Jagels vs. Fuller would be fun
| Saturday, Feb 06 2010 09:32 PM
Last Updated Saturday, Feb 06 2010 09:32 PM
Before we get started, let's make sure there's no confusion. This is the Bob Price who has never snipped a grand-opening ribbon, wielded a gavel or chambered a round in a Glock. If you've come looking for that Bob Price, the one who served as Bakersfield's police chief for 15 years and mayor for another eight, you have come to the wrong place. But you wouldn't be the first.
Jean Fuller, our 32nd District Assemblywoman, isn't the first, either -- she's just the most recent, and surely the most noteworthy. When she called my mobile phone last week to let me in on the big hush-hush news -- that she would be announcing the next day her decision to run for termed-out Roy Ashburn's state senate seat, rather than pursue one final term in the Assembly -- she apparently thought she was talking to the retired mayor, not the startled but amused journalist of the same name. (We'd been trying to get her to tell us her plans for weeks.) She was even hoping for my endorsement!
Life was full of these moments back when the Honorable Mayor Price was holding forth at 1501 Truxtun Ave., though not quite so publically. My wife once found herself seated next to the mayor at a banquet, and I was happy to realize that administrative assistants no longer required me to explain what my call was regarding before patching me through. Ah, the good old days.
As of this writing, Kern County District Attorney Ed Jagels has not announced whether he'll pursue the same 18th District seat Fuller has declared for, but it would be a great matchup. Jagels would fight to keep convicted property-crime felons in prison, even in the face of prison overcrowding and state budget chaos, a position that plays well in conservative Kern County. Fuller comes from an education background, having served as superintendent of the largest K-8 school district in the state, Bakersfield City -- a district so overwhelmed with red ink we hear it may lay off virtually all librarians and vice principals. But we'd expect Fuller, given the choice between keeping librarians and turning loose non-violent felons, to side with Jagels, were such a dilemma ever laid out as starkly and simplistically as that.
Issues like early prison releases are important to so-called law-and-order voters. How best to win over those voters? Get as many law enforcement-types in your camp as possible. And law-enforcement types don't get much more popular than Price, even though he's a few years past the limelight. With Jagels looming as a potential opponent -- the guy won seven straight elections with margins of victory that Stalin would have envied -- it was probably a good move for Fuller to invite Price to stand next to her at her coming-out press conference. The message to Jagels: I've got some cop cred here, too.
Although it might seem curious that Fuller broke her silence a scant two days after Jagels told The Californian he was seriously considering a run, the fact is that Fuller had been planning to declare her intentions on Friday, her 38th wedding anniversary, for quite some time. Still, it's interesting timing.
In completely unrelated news:
* Pacific Gas & Electric has taken a beating in Kern County over SmartMeters and new tier pricing, but how badly must folks dislike the utility company in Marin County? The wealthy Bay Area county jumped into the public power business Thursday night, when the Marin Energy Authority board unanimously approved a five-year contract with Shell Energy North America, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, to become a retailer of electricity in seven of the county's 11 municipalities. Customers will be able to purchase electricity generated from 25 percent renewable sources for the same price that PG&E is charging.
Could Kern County one day proclaim its energy independence as well? Royal Dutch Shell already has a presence here, with its subsidiary Aera Energy (co-owned by Exxon-Mobil) firmly entrenched in the community. And renewable energy sources are big here, and growing.
This movement has PG&E very nervous -- which is why the power company has spent $6.5 million to create and promote Prop. 16, which would require cities and counties to get two-thirds voter approval to form or join a different utility provider.
* There's talk in Alameda County of consolidating the cities of Fremont, Newark and Union City. With the three adjacent cities all laying off workers and cutting services, former Fremont Mayor Gus Morrison says it's time to consider combining into a single municipality.
The new, Fremont-dominated city would have a population of 331,000, making it the 57th-largest city in the United States, behind Cincinnati, and the 11th-largest in California, behind Anaheim. Sound familiar? Those claims currently apply to Bakersfield (although, by some counts, we're actually at about 334,000).
Administrators in Union City and Newark, who would presumably lose their jobs, are -- no shock here -- opposed to the idea. So, our No. 57 ranking is probably safe for now. I know you were worried.
rprice@bakersfield.com.
