Editorials
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Time to toughen county policy on dog attacks
Imagine you have been mugged, your wallet or purse taken, your face bruised, your dignity shaken. Now imagine that the police, having cornered the suspect, merely dust him off and drive him home.
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Salute efforts to educate new doctors
Critics have pounced on efforts by Jim Costa and Dennis Cardoza, a pair of Congressional Democrats from the Central Valley, to scare up funding for a medical school at UC Merced.
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New hope for end to Hwy. 46 carnage will stop
Impatient drivers making stupid mistakes are to blame for Highway 46's "Blood Alley" reputation. But the design of the two-lane state highway, particularly the stretch of roadway in western Kern County, provides nearly no margin for error.
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Is California AG required to obey laws he enforces?
Two Republican lawmakers may be savoring a political "gotcha moment," but they also are raising legitimate questions: Is the state Attorney General's Office above the law? Is California's top law enforcement officer also bound by the laws he enforces?
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At last! Historic water plan gets Legislature's nod
There's an old saying about watching the process of sausage-making. It's not a pretty sight. The same holds true for law-making, too -- a fact never more in evidence than with the decades-long effort to pass legislation that would keep California's fragile water delivery system from collapsing.
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Danger looms in raising taxes on state's Big Oil
It's easy to hate Big Oil. When we fill up our cars, we grumble. When we pay our home energy bills, we grumble. When we see the profits multi-national energy companies make, we grumble.
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Is Kern getting its fair share of flu vaccine?
Santa Clara County health officials were surprised last week when they received a surprise shipment of 26,000 doses of swine flu vaccine. The delivery arrived after The San Jose Mercury News reported that the vaccine was not being equitably distributed among Bay Area counties.
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Prison hospital 'lemon' could be Kern's lemonade
Send that lemon to Kern County! Business and political leaders in San Joaquin County and Stockton bellow that state prison officials have stuck them with a big fat lemon.
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Answers to those planning questions before us all now
Rarely do we hear our elected officials discuss the "big picture" -- public policy concepts that affect the well-being of everyone who lives in Bakersfield.
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Kern needs historic preservation standards
Kern County and Bakersfield haven't always done admirable jobs when it comes to historic preservation, but we see encouraging signs regarding the future of the Depression-era adobe house near the eastern boundary of Hart Park.
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This city will miss San Joaquin Bank
San Joaquin Bank deserved to be part of Kern County's economic recovery. The bank was a vital community partner during the milder booms and busts of the past three decades, helping to fuel the gradual (and ongoing) rejuvenation of Bakersfield's once-moribund downtown district in particular.
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'Taking out' the president
Which is worse? Threatening the president's life, or suggesting that the Secret Service's interest in such threats is misguided?
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State voters can't agree on solution either
Californians have been demanding for months -- no, years -- that this increasingly ungovernable state remake itself by renovating some of its institutions and ways of conducting business. State legislators, whose inflexibility is usually cited as one of the main problems, generally agree that some change is needed. What that change might be is a matter of continuing disagreement.
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Recognize this guy? If you do, be there for her
He's such an attentive guy. He's always right there by her side, taking her to work, picking her up afterward, even joining her for lunch. What a lucky lady to have such a dedicated significant other.
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A peace challenge, not a peace prize
If the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded its Peace Prize to President Barack Obama based on his diplomatic achievements of the past nine months, they've been smoking too much herring. Obama's admirable pursuit of peace deserves the world's support, but Nobel-caliber success is not yet something he can claim -- even if, astonishingly, he is suddenly eligible to claim the Nobel prize itself.
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Governor sits on bills, seeks a water deal
When the Legislature adjourned on Sept. 12 after pulling one of its tiresome -- figuratively and literally -- all-nighters, it had passed more than 700 bills and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger supposedly had a month, as the state constitution dictates, to sign or veto them.
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Rate hike has PG&E playing catch-up
Some might be convinced that Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has been foisting inaccurate or otherwise questionable electricity-usage meters on Bakersfield-area customers. Some might feel certain that the recent spike in many customers' bills proves that the public utility is looking out for shareholders at the expense of ratepayers, and that SmartMeters are its instruments of deception.
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Now is the right time to maximize county efficiency
The appointment of Kern County Planning Director Ted James as interim chief of the Resource Management Agency, an umbrella organization that includes a half-dozen county government departments, makes sense. James knows the territory as well as any single person.
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Blame Sacramento game-playing, not junketing lawmakers
If you believe junketing state lawmakers are preventing the Legislature from convening a special session, we've got a bridge in Brooklyn for you to buy.
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Secrecy lifted from child death cases
The tragic details of 2-year-old Guillermo Alvarez's life and death appeared in a recent Californian article. But it took an act of the state Legislature and the signature of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to lift the veil of secrecy from tragedies such as Guillermo's.
