

If you meet those criteria, they send it on the Kern County Public Health, which does a further priority screening. Then it’s sent up to Tulare County, which screens the list again.
 

If it makes it through all those cuts, the sample gets tested in Tulare and if it turns up as a “probable” case (meaning it’s some kind of influenza), they send it on to the Centers for Disease Control to confirm whether the virus is genetically the “swine” strain.
 

Results from Tulare come back fairly quickly, but the final verdict from CDC can take several days.

Up to Friday afternoon, Public Health had received about 250 samples over the course of the week and sent a little more than 60 up to Tulare. None were even probable cases.
Clearly, the more frivolous samples submitted, the more time, money and effort is wasted.
 

“We’re trying to get through this early period of high volume, which is really pushing our search capacity,” said Michael Lancaster, the lab director for Public Health.

Once swine flu is found here, he said, testing will slow down.

“Once it’s established in the county there’s no advantage to finding it more often,” he said.
Besides, the treatment is pretty much the same for regular old flu — bed rest, liquids and time.

Prevention is pretty old school too: wash your hands, cover your mouth...and if you’re sick, STAY HOME.

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