Sins of the past plaguing us again

By LOIS HENRY, Californian columnist
Nov. 1, 2009

A little planning nightmare coming before the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday should serve as a cautionary tale for anyone who works in planning, is a politician, a developer, a business owner of any kind, a homeowner, or simply wants a home in a neighborhood they like.

This one, relatively small issue neatly encapsulates our biggest problem — not thinking ahead.

We’ve done a poor job of that over the years (in the city and county) with some pretty necessary items. Roads and sewers come to mind, but also compatibility.

The problem supervisors face on Tuesday is they either have to tell hundreds of residents in northwest Bakersfield to suck it up and deal with a noisy, dust-belching concrete crushing and recycling plant plopped in their midst.

Or, they have tell the guy proposing the plant that stupid planning decisions over the last 30 years mean you can’t trust zoning laws in this community and that, essentially, he’s gonna get hosed.

The County Planning Commission, in my view, really passed the buck on this in August when it approved a two-year conditional use permit for the plant. Neither side is happy with that decision; both are appealing it to Supervisors.

A two-year permit is not an answer.

For the business owner, Mark Polhamus, it means he has to do just as much work (more given all the conditions on the permit) to open his business, but won’t know whether he can continue after two years. What bank is going to front him a loan on that basis? What businesses will want to contract with him if he might not be around in two years?

For residents concerned about traffic, possibly toxic dust and noise, it would mean two years of frustration and uncertainty about the safety and value of their neighborhoods.

I would also point out that the intersection nearest the proposed plant, Hageman Road and Santa Fe Way, with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad tracks thrown in just for fun, is already a major problem. It’s level of service is an F now and a major underpass is being planned there. Adding 10 extra truck trips a day is just foolhardy.

I don’t blame Polhamus for this situation. Nor do I blame the neighbors.

In fact, I give a loud, prolonged raspberry to Planning Commissioners Leticia Perez and Chris Babcock for lecturing residents when this came up at their July meeting, telling them they should have done their homework and seen what the zoning was before moving to that area.

PUH-leeze!

The land in question was zoned heavy industrial in 1978.

Homes on the west were approved (by the county) and built in the 1990s, homes on the east were approved (by the city) and built in 2005.

And they were approved right next to the heavy industrial without a thought to creating a buffer section of light industrial or enhancing roads or anything.

Talk about not doing your homework. Maybe someone in say, the city or county planning departments, on the city or county planning commissions or the a member of the City Council or Board of Supervisors could have stuck a hand up and said, “Hey, looks like we’re approving another mess here, guys.”

This same thing has happened in other areas of town so it’s a train wreck that easily could have been avoided here.

“This definitely shows the weakness in our process,” Supervisor Mike Maggard told me. “We step into a set of facts, make a decision and step out again.”

Same with the City Council.

The General Plan, of course, is supposed to give planners a more comprehensive view.

But again, people go to the separate bodies for plan amendments (hardly any are refused, by the way), neither side really informs the other and away we go.

“We’re better than we were 10 years ago,” Maggard said. “Hopefully we’ll get it right with the new General Plan update.”

I ain’t holding my breath.

In the meantime, Supervisors should deny the conditional use permit and work with Polhamus to find a more suitable location. Traffic alone is enough for a denial. They should also take staff’s advice (which was also given to, but ignored by. the Planning Commission) and down zone the land so these problems don’t crop up again.

Relying on 30-year-old zoning without acknowledging the reality on the ground is a cop-out, frankly. And this temporary “solution” benefits no one. It only pushes the problem into the future.

We’ve done that long enough.

Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Bakersfield Californian. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/noholdsbarred, call her at 395-7373 or e-mail lhenry@bakersfield.com

Fight for the Kern River begins

By LOIS HENRY, Californian columnist
Oct. 28, 2009

SACRAMENTO — The best thing about the state water hearing on whether there’s unclaimed water in the Kern River that we might be able to use for an actual river is that it’s over.

I swear, I don’t know which is worse — deadly dull water law or the lawyers who wallow in it.

Anyway, besides me, there were only two other “civilians” attending the State Water Resources Control Board Kern River hearing held Monday and Tuesday.

The others were hearty Bakersfield couple Doug Worley and Cathy Barnes sporting matching “Bakersfield: A riverbed runs through it” T-shirts.

“We came up to support Bakersfield having a river,” Worley said. “Half the town should have come up for this.”

They followed every arcane twist and complex turn in the hearing, cheering on Bakersfield’s attorney, Colin Pearce, as he dueled with no fewer than five attorneys from the opposition who represented four powerhouse ag districts and the city of Shafter.

For a little background, the city petitioned the state board to find there is unclaimed water in the Kern after a 2007 court ruling held that Kern Delta Water District had forfeited some of its rights to the river. The city wants that water, possibly as much as 50,000 acre-feet a year, to run down the river.

The opposition (North Kern Water Storage District, Buena Vista Water Storage District, Kern Water Bank Authority, Kern County Water Agency and Shafter) want the board to find there is no unclaimed water.

It’s the same “nothing to see here, move along” attitude that has long governed use of the Kern.

It’s interesting to note that initially all those districts and Shafter had also asked the board to find there was excess water on the river and each also petitioned to have it given to them. They changed tactics for some reason, however, and joined forces to oppose the city and try to dissuade the board from even considering the issue.

Despite their best efforts, the state board granted the hearing in near-record time. This first phase is only to determine if there is water available.

Board member Arthur Baggett, Jr., who acted as the hearing officer, told me he expects to make his recommendation to the full board before the end of the year. If the board finds there is unappropriated water, that’s when the real fighting starts.

“Then everyone gets a shot at it,” Baggett, a silver-haired Mariposa lawyer who looks more like a Wyatt Earp stand in complete with black boots and vest, told me.

But don’t hold your breath. Baggett also told me the board just issued the final water right last week on the Santa Ana River, a similar case which came to them 11 years ago.

Ugh.

After watching this week’s hearing, though, I can’t help but have some hope. Because if this was the opposition’s “shock-and-awe” campaign, it was shockingly unawesome.

Their case that the forfeiture didn’t create excess water rests on the idea that the other rights-holders on the river can and have absorbed that water.

After a long series of questions for former city Water Resources Manager Gene Bogart about how he tracked which district got how much water from the Kern on a daily basis, Buena Vista’s attorney Gene McMurtrey smirked triumphantly.

“So, essentially, there's always been a cap, hasn’t there? And the river has always operated the same way,” he said.

His point was that Kern Delta’s forfeiture didn’t create any new water because so many other “buckets” are waiting to be filled down the line.

Interesting theory.

Except those other bucket holders don’t have a right to that water — it’s not theirs. Their rights don’t expand just because Kern Delta’s contracted.

As for the river still operating the same after the 2007 judgment, yes, that’s because the city is waiting for the state board to determine what should be done with that water. Duh!

Either way, it’s in the state board’s hands now.

The really curious thing is why all these districts have closed ranks on this issue.

The water in question is so-called “first point” water. There are only three first point rights-holders including North Kern, Kern Delta and Bakersfield. So if the state board finds some of that water is unclaimed, there’s a strong legal precedent for keeping it in the first-point family rather than letting it go down the river to “second point” or “lower river” rights holders.

You don’t think those districts and Shafter have agreed among themselves to push back on the state in order to dummy up and take the excess water without entitlement, do you?

That would be so, so wrong!

If you think things can’t get that cloak and dagger on the Kern, you’d be wrong. Bogart himself spent four years working in a windowless room with no phone built specifically for him and his precious Kern River flow and diversion records when he worked for Tenneco, before the city bought out its rights, and the city was suing for information contained in those records.

“Don’t talk to anyone,” were his marching orders back then. Apparently some in the water world would like to keep it that way.

These are Lois Henry’s opinions and not necessarily those of The Californian.

How much development is enough?

By LOIS HENRY, Californian columnist
Oct. 25, 2009

Almost every time I write about development, I get asked why more subdivisions are being approved when we’re awash in excess housing already.

And that excess includes not just houses that are built. We have a huge backlog of approved housing that has yet to break ground.

How much consideration does “inventory” play in the decision-making process? How much weight should it have?

Acute property rights activists would say that’s none of a public official’s concern. If it’s properly zoned and he’s paid all his fees, a landowner should be able to develop however he wants.

According to that line of thinking, it’s the market that should dictate whether homes are needed. Shrewd developers win and others suck eggs. Either way, it’s capitalism in action.

Indeed, several elected officials I spoke with had that same mindset.

“Approving development isn’t harmful,” said City Councilwoman Jacquie Sullivan. “Because developers won’t build until the timing is right.

“They wouldn’t be that foolish.”

Hmm.

As of September, we had more than 1,200 existing homes on the market; half of those were “distressed sales.”

City tentative tract maps showed 35,400 lots approved but not built and the county has about 4,000 approved-but-not-built lots in the metro area.

That’s down from a high of 89,000 because a number of developments (some really big ones) went belly up.

“It’s silly to build more,” said Gordon Nipp, who represents the Kern-Kaweah chapter of the Sierra Club and is a regular critic of Kern County’s and Bakersfield’s growth decisions.

