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The Bakersfield City Council has authorized a $95,000 settlement in the case of a teen who was bit buy a police K9.
Miguel Perez, 14 at the time of the incident, was laying under covers in his bedroom in December 2007 when a K9 searching his home lunged at him, police said. Perez suffered a cut...
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Three of Bakersfield's city council members are up for re-election or retirement this year, and the process starts Monday.
Prospective candidates can pull papers beginning Monday, and then must collect 20-30 signatures from registered voters in the ward by Aug. 8.
If an incumbent doesn't file...
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So Bakersfield has a quiet zone, and we can keep it for not much money at all. Head out there and close a few streets. Put up some barriers. Ruth Gardner said she's do the jackhammering herself. She and her husband Dean suspect the cost would be tens of thousands of dollars. I suspect they're...
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The people who want Ken Weir to not be a city councilman anymore have their reasons. Ken Weir has answers. I took a look at both and started digging around, and learned a lot.
Like, all about accountants' ethics. And the history of the Hillside Ordinance (which mostly happened before my time)....
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Bakersfield City Councilman Ken Weir lent his support to the local Prop 98 rally Thursday. Afterward, I e-mailed him some questions. He responded Friday afternoon. I'd already written my story, so I didn't add him in, but here's what he said.
(By the way, off the top of my head I don't believe a...
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The Kern County Young Republicans heard from, and then passed a resolution in support of, Bakersfield City Councilman Ken Weir.
Weir spoke to the group at its meeting Monday.
“He was apologetic in the way it was handled, as he has been publicly," said Ryan Leggio, chairman of the...
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Ahead of Tuesday's committee meeting to discuss Ken Weir's proposal to change the planning commission, I did some poking around.
How the Bakersfield Planning Commission is appointed:
• Currently: Nominated by council member on rotation basis, approved by full council. Four-year terms. Can...
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Bakersfield City Councilman Ken Weir yesterday submitted his official response to the proponents' statement of why he should be recalled. Recall organizer Will Winn has now come up with a response to the response:
The residents of the Third Ward are being given a tremendous opportunity in this...
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Ken Weir went on KGET this week to talk more about why Russell Johnson has to go.
The summary:
“Mr. Johnson is not accountable to anyone at the city, he’s not independent due to his employment relationship, and he doesn’t respect private property rights.”
I'm not sure...
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Recalls are apparently a dime a dozen in Kern County's smaller towns. But in Bakersfield, they're rare.
The last time a recall effort made the ballot was 1962. Three council members were targeted: Kathryn Belfanz of Ward 2, Dick Mossman of Ward 4 and Richard Stiern of Ward 5.
The recall failed:...
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One of the arguments that's been used by people on the side of Ken Weir in the Planning Commission Conflagration of 2008 (Part One) has been that Russell Johnson works for Mike Maggard, and that's a conflict.
It's legally not a conflict of interest, but it does raise the question of smell test....
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In case you, like David Couch, would like to do a point-by-point rebuttal of Ken Weir's statement Wednesday, here's the official transcript prepared by the city clerk's office.
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We've recorded just the audio of Ken Weir's remarks and put it in a file, which you can listen to here.
We went with audio-only, because we figured the video isn't that great in this case — it's just him talking. And going with YouTube we'd have to break it into two pieces, because it's...
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KGET had Ken Weir on again this morning.
"I think Mr. Johnson and I differ significantly on a number of policies," he said.
He was asked directly for an example, but did not provide one.
I guess he was on KNZR again this afternoon, too, but I missed that. Anyone hear it?
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KGET-TV had Ken Weir and Russell Johnson on TV this morning.
Weir says there's a "new philosophy" on the council. He doesn't articulate what it is or how Johnson doesn't fit it. He says it's not about the Canyons, but hasn't said what it's about.
Here's the dialogue between me and...
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The mayor candidates will be on Quality of Life next week, 9 a.m. Tuesday on 89.1 FM. The interviews will be pre-recorded, individual interviews, unfortunately. Probably the fact that the studios are in Fresno and they were dealing with four people is why.
