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
Protect quality of life
Editor,
In response to B.J. Mitchell’s letter regarding the proposed Performing Arts Center on Red Apple, the staff of the Kern County Planning Commission reviewed all of the information submitted to them on the application for a Conditional Use Permit. Their recommendation to the Planning Commission was for disapproval. That is a fact.
Whatever the issues you have with the City of Tehachapi is your business, but the site you have selected to attempt to build your center is our business. You state that the center “is” being built in the county, not the city. “If” it will be built in the county is what this hearing will decide. Our neighborhood will take whatever steps are necessary to see that doesn’t happen.
Could Tehachapi use a Performing Arts Center? Yes, but this is not the location for it. You point to jobs, and trumpet your view of improved quality of life for the community, while conveniently ignoring the quality of life for the residents of the Red Apple Tract. You include use by schools in your vision of those who will benefit, but they won’t have access without expensive transportation. State budget cuts don’t currently cover a ride to school, much less extracurricular activities. I find your dismissive and myopic oversight of serious issues for the residents of our neighborhood troubling, in your blind ambition to build a center. Your evaluation of the “broader context” is arrogant and insulting. This is a commercial enterprise, with commercial requirements. It belongs within the City of Tehachapi, where it can be convenient, safe and welcome.
Pam Pousson
Misses Tehachapi
Editor,
I have to tell you, your newspaper is much more interesting reading then Bakersfield or anyone’s. You keep up with all the events of your beautiful city, people are recognized and praised when needed, and the wildlife and domestic animals are also giving a break from being a pain to most people, they just want to be loved also.
I live in Wofford Heights now, I did live in Tehachapi eight years ago, I wish I had never left, but being married, a woman is supposed to follow her husband. Never again! If I didn’t have a job here, I would move back to Bear Valley Springs, and join up in the women’s club again; they were the most fun women to be with.
Miss you all. Your town is more and more like Cambria Pines or any mountain resort. Each year I go there to see that the best pies in town are still there. My son had lived there and loved it, but since he passed away, it is hard for me to go back.
NowI must face the town without tears, and just be happy he lived long enough to be happy there.
Laura Blanco Corley
The City Council and the bully
Editor,
If you have never attended a City Council meeting, you really should.
At the ones I have attended, I have been impressed by the dedication of each of those presently on the City Council. Our city is a good place to live and the things which make Tehachapi a good place to live are predominantly because of their dedication.
At each council meeting I have attended there has been a former council member who feels he must speak. Each time he comes to the podium I cringe. In every case I have heard him speak he calls to question or insinuates in some way that the council members do not have the best interests of the community in mind. He is careful in what he says, but he leaves no doubt that he feels he could do a better job himself.
The thing about bullies is that they feel free to attack when they have no fear of retribution. They question the loyalty, honesty, integrity and honor of others simply because we have given them the right to do so. Our system of government allows everyone to “speak his or her piece,” (within limits) and many times we have no opportunity for rebuttal. That’s the way it works and as we become adults we understand that sometimes good people must suffer the fool in silence, but at other times we may have an opportunity to respond.
This past week the loyalty and integrity of our mayor was attacked. He sat in silence because he understands the mentality of a bully. But you see, “We, the people” have already spoken in regards honesty, integrity and honor. We have chosen the ones we feel are right for the job, which is why one man is a former councilman and the other, is not only a councilman, but mayor of Tehachapi.
Leslie Lawson
Cartoon was offensive
Editor,
I found the cartoon in the Jan. 3 issue of the News rather offensive.
The individuals, who are protesting in Occupy Wall Street, are protesting corruption in the Congress (not unlike the Tea party) and corruption on Wall Street. What is the point of the military fighting for our rights if our right for peaceful protest is scorned? And most of OWS protests are peaceful, as opposed to police officers that attack them while they are sitting, as happened at UC Davis.
The editorial (Now and then), on the other hand, was balanced, fair, and reasonable. Thank you.
Linda Coverdale
Donations Intended for hospital
Editor,
This is in response to two letters in the Forum, one by JoAnne Huckins, the other by Teresa Roberts. They both seemed determined to make me appear misinformed.
