sol2ride when dealing with rm6 you have to take account that hes just a baby fresh off his mama's tit..................To say that the guards are not represented by a union or association is asinine.

Why does everyone always focus on the negative and never the positive. The positive impact of the expansion could include more jobs, increased revenues from visitors (hotels/restaurants etc).

Not every inmate in the prison system comes from a bad env't. To categorize all famalies of an inmate I think is wrong. I can guarantee alot of those boys sitting in prison come from good famalies and good backgrounds, they aren't all gang banging thugs.

Why would you expect an increase in crime from a prison expansion? That I don't understand.

Smokey - you imply that family members (I assume those are mostly wive's/girlfriends and their children) will come up here with their prisoners.  How can that be good for us?

hey gube are you saying that I said that the employees there aren't represented by a union? No, I just said that the union that sol2ride mentioned doesn't exist, they're represented by the CCPOA and CCSO, not the "California State Prison Union."

A few other jobs that only require a high school diploma or GED: CHP, KCFD, KCSO, Los Angeles County Fire Department, BFD, BPD, Cal Fire, just about every entry position in federal, state, county, and city government.  They all do a background check for pre-employment. Heck you do not need to have a high school diploma or GED to run for President of The United Sates, Senator, Congress.  

FYI - Your city council does not require any background check of local elected officials, but city employees are thoroughly screened by an outside agency.

We know most everything about Ed and Debby and Phil because they've been living here forever. Many of us have gone to school or worked elbow to elbow (blue collar to collar?) with some of them.

But I for one am really curious where exactly Stan Beckham (and Jimr) worked for the past 30 years because he clearly hasn't gained all his big business experience and muckety-muck qualifications in this small town. His online bio describes quite a successful bigwhig in varous fields, including international banking, construction, real estate, and even "logistics and security for the government." Whose government? What companies ? Perhaps if our council meeting agendas and budgets were written in another language... But then I guess that wouldn't really fit with his and jimr's anti-illlegal immigrant/racists stance.

But I digress...I think our elected officials should be subject to background checks and publication of their credentials. These kinds of issues seem to keep dividing the community and I don't think we should trust our officials to make these decisions based on handshakes(-jobs?) and promises. 

Hey Curly if you want to know more about jimr he also blogs as calvintehachapi. Stan blogs as the oneandonlyanonymous as well as many other names. Stan has done nothing but make a fool out of himself and local politics. He has changed nothing in our City. jimr will just be another Stan, he has no backbone he will do what the vocal minority tells him. Remember the flip jimr did on the location of city hall??

As for the prison expansion, why not charge the prison mitigation fees like we charge the developers? We can also make them expand Hwy 202 to 4 lanes. This will not only help the prison but all of us. jimr is paranoid most prison families don't move to be near the prisoner. CDC moves the inmates to much for that to happen!  CDC can make payments on their mitigation fees as well. Stan flipped on that subject and now thinks that was a good idea, after calling the other council members names for doing the same thing he just voted for.

I know for a fact that prison guards know they are not above the law, most of them know they have no hope of getting out of citation if pulled over by the CHP.

Vote to recall Stan and please don't replace him with jimr.....  Change is a good thing, but the type of change brought to us by Stan was evil.

At the risk of sounding like a cheerleader (which I am moist coitanly not!), I'd like to respond to Jimr's question: 

Where are our so-called LEADERS on this issue? Has anyone heard so much as a peep from any of them, City, County, State, Federal? They are our "Representatives" but it seems the only time we hear from them is when it's re-election time.

I read about Mayor Hand's comments in the News several weeks ago objecting to the expansion at CCI. I also heard the council form a committee at the last meeting to work with the same people who are giving the same presentation again tonight at the council.

So to answer your question, I'd guess the Mayor was at the original CCI expansion meeting before you realized this was another opportunity to cast aspersions and offer zero suggestions for how to fix it. I'd guess the committee (aka council memebers) was probably busy sending out an invitation to bring this presentation to even more folks than saw it the first go-round.  But I'm just guessing. Nyuk, nyuk!   

Just FYI - I also heard a woman speak a couple meetings ago about how the most traffic on 202 was related to homeowners and school kids, not CCI buses or shift changes. I don't know where or how she got her info, but I hope someone looks into it. With or without CCI expansion, that road is far too dangerous.   

Give jimr a brake Curly!!!  We have not heard from our Federal Leaders.  Hello Bush what say you????

I have a couple of questions to ask about this topic...First question: Why does the city of Tehachapi any say so if the prison expands, for it would not be in the city limits but county? Why would the city of Tehachapi be able to charge mitigations fee's if it is not located in the city? Sorry if I sound a little clueless on this but this would help clarify things and then I could decide if I agree with it or not.  

Eek -  The prison is not in the county.  A special assembly bill was passed in the late 90's which made the prison grounds a city-island.  CCI is within City limits, and the population of the prison is considered as Tehachapi residents for the purposes of determining state funding for projects which are determined on a per-capita basis.

Dreamkiller -  A city can't charge mitigation fees to the State.  The State exempts itself from local controls, just like the Federal Government exempts itself from state controls.  The legal principle is that the  "superior" body can't be jerked around by the "inferior" body.  And we can't MAKE the state do anything, especially widen 202.  That particular mitigation was promised by the expansion of the mid-80's and left undelivered.  Since that widening would add about $50M to the cost, I'm sure it will be left undone this time too.

Thanks for the information ProgressoDasani, makes a lot more sense to me now.. I am not sure where I fall on this topic. I can see both the good and the bad side of it.  

RM6, i really dont care what the prison union calls itself the fact is that one exists.  My argument is very simple, NO PRISON EXPANSION IN TEHACHAPI, and I dont really care about justifications negative or positives.  Why doesn't LA county build a prison? it seems that we in rural California have to deal with prisons housing inmates who commited crimes in other large cities.  Does anyone know where the proposed site is for the expansion?