“All of us who own a house, we all have a stake in this, because when they build too many houses, that lowers the value of existing homes.”
Interestingly, property rights activists are mum on that side of the development sword.

“I don’t think government needs to limit and dictate and control everything,” County Supervisor Mike Maggard told me.

OK, but the act of approving a development is, by its nature, a form of control. So, really, we’re talking about degrees.

Maggard saw my line of thinking and quickly got in front of it, saying he agreed that government has a responsibility to make sure development is orderly, but having a set inventory number is akin to a growth boundary — and he isn’t in favor of that.

He likes the idea of development zones as proposed in the General Plan update. Under that scenario, you could develop further out, but you’d have to pay more.

City Councilman David Couch and I had a long rambling, somewhat esoteric talk about whether housing inventory should be a factor in development decisions.

“What’s your criteria? Approved and vested? Approved only? Zoning only? Do you include types of housing? Location? What if a developer is in financial trouble? Do we still count those lots even though he may be upside down? What if someone isn’t planning to build for 5 years? Ten? Twenty?” he mused.

It’s not just an issue for the free market, he said. But formulas that try and establish a “how much is enough” level are like alchemy.

The Local Agency Formation Commission tried years ago and failed, he said.

Then he told me my questions are never as simple as they seem.

Both City Councilwoman Sue Benham and Supervisor Don Maben said straight up that, yes, housing inventory should be a part of the equation.

“If it’s all up to the developer, why even go through the (review) process?” Maben asked.
Benham agreed.

“Looking at inventory is one of the many things maybe we could have done differently to prevent things spiraling so high and falling so hard,” she said of the real estate collapse.

Support for some kind of inventory control came from, ironically, a local developer, Bruce Freeman, CEO of Castle & Cooke.

“I think it’s a fair question,” he said.

Instead of a blanket formula, though, he advocated that planning staff, commissioners and electeds look at each neighborhood, the type of housing being proposed and whether it is contiguous with existing development (which he strongly urged).

“It has to be case by case,” he told me.

But ultimately, elected officials respond to constituents and, so far, the Bakersfield community has been relatively silent on what we want, where we want it and what kind of development we want.

So, how much is enough?

You tell me.

Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Bakersfield Californian. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/noholdsbarred, call her at 395-7373 or e-mail lhenry@bakersfield.com

GENERAL PLAN UPDATE MEETING

Kern County planning staff will present an update to the board Monday evening on the current state of the pending update to the Metropolitan Bakersfield General Plan.

Supervisors will discuss some of the more controversial concepts in the plan — including tiers of restricted development on the edge of the city. The public is encouraged to attend and share their thoughts.

General Plan update documents can be viewed at
http://www.bakersfieldcity....

The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Monday in the Board of Supervisor's chambers at 1115 Truxtun Avenue.

Puppies burned with acid need community’s help

By LOIS HENRY, Californian columnist
Oct. 24, 2009

There isn’t a hole deep enough for the creep or creeps who burned two (and who knows how many more?) pit bull puppies with acid and left them for dead in east Bakersfield over the last few months.

Someone knows who did this and they need to come forward so these criminals can be dealt with.

Beyond that, Kern County Animal Control’s sense of urgency needs a swift kick in the pants.

Though Animal Control quickly got both dogs rescued, which is highly commendable, they did not alert law enforcement nor the public about the burned pups.

Some of you may not like pits, may not care for dogs in general and may be sick of hearing me harp about our stray problem.

But this goes far beyond all that.

Torturing an animal like this could be the sign of a budding serial killer. It could be an indication of a dog fighting ring. Gangs may be using the poor dogs to flex their muscles.Or meth makers could be on some weird rampage. If it’s “just kids,” they need help.

Either way, I want to know about these things, I want my fellow community members to know and I want to be assured that law enforcement knows.

The more eyes we have out there, the better our chances of catching the sickos.

When I asked Animal Control Director Guy Shaw about it, he said they didn’t have a suspect so they hadn’t made any kind of report.

“We only have so many people for enforcement,” he said. “All we can do is increase patrols and unless we see someone in the middle of the street pouring acid on a dog, there’s not much else we can do.”

It’s really up to the community, he said, to be the eyes and ears of Animal Control officers.

Hello?! How’s that gonna happen unless the community KNOWS about these things?

And I’m not sure how this has escaped Shaw’s attention, but I have one big, fat mouth when it comes to animal welfare in this county.

One call or e-mail to me and I will holler to the hills about it! I’m pretty sure my number’s around here somewhere...ooop, there it is right at the bottom of this column. USE IT.

As it was, the rescuer and some other folks in San Diego were so outraged by this act, they scraped together a $5,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of whoever did this to these dogs.

They circulated a flier on the Internet, which made it to New Orleans media first, for cripes sake, and eventually got to me.

Imagine if Animal Control had alerted locals right away about the first puppy. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened to the second puppy.

OK, enough ranting, here are the details:

Animal Control picked up the first burned puppy in late July around Greenwood Drive and Niles Street. It was clearly tortured. Burned from the back of its neck to its tail and left to die.

Then a little after midnight Oct. 15, the Sheriff’s Department got a call from someone who said they found an injured puppy tied up behind their house. It was burned in the same pattern.

That was just east of Monica Street on Pioneer Drive, about a mile away from where the first puppy was found. Both had their ears cut.

Animal Control called a pit rescuer in San Diego who got the first dog, now named Smokey, who’s still undergoing surgeries.

He also took three other pit puppies found near where Smokey was. All had their ears clipped as well but no others were burned.

The same rescuer was called for the most recent burned pit, who now goes by Charlie, who’s also still in the hospital.

“Charlie was severely emaciated and his paws were flat, indicating he was kept in a cage,” the rescuer told me. He doesn’t want to be identified for fear the dogs were part of a fighting ring or gang.

He said he’s been working with Kern’s shelter to save pit bull dogs and has rescued 48 since May.

“Something needs to be done up there,” he said. “It’s just getting worse and worse.”

I’d say a start is ramping up communication so at least we know how bad the problem is.

Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Californian. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/noholdsbarred, call her at 395-7373 or e-mail lhenry@bakersfield.com.

HOW TO HELP\

People from San Diego will be in Bakersfield Monday distributing 200 to 300 fliers offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the person or persons who doused the pit bull puppies with acid.

For more information, you can contact the rescuer at (619) 851-2907 or email smokey91942@gmail.com.

If you’d like to make donations for the puppies’ medical care, you can contact the Animal Medical Center in San Diego at (619) 444-1166 and say you’d like to donate to the account named “Charlie & Smokey.”

You can also call Kern County Animal Control with tips about this, or any other, act of animal cruelty at 868-7100.

CARB can't ignore credibilty problems

By LOIS HENRY, Californian columnist
Oct. 21, 2009

Credibility is power.

When you have it, it’s like a rock in your fist. But despite its power, it can be as fragile as an eggshell — handle it with care or it’ll shatter into a gooey mess.

That’s what I believe the California Air Resources Board members have on their hands as they bull forward with the diesel emissions rules they passed last December based on a health report written by CARB researcher Hien Tran.

Tran lied about having a Ph.D in statistics from Davis.

He was outted to both CARB staffers and at least one board member prior to the Dec. 12, 2008 vote on the diesel rules.

But the board went ahead with the draconian rules requiring all trucks and heavy equipment to retrofit their engines to reduce emissions containing particulate matter as small as 2.5 microns (PM2.5).

The idea is to protect people from the effects of PM2.5, which is blamed by some researchers for killing off hundreds of Californians a year. At least that’s one side. Other studies have found little to no effect on mortality from PM2.5.

Tran discounted those opposition studies. And the researchers whose studies he used have never opened their data sets to independent scientists to see if their results could be replicated, so I think it’s still highly questionable whether PM2.5 is as deadly as it’s been made out to be. But that’s a different story.

Back to Tran, how his lie was handled and the gooey mess it’s left.

Turns out, not everyone who should have been told was informed about the Ph.D.

The board, for instance, was never notified.

Though one CARB spokesperson initially told me board members were told briefed in closed session, another told me the materials were “made available to those who asked.”

At the board’s meeting last month, member John Telles was clearly shocked when a group of public speakers brought it up.

“This is the first time I’ve actually been apprised that there was fraud in the organization here,” he said. “In my world, if an article was published by somebody who didn’t have a Ph.D. and said he had a Ph.D., the whole thing would be nixed...I just find it incredible.”

I spoke with Telles later and he was equally frustrated that CARB staffers said during the meeting not to worry because they had shopped the report around again for more peer review to make sure it was kosher.

“The board should have been made aware that they were seeking outside sources for a second review to see if there was a problem,” Telles said.

He considered the whole affair a blow to the board’s credibility, especially among businesses that come directly under the new regulations, which will cost owners tens of thousands of dollars per truck.

No kidding.

Fellow board member, John Balmes, who was apparently the only board member who knew about the allegations prior to the Dec. 12 CARB meeting, felt it could have been handled better, but he stood by the report and the regulations.