I have not claimed to be a member of the Tehachapi Hospital Foundation, but I have made donations to it in the past. When a charitable foundation is formed, a statement of purpose or mission must be indicated. I have found the purpose written in a couple of different ways for this “foundation.”
I believed donations to this “foundation” were solely to help build the new hospital and I think most donors believed that also! I think everyone who has made a donation to the Tehachapi Hospital Foundation has the right to full information about this charity!
My letter in the forum was mostly questions of the “Foundation” and I thank both of them for the questions they did answer. I am very well aware of the fact that the Hospital (TVHD), the Hospital Foundation and the Hospital Guild are all separate entities. It never occurred to me to bring the Guild into the questions about the “foundation.”
I have a flyer “press release” by JoAnne Huckins referring to the Hospital (TVHD) board meeting of Oct. 19, 2011. This flyer was to encourage people to come to that meeting because she believed the money the hospital had received from property tax was being misspent. She was demanding an audit. On this flyer it was noted that “Ms. Huckins also stated that a decade has passed with very little progress.” I agree, too much time has passed with the delays being caused — one right after another — by stupid reasons, by government regulations and a hand full of unhappy citizens wanting the hospital to be built closer to Stallion Springs.
Soon after that board meeting an article written by Tehachapi Hospital CEO was published in the Tehachapi News explaining the funds available for building the hospital. It was now known money could no longer be used for a reason to protest! Soon after that the name of the “foundation” was changed and the money sent to another non-profit where they could get better return in interest. So it was said.
Than just a few days before groundbreaking a lawsuit by those in the foundation stopped the construction. The reason this time, environmental impact. Same reason that was used to stop Wal-Mart.
How clever!
Rumors have even been started that one of the reasons is there is an earthquake fault under where they were going to build. Sorry, I went to USGS and could not find a fault near there. Amazing what one can learn from blogs.
The 1st Amendment of the Constitution gives me the right to ask questions and/or voice my opinion. I will always speak up when I feel things just don’t add up. I hope the community will speak up also. We need our new hospital now!
Another part of Ms. Huckins statement on that flyer is “there are some who even declared, in 2002, that they would be dead before ever seeing a new hospital being built. They were right. Many of them are now dead.”
Well, Ms. Huckins, how many more do you suppose will die before our hospital is built?
LaVerne N. Kemp
Happy Birthday, Elvis
Editor,
I was remiss in not reminding everyone that Elvis had another birthday Sunday, Jan. 8.
A few of us went over to the trailer park in Barstow where he hangs out. We made a face-cake of him using a picture from his 1971 tour — we topped it with bacon-flavored ice cream, with bacon sprinkles on top.
He doesn’t do the jumpsuits anymore, but has a nicely stuffed sequin-emblazoned pair of bib overalls that he wears for special occasions, like his birthday.
We had a Karaoke machine and he sang up a storm. We bobbed for tamales and had a piñata that was modeled after a picture of Lisa Marie with a beehive hairdo. He gave that piñata some big-time whacks until the bacon-wrapped chicken livers within burst forth.
He had a lot of fun and so did we. He looks good for a 77-year old washed-up superstar who is living in anonymity in an obscure Mojave Desert town.
He’s still pretty active. He’s a handyman in town and works part-time at the Laundromat keeping the machines running. He calls a bingo game occasionally at the Catholic church in town — and the ladies still love him!
Chris Haight
Healthy people are productive
Editor,
We fail to see the connections.
Those who have health insurance generally are happy, but we ignore the fact that we pay far more than any other country and cover less with more than 45 million without coverage. Our medical costs are astounding. Those without insurance go to the ER. A typical visit costs around $800. That’s five to seven times greater than a doctor’s office or Urgent care. If they can’t afford the cheaper costs, they cannot pay the bills.
I used to be on the hospital board, so I am familiar with these costs.
There are people, forced into bankruptcy, with or without insurance because of the costs and games insurance plays. We pay for those who can’t pay. Our products overseas cost 30 to 40 percent more because our system of coverage makes us less competitive. The overhead (large salaries, bureaucracies, government issues — caused by those cheating the system) is estimated that $230 billion.
