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Editorials - editorials's Blog - Bakersfield.com http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/editorials en-us Protect Panorama Park http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/editorials/32567 http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/editorials/32567 PUBLISHED 8/27/08 ----- Taggers have started making themselves at home at Panorama Park, the linear park along Panorama Drive with the jaw-dropping view of north Bakersfield’s Kern River oil field. Residents were outraged to awaken recently to fresh graffiti and assorted other vandalism in the relatively new county park. Curbsides, street signs and even the trunks of several palm trees were hit with blue and red paint. Vandals nearly destroyed one metal park bench. County parks employees were quickly on the job making repairs, but neighbors and park users are fed up. This is not the first time vandals have struck there. What can be done? Consider these possibilities: • Patrol the park more frequently after its 10 p.m. closing, and not just with Kern County Sheriff’s deputies. Although the park is in unincorporated Bakersfield, it’s adjacent to a heavily populated neighborhood and it’s frequented by many city residents. Bakersfield Police should chip in with personnel and resources. • Create a Neighborhood Watch program comprised of neighbors and park users who are willing to call law enforcement to report suspicious activity day or night. • Post signs with a telephone number park users can call if they spot vandals at work, or other suspicious behavior. • Add more lighting, as long as it’s as unobtrusive as possible to the neighbors. • Appoint an unofficial “park commissioner,” who can work as a liaison among and between neighbors, park users, county parks department officials, law enforcement and other vested parties. Former Supervisors Pauline Larwood and Barbara Patrick worked diligently to create this recreational oasis on what was once a barren patch of bluff land. They are informed and well-liked. They might be perfect candidates to head up a protection effort. Supervisor Mike Maggard, who now represents Larwood’s and Patrick’s old District 3, should step up, as well. Ensure resources are provided to preserve the safety and beauty of this county park. As bad as things are now, they can quickly slip into more dangerous territory as rival taggers become involved. Add the hazards of the Panorama bluffs into the equation, and it’s clear there’s plenty of negative potential. The quicker and more effectively the community addresses this situation the better. Ruling protects election system http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/editorials/32502 http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/editorials/32502 PUBLISHED 8/26/08 ---- Kern County Superior Court Commissioner Linda Etienne cut through the political hype Monday and came down on the side of protecting the integrity of our elections. The commissioner denied a request by Bakersfield City Council hopeful Beau Woodward to rule that a woman who had signed Woodward’s candidate petition was a registered voter at the time she signed. Woodward came up one signature shy of the 20 needed to have his name placed on the Nov. 4 ballot to challenge incumbent Ward 5 Councilman Harold Hanson. Although he collected 33 signatures — 13 extra than the required number — several signers did not live in Ward 5 and several were not registered voters. One disqualified signer, however, claimed she registered to vote when she renewed her driver’s license at the DMV. But county election’s officials said they had no record of the woman being a registered voter. The woman had no proof of registration. Etienne appropriately rejected Woodward’s request for the court to  declare the woman a registered voter and to clear the way for his City Council candidacy. The commissioner cited state elections laws in declining to do so. These are laws that assure voters that all candidates and all elections are treated fairly and equally. But the dustup over the woman’s claim that she had registered to vote at the DMV on May 16 and somehow her forms were lost in the bureaucratic shuffle raise a concern all voters should heed — particularly as the Oct. 20 deadline to register for the Nov. 4 election nears. We now have a variety of ways to  register to vote. We can do so when we obtain or renew our driver’s licenses at the DMV. People stand outside of Wal-Mart pestering us to sign up to vote. Pending in the Legislature is a proposal to make registering to vote even easier. Senate Bill 381 would enable us to register online — tying our DMV records to our online registration forms. Just hit send. But with all this ease and reliance on technology, there are risks. Have you ever sent an e-mail that failed to arrive? Have you read stories about fraudulent petition circulators who dumped registration forms to favor a certain political party? If you register to vote and county elections officials receive your registration form, you will be sent a notification. If time allows, you will be sent a sample ballot before an election. At the very least you will be notified of your polling place. Don’t assume if you sign a form you are a registered voter. Check. Voters don’t need holiday http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/editorials/32454 http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/editorials/32454 PUBLISHED 8/22/08 ---- The dumb idea of the day award goes to one Roy Benson, city not disclosed, who thinks Election Day ought to be a state holiday. California Secretary of State Debra Bowen has given Benson, the proponent of the initiative to turn even-year election days in November into state holidays, permission to begin collecting petition signatures for his measure.  