He didn’t bring it to his fellow board members’ attention, he said, because he had notified CARB’s executive director James Goldstene.

Regardless of Tran’s transgressions, Balmes said the extensive peer review of the report was good enough for him. Not for me, but I’ll get back to that in a minute.

Further, Balmes said even if the report were taken out of the equation CARB could justify the truck rule it passed last December.

“It (Tran’s report) is a risk assessment tool that’s been applied to support the on-road truck rule, but it’s not the reason for the rule.”

I disagree that Tran’s report wasn’t pivotal and I think Balmes himself makes my point.

“The main purpose of the report was to provide a tool for the ARB to use in determining how much in terms of health benefits the regulation would provide.”

Exactly. And that’s what Tran’s report did.

He took a number of studies showing PM2.5 as deadly dangerous (carefully excluding those that showed no increased mortality due to PM2.5), he averaged death rates from different studies and then created a methodology for figuring out how many lives would be saved by taking a certain amount of PM2.5 out of the atmosphere annually.
Tran’s report is the cornerstone for the regulations.

Of course, Balmes and CARB staffers have a ready answer to that in the much-touted peer review, which they say upholds the report by Tran (who they now refer to as “a person who managed some aspects” of the report rather than the lead author, by the way).

Here’s the thing, though, only the draft report was given to six of the reviewers.

It’s unclear if they ever read the final report, or the 150 pages of public comments, much of which came from scientists who disputed its findings.

As a side note, Balmes told me he also never read the final version with the public comments. Huh? First, am I the only sucker who did? Second, how do you vote on regulations based on a report when you only read the draft?

Also in the peer review process, nearly half of 12 scientists who weighted the studies used by Tran were authors or co-authors of those very studies. Not exactly an unbiased group.

I asked CARB for a list of names of reviewers who were contacted after they discovered the Tran deception. There were 10. Again, four of those had studies used in the report.

Even as Balmes characterized the Tran issue as a “tactic” being used by people who don’t like the new rules he understood that if it wasn’t handled properly “it would come back to bite the ARB.”

No, it wasn’t handled properly and, yeah, it’s taken a big ol’ chunk out of CARB’s credibility.

Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Bakersfield Californian. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/noholdsbarred, call her at 395-7373 or e-mail lhenry@bakersfield.com

City sued over development! (yawn!)

Hey! The Sierra Club sued Bakersfield over The Canyons housing development!

OK, it’s not exactly the “Who shot J.R.?” surprise ending to our long community nightmare over this project. (Meaning it wasn’t unexpected.)

But it’s important to understand the underpinnings of this suit so we know what’s on the horizon. Because if we don’t get our planning act together, we could lose a lot more taxpayer money in similar lawsuits.

“The primary area of contention is global warming,” Gordon Nipp, local rep for the Kern-Kaweah chapter of the Sierra Club told me. “There needs to be some mitigation for climate change, and the city is doing none whatsoever.”

Before some of you out there start stomping around and gritting your teeth that global warming is a load of enviro-hooey, new state laws mean business on this issue and it would behoove local officials to pay attention to those laws

I’ve mentioned before how AB 32 (requiring the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020) and SB 375 (requiring cities to plan in a more walkable, public transit-oriented manner) mean the sprawl party is over.

And how the attorney general has shown a hair trigger for suing cities whose general plans don’t adhere to those laws.

All that apparently hasn’t phased the city of Bakersfield (and to a lesser extent the county of Kern) when it comes to pushing through more business-as-usual developments.
It’s true that the details for how to implement AB 32 and SB 375 are still being worked out. But, come on, we know the intent and ignoring it won’t make it go away.

Especially with Nipp watching over the city’s and county’s shoulders.

Or the attorney general’s office, which sent two representatives here in early summer for a little howdy-do over our general plan update (still in the works).

Afterward, one of the deputy AGs, Harrison Pollak, sent the city and county a lovely thank-you letter for the kind welcome, he told me.

By the way, he said in his letter, you are currently required under the California Environmental Quality Act to analyze the impacts of global warming and climate change.

“That was contrary to the position the city had taken in letters they had sent,” he told me back then.

I’d take that as a fairly direct message if I were the city, kind of like finding a dead fish on your doorstep.

Several months later, however, The Canyons’ EIR sailed through the Planning Commission and was OK’d by the City Council last month with zippo for greenhouse gas mitigation.

“The EIR said it emitted something like 24,000 tons a year of greenhouse gases,” Nipp, a retired math professor, said. “Well I can run the computer model just as well as them, better probably since I’m not being paid to come up with small numbers, and it was more like 42,000 tons per year.”

The county is doing a somewhat better job on this issue, he said, by requiring a 29 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions for every development. But they’re still approving what amounts to sprawl, including the 1,100-house project by Bakersfield Land Investment in the extreme northwest. (Stay tuned for another Sierra Club lawsuit on that one as well.)

But back to The Canyons lawsuit.

Bakersfield Planning Director Jim Eggert told me that while the city doesn’t mitigate for greenhouse gases, per se, it does so indirectly by requiring zero air quality impact.

That sounds reasonable, except we’re talking about very different emissions.

Air quality mitigation looks at nitrogen oxide (NOx), reactive organic gases and particulate matter. Greenhouse gas mitigation looks mainly at carbon dioxide (C02).

So you may reduce a little C02 because you’re reducing NOx. But, Nipp said, no one knows how much you’re reducing because they aren’t analyzing the numbers as they should in the EIR.

Nipp reminded me that the city only began requiring air quality mitigation after the Sierra Club sued several developments over the issue.

“Well, we’re going to sue if there’s no greenhouse gas mitigation and we’ll sue if there’s no farmland mitigation when that’s an issue,” he promised.

Yup, planning by lawsuit — still the Kern County way.

Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Bakersfield Californian. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/noholdsbarred, call her at 395-7373 or e-mail lhenry@bakersfield.com

PUC says it feels our pain on SmartMeters

By LOIS HENRY, Californian columnist
Oct. 15, 2009

The Public Utilities Commission is there for consumers.

Really! I swear, I’m not making it up.

Michael Peevey, president of the PUC, told me that himself in response to a list of demands sent by State Sen. Dean Florez who’s looking into complaints about outrageous power bills in Bakersfield.

Florez held a “lively” hearing Oct. 5 in which hundreds of consumers vented about skyrocketing bills and other problems many believed were caused by so-called SmartMeters installed over the last two years by Pacific Gas & Electric Co.

He then sent PUC and PG&E letters asking both entities to increase customer service and prove the meters are reliable.

The PUC responded Wednesday. Not a peep so far from PG&E.

Peevey told me he’s eager to restore consumer confidence and would set up an independent SmartMeter testing group.

“It wouldn’t have anything to do with PG&E,” he said. “The PUC will organize it and consumers can go through us.”

He said he and the PUC take this situation very seriously. “We’re a consumer protection agency and it’s our intention to get to the bottom of this.”

There is a glitch with at least some SmartMeters, he agreed. Though he said there are 2.5 million SmartMeters throughout the state and 250,000 in Kern County with only “a couple hundred” reported problems. (Not sure if he’s including customers in Caaveras County, who are screaming the same kind of bloody murder we are.)

“We need to keep the problem in perspective,” Peevey said. “I’m not diminishing the problem. We did not do an adequate job of testing.”

Aside from independent testing, Peevey promised to create an internal task force so the PUC would be kept in the loop on PG&E/SmartMeter issues. Florez had asked for a citizen oversight committee.

Florez wasn’t impressed by Peevey’s response.

It lacked a sense of urgency and any real interest in exploring SmartMeter reliability, he said.

The independent testing was a good first step, he said.

But he slammed the PUC for not requiring a stringent testing protocol in the first place.

“I certainly don’t get a sense that the PUC is willing to conduct the type of critical review of the SmartMeter process and operation that is necessary to ensure they are working properly and that customers aren’t being harmed,” Florez said.

Peevey stood behind the program as part of the anticipated “smart grid,” in which consumers will be able to see from any computer how much power we’re using at any given time and adjust usage depending on that moment’s prices.

Nifty. Except we don’t have that capability now and no one seems to know when we will or how much it will cost to get it.

Meanwhile, consumers are in the dark about how much power we are using, when we’re approaching the high cost “upper tier” electricity and even whether our new meters are faulty.

All we know, is our bills are going up, up, up with no end in sight.

Maybe I’m cranky, but that doesn’t seem like it’s watching out for me at all.

Doing the right thing for battered women, FINALLY

By LOIS HENRY, Californian columnist

Oct. 15, 2009

Well, the California State Senate finally got off its butt and passed bill SBX3-13, which restored some funding to the state's battered women's shelters, on a 38-0 vote.

Now, it heads to the Governor's desk.

All the funding had been cut by the Governor earlier and a bill to restore at least some of the money failed last month because State Sen. Roy Ashburn, along with most of his GOP colleagues, refused to vote for any measures that needed a two-thirds majority as part of their "leverage" strategy.

The bill, which Ashburn had co-authored, only needed one Republican vote to pass, but Ashburn refused.