Meanwhile, I've heard Ken Weir will be...
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Most members of the Bakersfield City Council won't say how they're planning to vote on Ken Weir's proposal to remove Russell Johnson from the planning commission.
I'm putting Weir down in the for column — it's his proposal. Sullivan has said she's for, Benham has said she's against....
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So the Ken Weir-Russell Johnson affair will come to a turning point tomorrow night. Will the public turn out? Will the council vote with Weir?
The best way to follow the action is to show up at City Hall for the meeting at 6:30. (Get there early; kids always take up a lot of seats.) The...
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I just talked to political consultant Stan Harper, who said he'd been asked by some folks — he wouldn't say who — to look into what it would take to recall Councilman Ken Weir. He said he heard that there was a meeting Sunday night at a home in the Third Ward. He said 40 people...
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I don't know about you, but I like to be there when my bosses are talking about me.
But City Manager Alan Tandy is scheduled to miss his own performance evaluation next week.
Tandy was supposed to get his annual review by the council back on March 12. But the council had so much else to talk...
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The Hollywood writers' strike is over — new Galactica this week, new The Office next week, new things to say about impact fees in two weeks.
Meanwhile, today's City Council Planning and Development Committee meeting was pretty much the same as all the previous meetings — City Manager...
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For your viewing pleasure, we've put together a short video of the highlights of last week's debate on the Second Amendment, so you can see exactly what Scrivner, Benham and the rest of the council said.
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Bakersfield City Councilman Ken Weir wants to appoint a planning commissioner, and he doesn't want to wait until next year to do it.
Weir introduced a proposal to alter the way planning commissioners are appointed at last night's council meeting. It would allow for commissioners to be removed by...
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The Supreme Court last week heard arguments in a case over whether the District of Columbia can ban handguns. Councilman Zack Scrivner wants Bakersfield to take sides.
The case, at the court level, is the first time in decades that the court has considered whether the Second Amendment to the...
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As I was setting up my workstation at city council last night, Councilman Harold Hanson walked by. Can you get Lois on the phone? he asked. I need her to tell me how to vote.
After he led the council in approving the re-zone for Mustang Square (it's in his ward, so most of the council followed...
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The Franzen family, not fans of Mustang Square, had handouts for the City Council. Not something dry like exhibits, photos, or maps, but little notepads. Councilman Hanson was so amused he passed out pages to those of us who didn't get one, and it's reproduced for you here.
I am so making this...
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The city has a bunch of small road projects on the Wednesday city council agenda, in addition to the big-name freeway-building construction.
There’s a project to put a median in on Stockdale Highway from Chapala Drive to Renfro Road. It’ll cost $157,000, and Castle and Cooke will do...
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The fate of a controversial 788-home proposed development south of Panama Lane called Ten Section is still unresolved. The development was on the council agenda, but the applicant has asked for it to be put off.
The developer, Jim Manley, has been struggling to get buyoff from two key...
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At the start of tonight's City Council meeting, Public Works Director Raul Rojas updated the council on the city's many ongoing road projects. Councilman Harold Hanson had two questions: Can we speed things up? And can we make things cheaper?
Contradictory much?
I asked Hanson about it, and...
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Recently, there has been a lot of talk about the city making curbside recycling mandatory. And many people have criticized the city for this plan, because it would impose an annual fee of around $36. Now, it's my turn to show off my criticism.
We all know that the city will be...
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The Bakersfield City Council's agenda tonight is four pages long, but all the attention and time will be spent on four little lines: the immigration proposals.
The are three resolutions on tap:
1. Declaring English the official language of Bakersfield
2. Affirming that Bakersfield is...
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Does televising government meetings hurt public participation?
Bakersfield City Councilman Ken Weir thinks so.
At a meeting of the Bakersfield City Council’s Planning and Development Committee Thursday, Weir said he would prefer that meetings of a proposed city-county task force on...
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