Why not? Voting day, after all, is a holiday in at least nine states, including New York and Ohio. Wouldn’t setting aside a day in this way encourage voters to do their civic duty? It might, if state law didn’t already require employers to give workers sufficient time to go and vote. Or if vote-by-mail, also known as absentee voting, hadn’t already taken hold as the preferred mode of participation among the state’s electorate. Voting is already simple enough, and getting simpler. Among the proposals of assorted merit that various states have floated: Allowing would-be voters to register on Election Day; letting voters cast ballots in person prior to Election Day; and automatically registering voters when they get their driver’s licenses. Would any of these proposals increase voter turnout? Perhaps, but the bottom line is this: Citizens still need to care enough to make the effort, and giving them the day off probably won’t matter much to those who are not favorably disposed to it. Making Election Day a state holiday will accomplish at least two things, however: It’ll cause a spike in the number of four-day holidays workers take, authorized and otherwise; and it’ll force taxpayers to pay state and county election workers (among other public employees) holiday wages. The state’s Legislative Analyst says the measure, if approved, will cost the state up to $20 million every other year.  Proponents of the measure must collect the signatures of 433,971 registered voters by Jan. 2. Let’s hope they come up with something better to do. Scariest movie of the summer http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/editorials/32259 http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/editorials/32259 PUBLISHED 8/21/08 ---- Every summer brings a new batch of horror movies to theaters. They usually involve teen girls, lurking psychopaths and excessive screaming. As August draws to a close, many U.S. theaters be will showing another sort of summer horror movie — one with considerably less screaming and significantly more accountants. See it anyway. “I.O.U.S.A.,” a documentary film about the U.S. budget deficit, opens at 7:30 p.m. tonight with a special version featuring a recorded-live town hall meeting from Omaha, Neb., with Warren Buffett, Pete Peterson and filmmaker Dave Walker. The film plays in Bakersfield tonight only at Edwards Cinemas at the Marketplace — a single showing that probably represents Bakersfield’s only chance to see the film until it hits DVD. Walker, the former head of the Government Accountability Office, is hoping the documentary can do what innumerable policy papers have failed to do: Convince Americans that debt has created an imminent economic crisis of Titanic proportions. The film, widely dubbed “An Inconvenient Truth” for the economy, is an 87-minute warning siren on what it calls the “tsunami of debt” created by the surging national debt, trade imbalances and the lurking cost of middle-aged Americans cashing in on entitlements. Since 2005, Walker has been crossing the U.S. on a “fiscal wake-up tour,” giving his end-of-days speech to sparse crowds. That changed after he was featured in a “60 Minutes” piece in March 2007. The plot: Most responsible Americans know that the national debt is $9.6 trillion and increasing daily. But if you throw in all the entitlement obligations — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc., the debt is more like $53 trillion. That’s 53 followed by 12 zeroes. Walker rattled off a succession of grim one-liners in an interview with the Washington Post, including: “The debt has increased our risk of being held hostage by foreign lenders.” The nation’s debt now accounts for 66 percent of the gross national product. But we are on course for the debt to equal 244 percent by 2040, twice what it was at the end of World War II, our highest level of national debt. That, Buffett and Walker agree, would make the nation vulnerable to more economically stable foreign powers. The film depicts terror Freddie Kruger could only dream about. Perhaps it ought to be required viewing for every American. Ouch: Parra shown the door http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/editorials/32257 http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/editorials/32257 PUBLISHED 8/20/08 ---- Paybacks are — to put it nicer than the saying — painful. Bakersfield’s