Six shelters in the state closed and Kern's were barely keeping the doors open. I was appalled, and still am.

Apparently, Ashburn withheld his vote to get the Democratic majority to honor some promises made to him earlier, though he refused to specify those promises.

I'm told now, however, that a bill to provide tax breaks to homebuyers will have Ashburn's name attached to it. And yes, Ashburn voted for the shelter money.

Jeeze, really? That was so NOT worth the potential cost to women and children with no where to go for shelter!

Sometimes, the world is just too ugly to comprehend.

So low, they can only go up from here

By LOIS HENRY, Californian columnist
Oct. 14, 2009

California voters have the worst opinion ever — ever — of how well the Legislature is doing its job, according to a Field Poll conducted for the Sacramento Bee and released this week.

Only 13 percent of those polled approved of lawmakers’ job performance.

What planet does that 13 percent live on? That’s what I wanna know.

Because, seriously, no one can think this Legislature (Governor included) is doing anything but dancing around problems and playing games.

We haven’t made any real headway on any single substantive issue in years — decades.
In good economic years, lawmakers spend like drunken sailors; in bad they borrow to the hilt. Even though they do it every year the same way — and they know that’s what they’re going to do — they still can’t pass a budget on time.

Local governments get more unfunded mandates, state programs roll on in perpetuity regardless of performance and the political parties burrow deeper into their respective bunkers every year.

It’s enough to make your teeth hurt.

I called Kern’s representatives to get their opinions of this low opinion of them.
State Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, never called back but all of our Republican representatives had plenty to say.

Assemblywoman Jean Fuller, R-Bakersfield, sent an email wondering, as I did, how the public’s approval rating could be so high.

I got the same response from Sen. Roy Ashburn, R-Bakersfield, who thought the Legislature, himself included, should get a zero.

“What you’re seeing now is the total collapse of state government,” he said. “It can be fixed, but I don’t see the will to do it.”

Freshman Assemblyman Danny Gilmore, R-Wasco, agreed.

“Can you blame them?” he asked of the Field Poll respondents’ low opinion of state politicians.

“It’s broken,” was his refrain for what he’s encountered since winning his hard-fought seat in 2008.

Things are so bad, in fact, he told me he has some “hard decisions” to make about whether he’ll seek re-election.

“I’ve talked to a lot of people up there, some have been doing budgets for more than 30 years, and they all say this is the worst its ever been.”

Politicians are out of touch on both sides of the aisle, he said, though all his examples cast Democrats as the biggest abusers. They shunt aside all Republican ideas regardless of merit, play games with office space (Gilmore still doesn’t have a Bakersfield office), and punish Democrats who don’t heed the leadership lockstep, he said.

The salt in the wound for Gilmore, a former Marine and Highway patrolman, is that nothing starts on time in Sacramento.

“I’m so frustrated I could write a book,” he said.

When I asked for his thoughts about solutions, he listed a number of things that a group called California Forward (www.caforward.org) is working to put on the November ballot in 2010.

The non-partisan group wants to create a ballot measure with legislative backing that would tackle three areas: the budget process, term limits and redefining the state/local relationship.

They’ve met with legislative leaders and had positive feedback.

Now they’re hoping Senate and Assembly committees will commence hearings on their measure — perhaps as early as next month.

Highlights include:

• Reducing the two-thirds majority needed to pass a budget (while retaining the two-thirds required for tax increases) as long as all other budget reforms are accepted — such as a multi-year pay-as-you-go budget so legislators are forced to identify a funding source for any new spending — and using one-time revenues for debt, not program funding.

• Cap the total time anyone can hold elected office to 12 years, divided however they choose between the houses (except current legislators) and require lawmakers to spend part of the year in their districts.

• Give local governments legal ownership over specific funds so the state can’t take that money and allow local governments to share funding and even consolidate districts where it makes sense.

OK, it’s not as sexy as “Throw the bums out!” But Cal Forward’s ideas have long-term appeal.

It’s much like Proposition 11 (the redistricting measure approved last year) which is getting under way. Ultimately that redistricting should create more competitive districts that don’t always go to party hardliners.

Another bright spot is the open primary, which voters will have the chance to approve in June of 2010. That would allow Democrats and Republicans to vote in each other’s primaries, again, potentially reducing ideological polarization and the parties’ iron grip, both of which have all but killed pragmatic consensus building to solve problems.

The silver lining around that abysmal approval rating is that we the people finally have the chance and the tools to push for reform.

Now, if we can only keep legislators from snuffing out the light.

Politics and saving lives don’t mix

By LOIS HENRY, Californian columnist
Oct. 11, 2009

Something’s amiss with the Capitol building in Sacramento.

Particularly in the Republican Senate caucus rooms where, last month all the oxygen was sucked out, clearly inhibiting the ability of senators to tell right from wrong.

All but one Republican senator abstained from voting on a number of spending bills, including an absolutely urgent matter that would have restored $16 million in state funding to battered women’s shelters that the governor had axed by line-item veto.

All it needed was one more Republican vote to pass. But our own Roy Ashburn — who co-authored the bill! — felt it was more important to stand with his colleagues in order to, I don’t even know what, teach Democrats a lesson?

Santa Maria’s Abel Maldonado did break from his party and voted for the bill (SBX3-13). But lacking one crucial vote, the bill failed.

Six shelters across the state have closed. The Ridgecrest shelter has had to lay off 13 people and close 12 beds. In Bakersfield, we’ve had three layoffs and workers here are hanging on to beds and services with their fingernails.

Hey, that’s some lesson, Ashburn.

What could he possibly have been thinking? I wondered. So I asked.

I’ll give him at least some props for calling me back right away (from Barcelona) after I let his office know what I was up in arms about.

First, he told me SBX3-13 was one of many bills held up by the en masse Republican nose-thumbing.

No, it wasn’t part of an all-or-nothing package, he said. It came up individually. So, he could have voted for this bill and abstained on the rest, right?

“I couldn’t vote for it,” he told me.

Were your hands tied? Were you unconscious? Why NOT!?

He said withholding votes on bills that need a two-thirds majority, which spending bills need, is the only “leverage” Republicans have as the minority party.

Democrats, he said, have stubbornly refused to address major issues, such as water and education reform. Yes, and they’ve been doing it for decades now, I see no reason to hold up desperately needed money for battered women over that.

Besides, he said, (OK, here’s the real nut) Dems aren’t honoring “commitments” made during the earlier budget process.

Ashburn reminded me that he stood against an onslaught of Republican pressure earlier this year when he voted for the budget compromise, which included new taxes.

Yes, he did, and I give him credit for that.

Well, commitments were made at the time and they aren’t now being honored. Like what?

He wouldn’t tell me.

“The bigger issue is people aren’t keeping their word and in politics your word is all you have.”

I suggested that sounded like he didn’t get something he, personally, was promised. No, he said these were commitments that affected the lives of all Californians.

Great, then let us know how the Dems are welshing on us.

Nope.

“The specifics aren’t relevant,” he told me.

Oh, my head.

The specifics matter enough to deny life-sustaining money to shelters for vulnerable women and children in dire need of help, but aren’t relevant enough to actually talk about.

I asked if he didn’t think saving lives was more important than political gamesmanship and Ashburn said he understood the question, but quickly reverted back to the talking points of water and leverage and pointed his finger at Democrats for game-playing.

As an example, Ashburn noted they had stripped the bill of the name of his co-author, Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, for some in-party slight.

“If you want to say Republicans were playing games with the lives of domestic violence victims, the Democrats were going even lower in removing the name of the Senator who got the job done.”

First of all, huh? Second, so?

“It just shows how low they’re willing to go,” he said. “They put (SBX3-13) up even though they knew the outcome of what they had done.

“That’s game playing, that’s putting on a show.”

Maybe this is like the whistle only dogs can hear, except in this case, it’s a rationale only politicians can understand. Either way, I’m lost.

Ashburn’s name wasn’t taken off the bill, by the by, and even the poor, wounded Yee voted for it.

Ashburn told me he was planning to vote for SBX3-13 when it came back up in special session (assuming the Democrats bring it back up), which starts on Tuesday.

That’s quite a gamble, I thought, since he had no way of knowing the bill would be back. State Sen. Majority Leader Dean Florez, D-Shafter, agreed.

“We wouldn’t be bringing it back up if we weren’t coming back on the special session on water,” he said.

He called the Republican abstention ploy “crap” and said Ashburn seemed to be holding out for authorship on a housing bill he felt he was promised.

Florez vowed SBX3-13 would come back up and they would move it forward.

“He’ll have a chance to redeem himself (this) week,” Florez said of Ashburn.

These days, redemption may have greater value to Ashburn as he approaches the limits of his term. He may be contemplating a run for Rep. Jim Costa’s seat next year, and if so, needs to get back in the good graces in the Republican party.

Of course, with the governor threatening to veto all bills unless a water deal is reached, SBX3-13 may suffer yet another political assassination.

I may not have enough political acumen to connect all those dirty little dots.

But I know right from wrong.

This one’s easy. Closing shelter doors for political points is flat-out wrong.

Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Bakersfield Californian. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/noholdsbarred, call her at 395-7373 or e-mail lhenry@bakersfield.com

Peter (Darbee) & Me

By LOIS HENRY, Californian columnist
Oct. 8, 2009

So I tried and failed to get an audience with the great Peter Darbee, CEO of PG&E Corp.

He was in town to visit employees today and I emailed the local flak, Denny Boyles, yesterday about bending his ear for a few minutes but was ignored. Boyles, called (in a roundabout way) today and told me that NO I would not be granted a visitation.

Boyles further told me that Darbee's visit to Bako was scheduled long before State Sen. Dean Florez convened a hearing on why residents' bills were tripling and even quadrupling over last year's bills.

I asked if I could ever get an interview w/Darbee and was essentially told NO. Boyles relented that he would put in a request but that Darbee rarely talks to "local media."

I was curious what PG&E's response to Florez's letter (demanding a laundry list of answers and changes in customer relations) was, but Boyles said they certainly wouldn't have a response today because the Senator "raises a lot of issues that will take time to answer. Some we have to decide what we can or can't or will or won't do."

Either way, Darbee would NOT be the one to be in touch, he said.

Funny, then I spoke with Florez who said he had just gotten off the phone w/Darbee who promised Florez he WOULD call me.

That was about an hour ago. No call yet and I'm starting to feel like the gal all gussied up in her prom dress waiting on the couch!

I'm shocked, I tell you, SHOCKED, that between the two of us Florez and I couldn't get a straight answer out of PG&E!

Swerving to a semi-different topic:

Boyles said my most recent column on this issue (Wednesday) caused a lot of concern among PG&E employees.

He said they felt I was inciting violence against utility employees and that it was racist.

The racism charge stems from the fact that during Florez's hearing, one man hollered out "Hang 'em all!" when two California Public Utilities Commission representatives were answering questions. During a similar 1979 hearing with angry residents, someone yelled "Lynch 'em!" according to reports.

I felt that reflected the level of anger and distrust that doesn't seem to have abated over the years.

I understand there is some cultural sensitivity over the word "lynch" but I don't believe it was meant in a racist manner at either hearing (more in line with what happened to cattle thieves, I think) and I certainly didn't portray it in a racist manner.

As for my column inciting or encouraging violence against anyone, that's flatly absurd.

The message of the column was for residents of Bakersfield to come together and work to get answers about why utility rates are so high here and effect some kind of positive change for the community.

Both charges, I believe, were meant to obfuscate the larger issue.

Public has power in unity

By LOIS HENRY, Californian columnist
Oct. 7, 2009

I hate to be cynical, but, hey, I am who I am.

Chances are, Monday night’s hearing on skyrocketing PG&E rates — tea-party-thrilling as it was — will go nowhere.

State Sen. Dean Florez has promised more hearings and no doubt he’ll deliver. But if the residents of this county don’t get together and continue pushing this issue, it will fizzle out just like all the other times.

I cannot impress upon you enough how important it is for each individual who’s fed up with his bills to get involved and stay involved.

If you rely one “someone else” to fix this it will slip through the cracks — again.

I know, I’ve seen it happen.

We had similar hearings here in 1979 and 1995.

The issues were exactly the same. People were just as spitting mad and PG&E and California Public Utilities Commission reps were just as infuriating in their placid response to the angry crowds.

As a side note I found it telling that PG&E didn’t send their top people — not even close — to Monday’s hearing. And the reps who were there didn’t bother to prep enough to answer basic questions like why the utility wanted to introduce a rate hike just before summer. That alone spoke volumes about the utility’s arrogance.

I wasn’t the only one appalled by some of the answers, or non-answers, given by PG&E and the two PUC reps.

“Hang ‘em all!” shouted one man at Monday night’s meeting, echoing another man who hollered “Lynch ’em!” during the 1979 hearing, according to reports.

I wasn’t here in the 1970s but I covered the 1995 hearings. It was exactly the same scenario: escalating bills even as residents reduced consumption.

Back then Cassandra Ballestero carried the torch for the rest of the county, picking apart bills and researching rate structures.

She got two hearings in Bakersfield, one chaired by a PUC commissioner. More than 200 people showed up and vented.

Ballestero also got a second more formal hearing with a PUC administrative law judge where she argued our baseline allotment (a small amount of energy we get for lower rates) should be increased because of the harsh climate in Kern County.

By the way, our baseline amount in Ballestero’s day was 498 kilowatt hours per month during summer at 11.9 cents per hour. Every hour of usage above that was 13.7 cents per kilowatt hour.

Now, we get 582 kilowatt hours per month in summer at 11.5 cents per hour and are charged 13.1 cents for going up to 130 percent above baseline; 25.9 cents for up to 200 percent over; 37.8 cents for up to 300 percent over; and 44 cents for anything over 300 percent above baseline.

The commission turned her down and she appealed to the California Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case in 1997.

As another side note, when the PUC admin law judge recommended against Ballestero’s request, she repeated information straight from PG&E which was known to be false. I always thought that seemed a bit cozy.

Interestingly, two sisters testified at Monday’s hearing that when bills for their 700-square-foot apartments went through the roof ($500 for one apartment for one month!) they each spoke with the same PG&E manager. Unsatisfied, they tried to complain to the PUC only to have the same manager claim he was in charge of PUC investigations.

Oh my, now that’s a bit beyond cozy.

Ballestero was home nursing a broken foot or she’d have been at Monday night’s hearing, she told me.

“Oh no, I haven’t lost my fight,” she said cheerfully. “I’ve been following everything from home.”

Ballestero learned a lot over the three years she battled PG&E and I think it’s relevant for us today.

“My phone rang off the hook with people wanting me to tell the PUC their story but that doesn’t work,” she said. “It takes thousands of people, all of us us, calling the PUC and keeping the pressure on.”

That means you need to keep track of your bills and your usage, call PG&E, complain to the PUC, contact TURN (a watchdog organization) and stay up on what’s happening.

We have a good opportunity now to effect change. Don’t let this one fall through the cracks.

Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Bakersfield Californian. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/noholdsbarred, call her at 395-7373 or e-mail lhenry@bakersfield.com

COMPLAIN COMPLAIN COMPLAIN!

If you get a power bill that’s out of whack, do something, ask questions and report problems. Here's how:

TURN
First and foremost, go to TURN's (The Utility Reform Network) website at http://www.turn.org and look at the top right side of the page where it says "FILE A COMPLAINT." Click there.
You can automatically file a complaint with the Public Utilities Commission and TURN will have the complaint on file to follow up for you.

Contact State Sen. Dean Florez
Call his Bakersfield office at 395-2620

To file a complaint directly with the PUC:
www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/forms/Complaints
The main office is in San Francisco:
505 Van Ness Ave.
San Francisco, CA 94102
Tel: 415-703-2782
Fax: 415-703-1758
For the Los Angeles office:
320 West Fourth St., Ste. 500
Los Angeles, CA 90013
Tel: 213-5760-7000
Fax: 213-576-7007

Contact PG&E
24-hour customer service number 800-PGE-5000. People can also log onto pge.com and click on Contact Us at the top right of the page, which will take them to a form that allows e-mail communication. PG&E also offers customer support lines in languages other than English.
Spanish: http://pge.com/espanol 800-660-6789
Chinese: http://pge.com/chinese 800-893-9555
Vietnamese 800-298-8438
TDD/TTY (speech/hearing-impaired) 800-652-4712
Telecommunications Devices for the Deaf and Other Language Services: http://pge.com/myhome/ customerservice/other/ languageservices/index.shtml

Stop building homes based on dream water

By LOIS HENRY, Californian columnist
Oct. 4, 2009

This is not the time to be approving unnecessary housing developments dependent upon shaky water supplies.

(It never really was , but, hey, this is California and that’s how we roll.)

I’m talking about the Tejon Mountain Village, which goes before the Kern County Board of Supervisors tomorrow for approval.

It already got a green light from the Planning Department and Planning Commission.

Based on the water issues alone, however, it should never have passed “Go.”
According to the environmental impact report, the project’s eventual 3,400 homes, two golf courses, 750 hotel rooms and so on, would be entirely reliant on the notoriously unreliable State Water Project.

This is the same water source that has all but dried up for some ag districts on the valley’s west side because of concerns over a variety of fish species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

The most recent “reliability report”on the state project by the Department of Water Resources pegs its count-on-me factor at between 63 and 68 percent.

But that was waaay back in 2007 when there was just one biological opinion saying the delta smelt needed more water. Since then, another opinion has come out saying other species also need more water.

That brings reliability down to more like 50 percent, according to some local water district folks I’ve spoken with.

That’s not good enough to base a housing development on, not matter how water-wise it is.

And, actually, there’s a lot to love, water-wise, about the Tejon Mountain Village.

County planners won’t issue building permits unless the water district servicing the village, Tejon-Castac Water District, can prove it has a seven-year reserve for indoor water demand. Each building has a water budget, so residents are automatically rationed.Landscaping has to be drought-tolerant. Outdoor irrigation uses recycled water only.

All great ideas that I hope will be incorporated in every new housing development proposal.

