Local Election News RSS Feed
Print Story
E-mail StorySupervisor all business as he seeks re-election
| Thursday, May 8 2008 10:35 AM
Last Updated: Thursday, May 8 2008 5:06 PM
Ray Watson walks briskly through his old neighborhood on Kroll Way in southwest Bakersfield.
Our readers recommend:
Loading Stories
Photos:
Supervisor Ray Watson answering a question at a forum in Taft between him and Taft City Councilman Cliff Thompson.
Ray Watson, who is running for re-election as 4th District supervisor of Kern County, walks the neighborhood on Kroll Way talking to voters.
Kern County 4th District Supervisor Ray Watson speaks to Karen, foreground, and Sarah Klein about his bid for re-election.
He has a list in his hand. He’s wearing a dress shirt and slacks, a tie and dress shoes. He knocks on doors of registered voters, flyers at the ready.
Three supporters move around him like satellites, dropping flyers on the other doorsteps in a quick, precise canvas of the neighborhood.
Even with a curious reporter lobbying distracting questions, Watson is efficient. He nearly only stops to talk when a resident answers the door.
Supervisor Ray Watson, 71, will face off against challenger Cliff Thompson of Taft in the June 3 election.
And he is all business.
HOME TURF
The people of this neighborhood know Watson.
When he shows up at their door they say hello, even before he tells them who he is. They offer him their vote before he even asks for it.
One man crosses the street to visit on the sidewalk.
The tract of tidy, upper-middle class homes near The Marketplace is the center of Watson’s 4th District — and his political power base.
There are 72,182 registered voters in the district, according to current Kern County Elections Department figures.
And a substantial 76.2 percent of voters live in the Bakersfield metropolitan area.
BUSINESS BACKGROUND
Watson says his other greatest asset is the work he’s done over his long career in business and public service.
He worked four years as an accountant for a major firm in Los Angeles and San Diego before spending 36 years as a manager and regional president for television stations in San Diego, Bakersfield and Denver.
Watson ended his career as president of a group of four television stations including KGET Channel 17 in Bakersfield.
His history of public service is just as long. Leadership in Bakersfield Vision 2020, Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Business Association, United Way, Golden Empire Gleaners, Bakersfield College Foundation and Rotary Club are just a fraction of his community involvement.
No one on the Board of Supervisors can match his experience in business and public service, Watson said.
But Watson’s businessman’s stature has earned him passionate foes in the rural areas of his district.
MOUNTAIN OF OPPOSITION
Karen Bailey of Pine Mountain Club lost her husband on Feb. 15, 2005, and the death sparked a firestorm in the mountain community.
It took an hour to get an ambulance to the Bailey’s home.
Pine Mountain Club residents demanded more prompt ambulance service from their county government.
Watson resisted the idea that the county should fund enhanced ambulance services for people who chose to live in rural communities.
Kern County has a private ambulance system, he argued, that is funded by user fees.
If Pine Mountain Club residents want extra paramedic and ambulance services, Watson has said, they should tax themselves and pay for it.
“There are certain things that government can do,” Watson said. “It would be nice if we could move in and solve everyone's problems but we have to balance our resources with what we can do.”
For Bailey, that stance is cold and bottom-line — and lacks a human element.
“I have seen, basically, no support from him for our situation up here,” Bailey said.
Watson understands that he has few fans in Pine Mountain Club. But he feels he’s done the right thing.
“Nobody likes to be disliked,” he said. But “I can’t look somebody in the eye and promise somebody something when I know it’s impossible to make it happen.”
FOREIGN COUNTRY
Jennifer Keller, who lives among the ranch properties of western Rosedale, isn’t a Watson fan either.
Development plans in her area would move quarter-acre home lots in among the 1-, 2- and 3-acre parcels she and her neighbors live on.
They don’t like the idea — or Watson’s support for it.
Keller said Watson’s business-friendly style shorts the little guy in favor of the land developers.
“I believe it does smack of the back-room deals and the old-boy politics,” she said. “I never felt like he actually listened to residents.”
Watson said his support for smaller lots in the area comes from the fact that denser development makes for lower air quality impacts in the long run — as more people can fit onto less land.
“I see the problem we’re having countywide and statewide with growth issues,” he said. “We want to have quality development but it has to be well-controlled and well-designed.”
ON THE RECORD
Despite the opposition from people in Pine Mountain Club and Rosedale — and opponent Thompson’s practice of calling him a “drive-by supervisor” — Watson feels he’s done a lot for the 4th District.
“I have a long list of things I’ve done in each of the communities in my district,” Watson said.
And like any good businessman, Watson has that list written down.
It contains sidewalks for school children in Buttonwillow, a new library in Frazier Park, an extra firefighter stationed in Pine Mountain Club, street paving in Lost Hills, a fire department merger in Taft and removal of a massive pile of fly ash near Wasco.
Watson thinks he has more to do — including seeing a network of new freeways and roads built in Bakersfield.
Watson thought long and hard before he decided to run for office again.
Many people expected him to step down.
But in the end, Watson said it was public service that motivated him to stay in the game.
He believes he’s a good public servant.
But he approaches the job with a sober, businessman’s demeanor.
“I feel that what I’m doing is so serious and important that I have to take it seriously,” he said.