Democratic Assemblywoman, Nicole Parra, felt the sting of her party’s legislative leaders when they booted her from her Capitol office this week. The “payback” was for her refusal to vote on a Democratic version of the state budget Sunday. Parra was the only Democrat on the Assembly floor who did not vote for the budget. Republicans voted against the spending plan, which failed by nine votes to get the required two-thirds support to pass. Parra vowed not to support a budget unless it contains funding to improve state water supplies —  backing efforts to place a bond on the November ballot. No doubt increasing and securing water supplies is critical to Parra’s district and California as a whole. But it was the last straw for Democrats who increasingly view Parra as a turncoat. They note the party has poured millions of dollars into Parra’s three Assembly campaigns, which she narrowly won. Now that she is termed out, she has found her voice and her backbone. Where was her political courage for the past six years? Aside from casting a rare socially conservative and pro-business vote, she seldom bit the political hand that was feeding her campaigns. But her budget ultimatum was the last straw for Democrats who have seethed over the past several months over Parra’s not-so-subtle backing of Republican Danny Gilmore to replace Parra in the Assembly when she leaves office. Parra has said Gilmore is a better fit for the district than Democrat Fran Florez, a Shafter councilwoman and mother of Parra’s political nemesis, state Sen. Dean Florez. Why should any of us care about this back-stabbing, petty behavior? Because Parra seems to have been sidelined for the rest of her term. Good luck to those she represents. Speaker Karen Bass’ bonehead move to hammer Parra has created yet another big obstacle to getting an overdue budget approved. Were women consulted in birth control draft? http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/editorials/32145 http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/editorials/32145 PUBLISHED 8/19/08 ----- In the world imagined by people at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 12 million American women give themselves daily abortions by performing the most mundane of acts: They take a birth control pill. The federal agency, which determines national health policy and controls billions in funding, has produced a draft proposal that clearly targets women’s access to one of the most basic of family-planning options. The leaked proposal, later downplayed as incomplete and premature by agency secretary Mike Leavitt, is ostensibly intended to protect medical professionals from discrimination if, in an act of conscience, they refuse to fill a prescription for birth control pills, decline to offer a rape victim the so-called morning-after pill, or refuse to honor prescription-drug insurance benefits. Under the draft proposal, a worker could refuse to provide such treatment if it may interfere with the implantation of a fertilized egg.  Not abortion — which, like contraception, is legal — but methods that prevent fertilization in the first place, such as the IUD or the pill. What’s going on here? Is the government trying to limit couples’ family-planning choices to surgical sterilization, abstinence or multiple-deck bunk beds? The idea of moving birth control into a gray area of accessibility has other consequences. Under the HHS draft proposal, physicians could refuse to provide or discuss contraception options. Medical professionals would not be required to disclose to the patient that only a partial array of care options was being offered. And health insurers would be under no obligation to cover contraception equitably. The draft regulation would deny federal funding to any entity, be it hospital, clinic or health plan, that does not accommodate employees who want to opt out of participating in family-planning care. Low-income women would undoubtedly bear the brunt of any withheld funding. Denying or making birth control more difficult or expensive for women to acquire could have other ramifications not associated with family planning. Women who suffer from excessive bleeding or pain due to conditions such as uterine fibroids or endometriosis can benefit greatly from hormone therapy — birth control pills. Which makes one wonder: Were any women involved in developing this draft? If not, who was? Religious conservatives, apparently — presumably male. If the draft regulations were to prompt some insurance companies to drop coverage for prescription birth control, “that would be fantastic,” Tom McClusky, a strategist with the conservative Family Research Council, told the Wall Street Journal. The White House is clearly on board. The Bush administration said it has an obligation to enforce the “right of conscientious objection” and is “exploring a number of options” to do so. Here’s the funny thing: No one has cited a single case of a physician, an insurance company employee, a pharmacist, anyone, who has ever been ostracized for balking at fulfilling a patient’s covered medical needs as they relate to