TehachapiNews.com

School board training

By Holly Hart, Guest Columnist

Recently, Governor Brown's proposed an increase in power for California school boards in his State of the State 2012 address. According to the governor, "What most needs to be avoided is concentrating more and more decision-making at the federal or state level. For better or worse, we depend on elected school boards and the principals and the teachers they hire. To me that means, we should set broad goals and have a good accountability system, leaving the real work to those closest to the students."

Is the governor is jumping too far and too fast? While high-performing school boards can handle more responsibility, what about low-performing school boards like ours?

Passion and patience

By Claudia Elliott, Editor

Passion is a great thing. I love passionate people and try to give them as much exposure for their causes and concerns as we can manage through space in the newspaper.

Sometimes dealing with passionate people reminds me of a saying I heard once, "patience is the only virtue."

Advice for a budding scientist

Billy Dean, Columnist

Dear Jonathan,

Miss Jones told me you want to be a paleontologist, a scientist who studies dinosaurs. Did you notice "pal" is the first word in paleontologist? Hey, you will be a dinopal -- a friend of dinosaurs! She also said you wanted a pen pal, so I thought you might like to read what I know about being a scientist.

The arts community and political power

B.J. Mitchell, Guest Columnist

Political power comes to a community arts organization when the members: (1) have a passion for their art, (2) appreciate their contributions to the quality of life for people in their community, (3) are willing to fight for funding of artists and facilities to show their art, and (4) work to elect public officials who support the arts, and un-elect those who don’t.

Even our dog wouldn’t eat it!

Billy Dean, Columnist

I am not a very good cook. I burn water trying to boil it and lost the recipe for ice years ago. But my Texas Hash is a gourmet's delight!

Providing direction for wind

Zack Scrivner, Guest Columnist

The resurgence of the wind industry in Eastern Kern has brought needed jobs and economic growth to the county. Kern County now leads California in permitted renewable energy projects for both wind and solar for over 7000 MW. Under the current zoning ordinance, a zone change for a commercial wind project can be proposed anywhere in the county, only limited by the height restrictions adopted to protect our critical military missions. The current Tehachapi Wind Resource Area is not a binding map and has no legal standing. It is not a boundary. It is a conceptual map created by the wind industry to assist their efforts with Southern California Edison and the California Public Utilities Commission to increase transmission capacity and fulfill the state’s policy direction for renewable power. Wind projects have been proposed and approved both inside, and outside, of this area.

Letters to the Editor

Want new local bowling alley

Editor,

Yesterday we returned from our 120 mile round trip from Lancaster where we bowl every Monday in a league. There are lots of Tehachapians who bowl and would love to have a bowling alley here again. We really need an alley more than another small shopping center. I know whomever builds one will make money because we'll all come. We are really starved for recreation here on the mountain.

Please, someone, anyone, build us a bowling alley. With gas prices going up and up, we need you. Please give it a lot of thought.

Linda Drake

Downtown important

Claudia Elliott, Editor

When I think of things that happened during my earlier times in Tehachapi, I’m starting to think of them as the “olden days.”

Solutions: funding school bus transportation?

Holly Hart, Guest Columnist

By keeping their communities informed, high-performing school boards earn the trust and support necessary to make fast and hard decisions. Here in Tehachapi, no one should have been surprised to learn the state had cut $600,000 from TUSD’s transportation budget.

When did it become OK to publically bash a public servant?

Rochelle Pearce, Guest Commentary

The Bear Valley Community Services District has been in the news a lot lately with the Board of Directors coming under fire for many of the decisions it has made. Anyone who attends or watches the meetings online,knows that the meetings have been well attended and often heated. Recently there was an article was published in the Tehachapi News entitled “Stocking Stuffers” by Mr. Sandy Williams. Mr. Williams calls into question decisions made by the directors to approve many of the benefits of the CSD employees and what it costs citizens of the district.

Letters to the Editor

Letter inaccurate

Editor,

B.J. Mitchell’s letter concerning the proposed Performing Arts Center has a number of inaccuracies, as follows:

1. Zoning A-1 does not forbid a museum and auditorium, but it does not allow for it either. That is why you are currently applying for a Conditional Use permit from the Kern County Planning Commission.

2. Expecting to use half of the amount of water of a residential home is nonsense. The sanitary needs of 1,000 attendees are considerable, coupled with landscaping and building maintenance outlined in your own plans. Your assurances won’t help residents whose wells run dry due to your draw down.

3. The discharge of effluent from 1,000 attendees into the soil, instead of a sewer line, will pollute the water table just by the sheer volume, no mitigation will change that. Reversing the pollution once it has occurred takes much longer to resolve.

4. What criterion did your traffic engineer use? There have already been accidents on Red Apple Avenue, due to the blind curve with traffic backing up, one involving a Sheriff’s Patrol Car. That is a fact.

You can make a study say anything you want it to. Increasing the amount of traffic on Red Apple will only increase the likelihood of accidents in the future.

5. The petition at Albertsons only solicited support for a building Cultural Arts Center. Nothing was mentioned about the environmental or safety issues connected with your proposed location. Those who signed didn’t have all of the facts.

Pat Cantrell