HITS & MISSES: Coming (again): a racetrack for area car lovers
HIT: Bakersfield without a paved-oval racetrack is like New Orleans without jazz and Boston without clams. But Bakersfield's most significant cultural vacuum is a little closer to being filled now that local businessman James Vernon and a group of investors have purchased the partially finished Kern County Raceway Park near Enos Lane and Interstate 5.
The 490-acre sale, announced last week, re-starts a development process that was derailed by the original owners' bankruptcy in 2008. Now, Vernon says, Raceway Park could be back in business as early as October -- filling a local stock-car racing void created when Mesa Marin Raceway, a paved half-mile track in east Bakersfield, was closed in October 2005. That's a long time for a racing-crazy town to muddle along without its favorite sport.
HIT: Opting out of SmartMeters
PG&E's plan to allow consumers to opt out on SmartMeters is a good one, even if we have yet to see the rationale for the Public Utilities Commission-authorized opt-out fee. The failure of SmartMeters to win widespread public support is most likely a matter of PG&E's poor customer outreach, not the reliability of the devices themselves. But that's where we are now -- PG&E has fences to mend, consumers need to find reasons to trust the public utility, and the SmartMeter's efficiency needs to be monitored over time. PG&E is dealing with the situation as best it can by giving consumers a choice.
MISS: Too many pregnancies
Kern County's teen birthrate relative to the rest of the United States seems to be a microcosm of the U.S. rate compared to the rest of the developed world: Both are chronically high. According to data released last week from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this country still has the highest non-Third World rate on earth -- even though there have been improvements over the years.
The ongoing fight over how to best prevent teen pregnancy is probably to blame for the country's persistently high rate. Proponents of abstinence-only programs tend to be at odds with those who support education and better access to contraception. Half of the teen girls aged 15 to 19 studied in the CDC survey were not using any method of birth control when they became pregnant.
HIT: Finally, an arrest
Nathan Allan Mowers' arrest and guilty plea in the 2004 disappearance of Azita Nikooei puts to rest a case that has long troubled many. Eleven years doesn't seem like much for strangling one's fiancee, but if the Nikooei family gets some peace, it has to be acceptable. Mowers admitted to strangling Nikooei following an argument Sept. 6, 2004, Kern County District Attorney Lisa Green said last week. Mowers then drove Nikooei's body a few miles past the San Bernardino County line and dumped her in the desert.
HIT: Just before the comet strike
Astronomers have found a super-Earth-sized planet just 22 light-years distant with a habitable-zone orbit. It's close enough to its sun to harbor water and therefore life. Astronomers found evidence of at least one, and as many as three, other planets orbiting the star, according to a statement issued by the University of California, Santa Cruz. Start packing!