ordinary birth control. Perhaps those are just inconvenient details. No City Council challenges a bad sign http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/editorials/32091 http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/editorials/32091 PUBLISHED 8/17/08 ----- Critics of the so-called Abernathy machine are having great fun with Beau Woodward’s disqualification from the Bakersfield City Council race. The first-time campaigner needed a mere 20 valid signatures on his petition to run for office and he could only come up with 19. If he hadn’t waited until 10 minutes before the filing deadline to submit his paperwork, he surely could’ve found one more willing, qualified voter on short notice. Woodward’s failure to clear such a low bar doesn’t speak well for his attention to detail, but then he was apparently relying on the guidance of seasoned political consultant Mark Abernathy, who has helped direct many successful campaigns, from the city council to Congress to the gubernatorial recall. Woodward’s non-start (barring a legal challenge or write-in campaign) leaves all three of the incumbents on the November city-council ballot with an unopposed path to reelection. Ward 2’s Sue Benham, Ward 6’s Jacquie Sullivan and Ward 5’s Harold Hanson (who benefits directly from Woodward’s signature shortfall) will be returned to office without the election-year scrutiny that ballot challenges routinely encourage. And that is the real misfortune in Woodward’s missed-it-by-that-much candidacy. At a time when Bakersfield has undergone historic growth and continues to confront difficult challenges and potentially profound changes, city council positions — all public offices, really — need the best possible stewards. This is not a commentary on the performance of Benham, Sullivan or Hanson, who seem to have given their conscientious best, even if they have occasionally generated controversy. Benham, who has been diligent and independent, has had to deal with the concerns of the Westpark neighborhood she serves over proposed freeway routes. Sullivan’s mission to see “In God We Trust” displayed in every U.S. city council chamber has garnered much support, along with some criticism over its perceived Judeo-Christian exclusivity. And Hanson has been portrayed of late as an occasional swing vote, rather than the sure thing some might have assumed he’d be. That’s probably the reason for his apparent falling out with Abernathy and at least one council colleague. The lack of opposition for any of those three seats could simply be a statement about the public’s general satisfaction with the status quo. But we doubt it. More likely, the lack of interest is a statement about the perceived risks vs. rewards of public office. Serving on the city council in a city the size of Bakersfield is a full-time job that, if done right, demands continuous study on a multitude of issues — planning, growth, resources, aesthetics, finance, personnel and more. The best elected officials incorporate broad, long-term vision into the package as well. City council service can certainly feed one’s ambition. But for those who do not aspire to higher office, the reward is the satisfaction one gets from contributing. It’s hardly the money. A 2005 Massachusetts study ranked Bakersfield’s cost-adjusted council salaries second-lowest among the 47 U.S. cities it compared. And with 1.75 candidates per seat, Bakersfield was ranked second-worst in the study’s list of least competitive city elections. By comparison, the city of Hayward had the 10th-highest council salaries among the cities studied and the eighth-most competitive elections with 3.25 candidates per seat. Salary can’t be the only factor — and, in fact, the Massachusetts study concluded that it isn’t. Local circumstances loom even larger. In Bakersfield, perhaps it’s the general tenor of local politics or the sense that one needs a big name, a vault full of money or a powerful sponsor to have a chance. Whatever the reasons, unchallenged incumbents, no matter how deserving of reelection, are an indication that Bakersfield’s political landscape — and citizens’ confidence in the democratic process — is not as healthy as it ought to be. Budget deal may be the best we’ll get http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/editorials/31944 http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/editorials/31944 PUBLISHED 8/15/08 ---- California’s budget impasse may very well come down to a question of whether state Sen. Roy Ashburn, R-Bakersfield, can live with the terms of an Arnold Schwarzenegger-brokered deal. Schwarzenegger needs at least two Senate Republicans to break ranks with GOP colleagues, and Ashburn sounds like he’s prepared to be one of them. But he’s made it clear that the deal must be right. And it must. The governor’s proposed 1-cent sales tax increase must be truly temporary, as promised. Taxes have a tendency to stick around long after the need they’re ostensibly intended to meet has faded away, and California’s sales tax is already one of the highest in the nation. The expiration date on this new tax must