The unreliability of the state water, however, makes even such a watertight plan too much of a leap.

Tejon-Castac did use worst-case scenarios in assessing its supply and, of course, always came up flush.

Its ace in the hole, according to the district, is its water banking efforts.
It has more than 30,000 acre feet in the Kern Water and Pioneer banks, combined, which more than establishes that seven-year reserve.

That’s great, but without a steady stream from the state, those won’t be replenished.

Water bank accounts are a finite emergency source, not an ongoing supply.
Tejon Mountain Village spokesman Laer Pearce repeatedly reminded me those banks hold more than a 20-year supply for the village at full build-out (estimated to take between 20 and 30 years).

OK, so does that mean all those houses and the people living in them vanish if/when that supply runs out?

Tejon-Castac contracts for about 5,300 acre feet a year of state water. Reliability being what it is, however, even their own water assessment figured they’re more likely get an average 3,325 acre feet a year.

The last two years, they only got 1,583 and 1,847 acre feet respectively.

On the demand side, the village will use, at full build-out, about 2,100 acre feet (1,000 acre feet is considered “hard” demand for drinking and other indoor use).
Tejon-Castac also supplies the industrial complex at the foot of the Grapevine which will use, at full build-out, about 740 acre feet a year. Another 100 acre feet a year goes to other users so total demand will be close to 3,000 acre feet a year.

Even if Tejon-Castac does get that 3,325 acre feet per year, that doesn’t leave much for savings.

Assuming my water district sources are right, and the state’s reliability is truly at 50 percent and if things get worse, not better in the delta, Tejon Mountain Village could suck those water bank accounts dry in short order.

But unlike crops, houses — even luxury resort homes — can’t be plowed under. Once they’re built, they gotta have water.

We can’t continue to blitheley approve housing developments based on dream water, where everything is fine as long as all the pieces drop exactly into place.

The reality has never lived up to that dream.

That’s why cities (well, other than Bakersfield) all over the state are forcing residents to ration water, farmers are watching crops wither and entire ecosystems are about to seize up.

Supervisors need to look beyond the rosy water numbers Tejon is presenting and keep their votes based firmly in reality.

Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Bakersfield Californian. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/noholdsbarred, call her at 395-7373 or e-mail lhenry@bakersfield.com

The Board of Supervisors will meet on the Tejon project 9 a.m. Monday at the County Administrative Center, 1115 Truxtun Ave. in Bakersfield.

Water in the river: the dream gets closer

By LOIS HENRY, Californian columnist
Sept. 30, 2009

The first phase of the hearing on whether there's Kern River water available to, um, make a river (only in California does that make sense) happened last week and I feel my hopes rising.

This phase was just procedural, so none of us missed anything by not being there. But from what I understand, the hearing officer made some comments that look good for the prospect we will get a river back in the dry gully that now cuts through town.

Now that the "who goes first" and "what topics are allowed" stuff is out of the way, the actual live hearing will start Oct. 26 before the State Water Resources Control Board in Sacramento. They've set aside three days, so it may go until Oct. 28.

We can all attend this phase and I plan to be there. We can't speak, but we can show support. I hope a few other river lovers will be there too.

For background, this issue came up after a 12-year-long lawsuit between two water districts ended with a forfeiture of some river water.

The courts found that the water was, essentially loose and it was up to the state board to decide A) if there really was unappropriated Kern River water and B) if so, who should get it.

So the city of Bakersfield filed an application asking the board to hold a hearing to determine the status of the water and, if water was available, to grant it to the city which plans to run the water down the river. I just love saying that -- run the water down the river!

At first, the city's "opposition" (four local powerhouse water districts and the city of Shafter) also wanted the board to find the water was unappropriated and they each applied for it as well, to be used for irrigation or homes.

When they saw how much support the city was getting from us regular schmos, however, they changed tactics and urged the board not to hold a hearing at all because "why, there's no water here, never was, don't know what you're talking about -- scoot along now."

According to the city (and the initial applications filed by Shafter and the water districts) there could be a lot of water available. A lot. The city's estimate is between 50,000 and 60,000 acre feet.

Florn Core, Bakersfield's Water Resources Director and the city's champion for getting water back in the river, filled me in on last week's hearing.

The opposition, again, tried to get the hearing delayed.

The hearing officer stuck to his guns, however, so it's on.

The other issue batted around last week was the "public trust doctrine." This holds that rivers belong to all the people. The State Water Resources Control Board, coincidentally, is tasked with protecting that right.

The opposition lawyers (they had five to the city's one) tried to get the hearing officer to exclude the public trust doctrine entirely.

Here's where I get my hopes up.

The hearing officer said the public trust doctrine wouldn't be discussed at this phase, but will be considered in the next phase.

Hmmmm.

Does that mean the officer has read all the submitted arguments and documentation and expects there will be a next phase???

Be still my heart!

I know there are those of you out there saying, "Hey! We're in a drought, ag needs that water!"

True, the water picture isn't pretty.

But looking long term, the city running the water down the river (water down the river! It makes me giddy) will build up our aquifer.

Considering state and federal officials' penchant for cutting off delta supplies, ag will need more groundwater.

So, water in the river is a win, win, win.

The aquifer is replenished for all users, including ag, the natural riverscape can come back to life and we, the people, would have a beautiful, lush, life-affirming ribbon of water instead of a dry, desolate rut.

Core was hopeful about the October hearing.

"We're ready to go."

Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Bakersfield Californian. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/noholdsbarred, call her at 395-7373 or e-mail lhenry@bakersfield.com.

Gaps in system lead to tragedy

By LOIS HENRY, Californian columnist
Sept. 27, 2009

Annette Ayala should not be dead.

She should not have been stabbed more than 30 times, her horribly mutilated body left for her grown daughters and baby granddaughter to find on July 13.

I'm not just speaking philosophically and wishing evil men like Louis Ramirez Ayala, who pleaded no contest to second degree murder in the case, didn't exist.

I mean there were so many places where the "justice system" could have -- should have -- stepped in to alter the trajectory of this nightmare, the system itself should be charged with criminal negligence.

Barely a month later, another Annette -- Annette Sowders -- and her mother were gunned down, allegedly by Sowders' estranged husband, Robert Fuller.

Like Annette Ayala, Sowders had tried all legal remedies to keep Fuller away -- to no avail.

The Annettes were just two of this year's 16 domestic violence-related deaths. That number represents about 20 children who lived in these violent homes and often witnessed these brutal deaths.

I'd ask, "What will it take" before this community stands up and says "enough"? But frankly, I'm afraid of the answer.

We absolutely need a domestic violence task force.

I know, you hear terms like "task force" and roll your eyes. But I'm not proposing a group that would do nothing but that sounds good just to make us feel better.

Law enforcement has created similar task forces for crimes the community feels are so serious, rampant and overwhelming that they need extra attention. Gangs, drugs, even rural crimes have task forces where officers, detectives, district attorneys, probation officers and others are specifically dedicated to focus on those issues.

Well? If someone out there doesn't think domestic violence is serious, rampant and overwhelming in this community, they need to pull their head out and look around.

Between January and September of this year the Bakersfield Police Department and Kern County Sheriff's Department responded to a combined 5,374 domestic-related calls for service.

Those calls resulted in 2,277 arrests.

In about that same time frame, Child Protective Services had 1,141 domestic-violence-related referrals, with 2,470 children involved.

Continuing to shrug and tut-tut at this crisis ensures those 2,470 children will likely carry on the violence.

I'm not saying a task force would keep people from beating each other.

But it could help cut down on repeat offenders, flag the more dangerous cases, help victims get away from abusers and provide children with counseling so they don't self-destruct and repeat the violence.

Despite what you see on TV, the justice system is really several different systems -- cops, jail, courts, probation, etc. -- loosely tied together.

It's a net, but not woven as tightly as we need.

Looking at Annette Ayala's case, Nada Yorke, former president of the Domestic Violence Advisory Council, which makes recommendations about how law enforcement can tighten that net, was shocked at the gaps she fell through again and again.

Annette married Louis Ayala on Sept. 23, 2007 about a year after he got out of prison for second-degree robbery.

Right there, Yorke wondered: What was his parole status?

If he was still on parole, perhaps he could have been yanked back to prison the first time the cops arrested him for trying to suffocate Annette in February 2008.

"All of the issues in this case could have been addressed by a task force because there would be better coordination between the agencies," Yorke said.

A task force does require money, in short supply right now, and the Sheriff's Department is actively seeking grants. So there is some hope.

The District Attorney's office has two prosecutors for felony domestic violence, which is great. But if we had one for misdemeanors, we'd likely reduce felonies. Annette's case is a perfect example.

Louis Ayala worked the system.

He pleaded no contest, was sentenced to a few weeks in jail and given 30 days to come back to court to start his sentence. He wouldn't show, a bench warrant would be issued, then he'd go to court and ask for a new date, wouldn't show, a bench warrant would be issued and so on.

A task force with someone monitoring misdemeanor cases would have been more likely to figure out his game and have him picked up.