That’s an amount that could have paid for those 45 million without care.
The system could be set up to cover everyone, and for those who could afford it to be able to get supplemental coverage privately.
We have the best personal medical care (if you can afford it), but too many are left out.
Edmund Burke, the founder of the modern Conservative movement in England, believed that a healthy people were a productive people. That is not what I hear now from Conservatives. Burke was in Parliament around the time of our Revolutionary War.
Larry Tolley
Grouchy doctor?
Editor,
As a doctor, you know you need to retire or change careers when you no longer have compassion, for the patient’s condition you’re in charge of caring for.
On a recent visit to the ER at the Tehachapi Hospital, we encountered yet again a doctor on staff in the ER department
As an accompanying family member, I’m appalled at the bedside manner of this doctor.
We are not questioning his diagnosis or his recommendations, but his demeanor.
When you are sick or in pain or in shock the last thing you want is a grouchy ER doctor.
Maybe he was having a bad day or didn’t get any sleep because he pulled an all-nighter, but twice getting the same kind of treatment from the same person on different occasions and at different times of his shift? Not professionalism at its best.
The hospital staff was very compassionate, very helpful and very aware of the existing and ongoing problems at hand with this particular doctor and his little issues with doctor patient relationships.
They were very apologetic for our experience.
I truly hope that whenever the new hospital is built and they open he is not there and that the doctors they do employ are professional, compassionate, and grateful to be educated and licensed to heal, cure and treat patients with dignity, a smile and a feeling of self-confidence that you helped somebody in need and made them feel better, not insulted with your indignity.
Michelle M. Vance
Solar project does not belong in CV
Editor,
We in the Cummings Valley Protective Association all want to support renewal energy. However, the solar project proposed for the 300 acres along Pellisier in Cummings Valley should be located in the desert and not on irreplaceable agricultural land. The Cummings Valley is very special with its fertile soil and mountain climate that allow summer growing of 30 varieties of organic vegetables not possible in most other areas. Our county is losing its good farmland at a terrifying rate. Our growing health care crisis requires that we all eat more fruits and vegetables — especially organic. The proposed solar project is one of 10 projects underway by Recurrent Energy in Kern County. The other nine are in areas of the desert.
Completely apart from the visual blight the proposed solar installation would mean substantial tax revenues lost from increased farming operations and long term job opportunities. The tax revenue generated from this project is negligible over the long-term and this low-tax status will be grand fathered in forever. This was a large part of the decision by the Planning Commission in the denial of the CUP.
Some feel compassion for the current owner of the property, I do not.
He bought farm land (zoned ag land) he worked farm land, and now he wants to sell it, but not as farm land. A good business decision perhaps but not one that should require us to live with this eyesore.
He tried once before to develop the property as residential, he attempted to get Stallion Springs CSD to annex his property to allow development of 2,500 homes! He was defeated.
He has the General Manager of the SCD and some of the board supporting him in this facility because they think they will have access to more water from the Cummings Valley aquifer. That may or may not be the case, I suspect they will realize a lot less water than they expect. There will still be an ag operation on the property leased to farmers on part of the property not leased to the solar facility. There is no guarantee that the water will be available as Superior Sod has leased 400 acres of its land to Bornt and Sons who plan to raise spinach. Their irrigation practices are unknown and as long as the Superior Sod well is under control of Superior Sod or Recurrent Energy, the Stallion Springs water source will continue to be at risk.
There are also other avenues available to Stallion Spring CSD as yet untried.
The argument that it will conserve water by virtue of replacing water hungry sod farms is specious as those sod farms have already largely discontinued operations there. Most importantly, the land of Cummings Valley holds special, irreplaceable value as an agricultural resource. To reclassify and waste it for an enterprise that could as easily be built on useless desert soil anywhere is shameful.
Recurrent Energy will appeal a prior ruling by the Planning Commission against this project on Jan. 24 at 2 p.m., 1115 Truxtun Ave., Bakersfield, before the Kern County Supervisors. Please let your supervisor know your feelings or plan to attend the meeting.
Chuck Boles
Vice President,
Cummings Valley
Protective Association