be ironclad, and the revenues it produces managed responsibly so there are no extensions. The spending cap Republicans have demanded must be part of the deal — and in a hopeful sign, the state Senate’s Democratic leadership has hinted it may yet agree to that provision, though the players have yet to see the specific language of that and other stipulations. All parties must agree to the creation of the same sort of “rainy day” fund that many states already have in place. If California had created such a fund in healthier times, when state leaders had the chance, the present shortfall might have been averted or minimized. No one will be doing handstands over the budget compromise, whatever it turns out to be. But, as we’ve said here all along, the state Legislature must boost revenues and cut spending in some combination, painful though it may be, until it can close the $15.2 billion shortfall. The governor has made some tough choices (amid occasionally silly grandstanding) and the Democrats have inched toward his position. Now the members of the governor’s own party must budge, starting with approval of the sales tax hike, which will produce about $6 billion annually for three years — and then revert somewhere below the current level. “The way you’ve described ... your sales tax proposal,” Ashburn told Schwarzenegger during the governor’s chummy, 20-minute chat on Ashburn’s KERN radio program last Saturday, “it actually sounds like a tax cut.” A tax cut with strings attached — billions of dollars’ worth. As distasteful as that might be, it is probably the best deal we’ll get. Let’s get it done.   Sacramento’s royal lawmakers http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/editorials/31886 http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/editorials/31886 PUBLISHED 8/14/08 ---- Bummer. Saturday service at Bakersfield’s Department of Motor Vehicle offices ended this month as a result of the state budget stalemate. Democrats and Republicans continue to bicker over a new state spending plan and closing a more than $15 billion budget hole. Approval of a 2008-09 budget is nearly two months overdue. To apply heat to lawmakers’ feet and ensure the state will have enough money to pay its bills through September, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger laid off part-timers and cut state workers’ pay to minimum wage. The Saturday DMV closure was a casualty. But The Sacramento Bee reports there is one exception — the unmarked DMV office, room 121, buried in a dark corner of the Legislative Office Building across the street from the Capitol. The office serves the Legislature and its staff. But don’t make plans for any trips to Sacramento to use this office. The Bee reports it is in a section of the building that is not open to the public, and security refuses to give directions. It’s good to be king and queen. Should police go hands-free? http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/editorials/31824 http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/editorials/31824 PUBLISHED 8/13/08 ----- Sometimes cops need to break the law. If the situation calls for them to exceed the posted speed limit, for example, and they can do so safely, few would question their right to drive faster than the rest of us. California’s new hands-free law falls into the same category. Since July 1, California drivers have been banned from using their phones in the traditional manner when they’re behind the wheel of a vehicle. But law enforcement agencies are exempt from the new law. Does that seem fair? Perhaps not. However, equitable or not, it’s often necessary. Still, many agencies care about public image, and some have started asking their officers to minimize the use of cell phones. The Kern County Sheriff’s Department generally prohibits employees and volunteers from driving a county vehicles while using a wireless phone unless it’s  hands-free. But there’s an exception for emergency services personnel who are calling in connection to an emergency. Example: A deputy responding to a robbery in progress who uses the phone to speak with the store clerk. Bakersfield Police have similar guidelines. The California Highway Patrol also bans cell phone use except in pressing circumstances, and even then CHP officials prefer that troopers take the hands-free route.  Phones free up radio airtime while officers make calls related to an incident, and sometimes officers need confidential information that they don’t want to share with people listening to police scanners. Police may also be returning calls to people who have called police, or contacting other agencies they can’t reach on the same channel. Many officers already wear earpieces for portable radios in one ear — and noise from nearby scanners, radios and sirens can make it tough to hear with a hands-free device. But police shouldn’t just enforce the law. They should, whenever possible, model desirable behavior. If that means pulling over to make cell calls, they should try to do so. The fewer double standards we see with law enforcement — even when it’s justified — the better.