In October 2008, Ayala finally appeared for one of his court dates, along with Annette.

After one failed attempt to get a restraining order (another area in which a task force could help) Annette finally did have an order in place. But at the October hearing, she requested it be be lifted. They were in counseling, she told the judge.

Yorke said this isn't uncommon. A task force would have had victim advocates on hand to help Annette understand the potential danger of letting Ayala back into her life.

As it was, the judge lifted the order and gave Ayala a new court date because, he said, he had a bad back and couldn't do his jail time just then.

After several more failures to appear, Ayala was arrested in Dec. 2008 for spousal abuse and resisting arrest (guess his back wasn't so bad he couldn't wrestle with a cop).

The spousal abuse was dropped. He pleaded to the resisting charges and was given 20 days in jail, but was allowed 30 days to show up.

A task force DA could have argued to have him sent him straight to jail.

Ayala continued to skip out on his court hearings.

When he was arrested July 14 after Annette died, he had bench warrants from both of the previous cases, which were never combined.

"The system's failure to hold him accountable basically gave him permission to continue his violence against her," Yorke said.

The system has its flaws -- big gaping ones. But so do we.

Where is the community outrage over this and other murders?

It's up to us to demand change. Otherwise, we can expect to bury more and more Annettes.

Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Bakersfield Californian. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at people.bakersfield.com/home /Blog/noholdsbarred, call her at 395-7373 or e-mail lhenry@bakersfield.com

BAIL ISSUES SHOW NEED FOR&nbs p;DV TASK FORCE

The need and practicality of a domestic violence task force was made crystal clear as I was researching today's column.

I asked Nada Yorke, former president of the Domestic Violence Advisory Council (DVAC), to help me review restraining order violation arrests.

I wanted to know how many arrests resulted in actual prosecutions.

But she noticed something else.

Many of the arrests showed bail at only $5,000 to $7,500. One was only $2,500.

That can't be right, she told me.

The bail schedule for that charge was set at a minimum $10,000 and had been since DVAC asked Kern County judges to increase it from $1,500 back in 2002.

I had wondered earlier how Robert Fuller, accused of shooting to death his estranged wife Annette Sowders, had bailed out on two restraining order violations once for $5,000 and the second time for $7,000.

Nada got on the phone and found out a software glitch combined with a data entry error were the culprits. The error was in place since at least January of this year.

It took her a week to get the answer and get the error fixed.

That it took only a week is a testament to the relationships DVAC has built.

The two of us just stumbled on this problem. A task force would never have let it get this far in the first place.

I have no idea if the proper bail could have prevented Sowders death by keeping Fuller in jail longer, if he in fact pulled the trigger.

But had it been $10,000, I would at least feel we'd done the bare minimum to protect her. Can't even say that now.

DVAC will again be asking for a bail increase on this charge, to $20,000, when judges meet this winter to review the bail schedule.

As for whether we're prosecuting restraining order violation cases to the full extent, I never could figure that out because of the byzantine nature of of our system. Which is another good argument for a task force. Because how can we combat the problem if we can't even figure out its scope?

GO TO THIS MEETING!

The Domestic Violence Advisory Council is not just for law enforcement.
Anyone can be involved.
The next meeting is from noon to 1 p.m. Oct. 8 in room US1 on the first floor of the University Square building, 2000 K Street.
No need for reservations.
Show up and find out how you can help stop domestic violence in our community.

Cycle of violence thrives on silence

By LOIS HENRY, Californian columnist
Sept. 23, 2009

It isn’t big enough. That’s what I think of the venue for the 10th annual Domestic Violence conference tomorrow (8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Hodel’s, cost $35).

I came to that conclusion after watching the documentary that will be screened at the conference titled “Sin by Silence.”

Everyone should see this film.

And afterward, we need to have people on hand like Nada Yorke, Glenda Love, Judy Dulcich, Brenda Clubine and others who can tell us how we can help.

Because when you see this movie, you’ll want to know what you can do.

The film looks at the cases of several women imprisoned at Corona for killing their abusive husbands.

Clubine, until until about a year ago, was among those inmates. She will be the featured speaker at the conference.

The film focuses on a group she started that is dedicated to stopping the cycle of violence that trapped her and her fellow inmates.

The group is called Convicted Women Against Abuse (CWAA). It’s the only inmate-run support group of its kind and was largely responsible for changing state law in 1992 and again 2002 so that courts could consider a woman’s previous abuse in cases where she was accused of violence against her partner.

Clubine killed her husband one night during one of his many rages when she smashed a bottle over his head. In 1986 she was sentenced to 15 years to life. She got out in 2008.

Her story is sadly similar to those of the other women in the film, one of them from Bakersfield — Glenda Crosley.

None of the women in the hour-long film claims to be innocent.

They all wanted to deliver the message out that silence kills, said director/producer Olivia Klaus.

“That’s the core of this problem,” said Klaus, who spent eight years attending CWAA meetings in Corona getting to know the women. “We need to create an environment where victims of domestic violence feel comfortable asking for help. It could save lives.”

That’s where people like Yorke, past president of the Domestic Violence Advisory Council; Love, the current president; Dulcich, a Kern County Superior Court Judge; and others will come in handy at the conference. They can tell us what resources are available, what’s needed and how regular people can get involved and make a difference.

This is an epidemic that needs attention, much more than we’ve given it so far.

Already this year, we’ve had 16 domestic violence fatalities — according to the advisory council, a record-breaking year.

If you think domestic violence can’t happen in your world, you’re wrong.

I thought the same thing, as did Klaus, and we were both shocked when we discovered it lurking among our close circle of friends and colleagues.

The worst part is now knowing how to help, even where to go to get information about shelters, legal help, restraining orders, financial aid and so on.

That’s where this conference comes in. Think of it like CPR training, only you’re arming yourself with knowledge.

“While I was being abused,” Clubine told me, “if someone had just said ‘I’ll be there for you,’ I wouldn’t have gotten to the point where I felt like I had to protect my life that night.

“If people had been there for any of us, we wouldn’t be here (in prison).”

Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Bakersfield Californian. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/noholdsbarred, call her at 395-7373 or e-mail lhenry@bakersfield.com

BAKERSFIELD WOMAN'S STORY

Glenda Crosley killed her husband. Of that, there’s no doubt.

She smashed him between the grill of her car and the trunk of his in a parking lot at Ming Avenue and Real Road on a hot August night in 1986.

During Crosley’s two notorious trials, the community learned how much abuse she suffered at the hands of Sam, her husband of 24 years.

Testimony by her three daughters, a family friend and even Sam Crosley’s own mother was chilling.

They all believed Glenda, not Sam, would wind up dead.

The violence was constant.

“It wasn’t just once a week,” said daughter Stacy Crosley, now 43. “It was every single day.”

And it wasn’t just Glenda.

“The first time I remember him hitting me, I was probably 6 years old,” Stacy told me. Her sisters suffered the same way.

He hit with hands and fists and threatened his family with anything handy — golf clubs, tire irons, broom sticks.

And, yeah, the cops were called numerous times.

“It was the 1970s and ‘80s,” Stacy said. “If no one hit anyone in front of the cops, they didn’t make any arrests. They just got things settled and left.”

Stacy remembered her mother trying to leave several times and her dad coming into the apartment, ransacking rooms and even taking the pink slip to Glenda’s car to maintain some kind — any kind — of control.

The Crosley’s oldest daughter left as soon as she could. Stacy, the middle child, got into drugs, ran away and raised hell. The youngest was in her senior year of high school the night of their father’s death.

Stacy, with a grown son of her own now and a lifetime of experience, still blames herself for the death.

“When I was 11 or 12, I remember plotting ways to kill my dad,” she says matter of factly. “If I’d succeeded, this never would have happened.”

Then when she was 17 and about to be released from a group home in Fresno, a judge said she couldn’t go home unless both parents were living together.

Glenda had again left Sam and was trying to make it on her own, but went back to bring Stacy home.

“In a way, it was my fault.”

Glenda was found guilty in 1988 of second-degree murder.

Despite new laws that allow courts to consider a woman’s previous abuse in such cases, Glenda remains in prison.

The irony is that Glenda falls through the cracks because she was allowed to present a “battered wife syndrome” defense, the first time it was ever used in a California courtroom.

But it didn’t sway the jury.

Glenda and Sam were separated at the time. They had both gone to a church-sponsored singles gathering that night and afterward to a pizza parlor. Sam told people she was following him and others testified she wasn’t invited to the pizza party.

In the parking lot, Sam leaned into Glenda’s car, they had words and witnesses say she rammed him from behind as he was walking away. He got up as she drove away through the lot.

He went to the back of his car and opened the trunk. Glenda came back through the lot, smashed into him and drove away until her car broke down.

“It took me a lot of years to come to grips with everything,” Stacy said. Particularly how her past reached into her future.

“I wasn’t the victim” in later years, she said. “I was the abuser.”

She was so unnerved by her own actions when she hit her first husband — her son’s father — she left, even giving up custody of her son.

“I knew the cycle was passed down and I didn’t want to run the risk of abusing my son,” she said.

She kept in constant contact with her son, now 18 and now living with her in Bakersfield.

She hasn’t communicated much with her mom over the years, but believes she’s more than paid for her crime.

“She was afraid that night; I know that in my heart,” Stacy said. “She was confused, probably just trying to get out of the parking lot.

“He opened his trunk. That’s where he kept the tire iron, the weapons he threatened her with.

“She didn’t intentionally go after him.”

Glenda’s story is chronicled in the documentary “Sin by Silence,” to be screened today at the domestic violence conference from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Hodel’s. Cost is $35

IF YOU NEED HELP

If you or your children are in immediate danger, call 911.

You can also get help and services quickly if you are working with Kern County Mental Health, Department of Human Services, Child Protective Services, Adult Protective services or any of the local nonprofit health services agencies.

Other specific helping agencies include:
Greater Bakersfield Legal Assistance, 615 California Ave.; 325-5943; fax: 325-4482; gbla.org/ez.php?Page =3226.

Alliance Against Family Violence and Sexual Assault Outreach Center, 1921 19th St.; 322-9199; 24-hour hotline: 327-1091; toll- free: 800-273-7713; kernalliance.org.

Don't let politicians sink our shot at good water policy

By LOIS HENRY, Californian columnist
Sept. 20, 2009

So, another legislative session has come and gone and our fearless “leaders” yet again, couldn’t muster out any kind of comprehensive water overhaul.

Good!

The last thing we need is those bozos gumming up the works.

There is a plan in the offing that could really make a difference in California’s mess of a water world — the Bay Delta Conservation Plan.

It needs a couple of things — our support, more involvement and commitment by the feds and for our state “looza-lators” to back off.

All the marches and rallies this summer and calls for the Obama administration to “turn on the pumps!” may be exciting and cathartic. But the fact is, the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, unsexy as it is, is our single best chance for urban, environmental and ag interests to move forward together.

The hastily drawn up package of water bills that thankfully went down in flames earlier this month actually would have thrown roadblocks in front of this plan.

Thanks, politicians, thanks a lot. Can you please go back to not fixing the budget and leave water alone?

The Bay Delta plan was started about two and a half years ago and includes everyone from all sides of the water wars. And, yes, they’ve been finding common ground.

They’ve been looking in great detail at conservation, habitat improvement, all the issues that might be causing harm to fish species in the delta and best ways to move water safely and efficiently through, or around, the vast estuary.

This is different from other efforts, such as CalFed — a kind of shotgun blast of money that went in all directions — or the Bay Delta Vision, a vague 30,000-foot view of policy goals.

The Bay Delta Conservation Plan is a permitting process. Studies aren’t being done just to have more studies.

They are incorporated in environmental documents as they go along with the intent that at the end, permits will be in place for whatever changes are needed, such as having an inspection point for boats coming into the delta to keep out invasive species.

And that mother of all controversies, a peripheral canal to move water around the delta.

“This is a smaller process, with greater intensity and focus on solving problems,” said

Brent Walthall, Kern County Water Agency’s representative on the plan. “It is the single best effort we have going now.”

And it’s relatively on track with a draft due out toward the end of this year.

Walthall told me the greatest need now is for the federal government to be much more involved.

Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Hayes has shown some interest,but things are moving quickly for the worse and we need the feds on board.

First, a little background:

Two years ago a federal judge sided with environmentalists over an opinion that said giant federal and state pumps at the southern end of the delta (which bring water to farms in the San Joaquin Valley and drinking water to Los Angeles) were harming a fish — the delta smelt listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.

The judge ordered reduced pumping and, of course, we went right into a second year of drought, making things dire.

A new biological opinion has since come out looking at other fish species, including salmon, and promises to reduce pumping further, even in wet years.

All of this has affected farmers mostly on the west side of the valley. In Kern County, our westsiders rely on the State Water project and considered themselves lucky to get 40 percent of what they contracted for (they had to pay for the full allotment, however).

The Farm Bureau estimates about 45,000 acres in Kern have been fallowed for lack of water and even more acres of permanent crops are being under-irrigated, keeping trees and vines alive but not producing at their peak.

North of us, farmers in the sprawling Westlands water district in western Fresno County rely on the federal Central Valley Project. They got 10 percent of their allotment.

That’s why you’re seeing the marches and rallies there as unemployment has skyrocketed.

Their immediate anger with the Obama administration involves those two biological opinions, which they want set aside. While the administration can’t ignore the Endangered Species Act, Walthall told me, they can undertake a “reconsultation” when circumstances change or new science is available.

“The second opinion doesn’t mesh with the first,” he said. “It would release water from some reservoirs at certain times of the year to benefit the smelt, which would reduce or eliminate cold water protections for the salmon.”

That conflict alone is reason enough for a reconsultation.

Absolutely.

Hayes and/or Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar need to do more than pop into the valley for photo ops and glad-handing. Get in the game and reexamine these opinions.

What’s the harm in checking your facts?

Meanwhile, local water folks are getting more anxious by the day.

What’s been keeping our farmers afloat, so to speak, is groundwater banking, said Harry Starkey, general manager of Belridge Water Storage District.

“I have landowners now whose accounts are dry now,” said. Without some kind of change, those accounts won’t be replenished.

Even in wet years, “we lost access to all of that water, just with the smelt opinion,” Starkey said. “The salmon opinion is just adding layers to the problem.”

He also was clinging to the promise of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan to try and bring some stability back to ag water.

“It’s our only ray of hope.”

Now, if we an only keep bumbling politicians from blocking out the light.

Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Bakersfield Californian. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/noholdsbarred, call her at 395-7373 or e-mail lhenry@bakersfield.com

Annoying yes, meaningless no

By LOIS HENRY, Californian columnist
Sept. 16, 2009

Sometimes, it’s the little things that really get under your skin.

When you’re running a business, an incorrect bill from the City Fire Department for $96 may not seem like much.

But for Brenda Barnes, this yearly mistake is one of those “little things” that’s become a major irritant.

Barnes is a podiatrist and as part of the business, develops X-rays, which means she has about a gallon of film developer on the premises.

And that means her business goes into a pot of other businesses in the city that come under a state law regulating hazardous materials. There are about 1,200 in the city overall, according to Howard Wines, director of Fire Department Prevention Services.

The Fire Department is tasked with keeping track of which businesses have which chemicals and how much. They have to maintain that information internally and report it to the state, for which they charge businesses a “handling” or administrative fee.

They’re also supposed to inspect each business at least every three years, which is what the additional $96 is for.

Only Barnes’ business has never been inspected — except for the times she’s complained that she’s getting charged for an inspection that never happened.
It’s almost become a game over the last few years since she first noticed the fee on her bill.

She was charged, complained, got inspected and she paid. Round and round. Last year, she got smart. She waited until the time frame listed on the bill expired, then complained there was no inspection and was told she didn’t have to pay the fee. Only it popped up, again, on her most recent bill.

“It’s weird,” Barnes told me. “Does it bug anyone else? Is it just me?”

When I asked Wines about it, he was frustrated Barnes was still getting charged. He did try and fix that, he said.

And while the department does shoot for yearly inspections, he said, it just can’t get to them all because of staffing shortages.

OK, but that doesn’t explain why Barnes — and presumably other businesses — are getting charged every year.

I asked Wines how many businesses had actually been inspected over the last year and how many had been charged the inspection fee.

Ooo, sorry, I was told. Wines said he is making a report to the state, possibly by the end of this month, but couldn’t lay hands on that info right away.

Hmmm. Now I’m a little irritated.

If the city keeps reports for the state of each business with chemicals, what kind, how many and the last inspection date, that information should be immediately available.

And — call me crazy — but I think the city should be capable of not charging someone for no service.

Meanwhile, Barnes continues to grit her teeth at the bill.

“It’s always there on my desk.”

• • •

In other annoying news, Cyndi Crabtree brought an error to the city’s attention in May regarding how it instructs businesses to account for (meaning pay taxes on) gross receipts.

Crabtree saw the error had not been fixed when she received another notice from the city this month.

The city provides a definition of gross receipts, which has a long list of things that should be excluded, such as cash discounts, gas taxes and so on.

Except the city left off the word EXCLUDING. So the definition appears to INCLUDE a laundry list of things that should be EXCLUDED.

How many businesses, Crabtree wondered, overpaid the city?

City Treasurer Cheryl Perkins assured me forms on the city’s website had been fixed and Crabtree had inadvertently been sent the old notice.

“Very, very few businesses, out of the 30,000 business licenses we send out every year, have any of these exclusions,” Perkins said. “So the likelihood that someone over reported is very slim.”

But how would they know, I wondered?

Crabtree wondered the same thing and noted that one of the exclusions deals with someone employing subcontractors or temporary employees.

“I would think a lot of businesses fall into that category,” Crabtree, a CPA, said.

Clearly, reading the instructions is a must when dealing with the city.

Small and annoying can add up fast, so big kudos to Barnes and Crabtree for picking nits and keeping government accountable.

Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Bakersfield Californian. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/noholdsbarred, call her at 395-7373 or e-mail lhenry@bakersfield.com