Cal State Bakersfield to christen new state-of-the-art dorms for 500 students and a scammer is busted when he hits up the same generous couple

 * … SCAMS: Can you stand another story on people getting scammed out of their money? This one comes compliments of Irene Edmonds, who was going to a local restaurant with her husband Tom

when they were approached by a clean-cut man who claimed he was trying to get back to Fresno after his truck broke down. "For some reason, probably because he was so clean cut looking,
we gave him $20, figuring he was telling the truth and not looking for booze money… Maybe a month later we were going to an event at the Museum of Art and he approaches us again, same story. We informed him that we had given him money recently and he had that story then too… I would say that the look he gave us was pure hate. If I had been alone I would have been scared."

 * … WASTE: Hats off to the folks over at the Kern County Waste Management Department who opened their doors this past weekend to accept household hazardous waste. I dropped off some old paint and pesticides that had cluttered my garage and the process was simple and efficient. The facility is located at 4951 Standard Street and is open to the public Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Isn't it nice when local government works?

 * … CSUB: There is some really good news out at Cal State Bakersfield where they are getting ready to christen the new student dormitories. A ribbon cutting is set for Tuesday, Nov. 18. The dorms will house some 500 students, all part of President Horace Mitchell's vision to bring a true "campus experience" to the local university.

 * … HALLOWEEN: Halloween is coming up and Bakersfield police will be out in force with DUI checkpoints. Unfortunately, Halloween is one of the deadliest nights of the year for alcohol-related accidents. Be safe and if you drink, don't drive.

 * … OVERHEARD: A reader shared these thoughts on water rationing he has heard on the street: "Recent opinions I've encountered are 'I'm not going to stop overseeding rye grass in winter until they pass a law' and 'I'm going to continue overseeding in an effort not to put gardeners out of work.'  Is denial just a river in Egypt? Good news: in a recent visit to Famous Dave's restaurant recently, some nice gentleman paid for dinner, honoring the military service of one person at the table. He said 'I just wanted to show my son a real hero'. I was blown away. And 'Famous CJ' was the greatest waiter.  Thank you for such a nice gesture whoever you are! Now I will make sure to pass that favor on."

 * … MOVIE: A friend passed along a note that at 1 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 8, TCM (Turner Classic Movies)  will be airing the movie Hells Angels on Wheels. Said a reader: "This was made in 1967 mostly here in Bakersfield. Hart Park, the road to Hart Park, the Tilt-A-Wheel and other rides at Hart Park are made to look like a carnival. Also it shows Outlaw Hill, The Bakersfield Inn (Mexican tiles) and I think scenes using a church at the Pioneer Village (Kern County Museum).

Bakersfield is among the fastest selling home markets and another example of some really bad homophobic form at a local bar

 * ... HOME MARKET: The average home in Bakersfield stays on the market just 44 days before being sold, putting our town on the list of cities with the fastest selling home markets. According to Realtor.com, our median home price of $149,500 "is the lowest on this list, except for Detroit, and only a little more than a fifth of the median price of a San Francisco house. Only 1,815 houses were listed on the market, a decline of more than 47% from a year earlier. Meanwhile, the 44 days on the market is a drop of 22.8% from a year ago, compared to the national average of 9.67%. The labor market is far weaker in Bakersfield than it is in some of California’s healthier local economies, with an unemployment rate of more than 14% in June, compared to about 7.5% in San Francisco and 8.2% in the United States."

* ... BAD FORM: Ty Shaffer was enjoying an evening at Tahoe Joe's Sunday when he witnessed an extreme case of bullying mixed with homophobia. "This wasn't a kid bulling another kid, this was a grown adult bulling two other grown men he claimed where gay... This man was at the bar and told these two men that he was going to take them out to the parking lot and kick their asses." A couple in their 50s intervened and sure enough the bully turned on them and tried to grab the woman, only to be deterred by her husband, who got into a tussle with the bully. "The fight was broken up. The older man left with a gouge above his eye from the fall.  He and his wife said that people at any age need to stand up for others and put bigots like this guy in his place. By the way I overheard the bully say he was going to call the cops on that man and have him jailed. Really, didn't he just commit a hate crime? Typically response from a bully!"

* ... HALLOWEEN: Another seasonal oddity from my correspondent Craig Holland. "Facebook friends are bemoaning the fact that Wal-Mart and Target already have Halloween costumes for sale." In August?

 * ... BAKO FAMILIES: Sean McNally of Grimmway Farms tipped me to this tidbit about the first cousin of former Fresno State football player and now New York Giants Bear Pascoe: "(His) first cousin, Kathleen (Pascoe) Clerou, recently had a baby girl named Lucile Pauline Clerou after the matriarchs of two great longtime Bakersfield families.

* ... SPOTTED: Jon Bennett is a resident of Seven Oaks and regularly spots a young man driving a gray Buick Ranier SUV who has the bad habit of tossing trash out his window into the street. "He has been tossing trash all around the neighborhood for months even after being confronted by numerous residents," he told me. "Some people are just jerks." In fact, Bennett sent me a video of the young man doing that, callously throwing trash out the window of his silver-gray SUV.

* ... SEVEN OAKS: And speaking of Seven Oaks, the old truism "all politics are local" is alive and well even at homeowner associations across our community. Which is why I found it interesting that an old friend, retired dentist Robert Smith, is running for the homeowner's association board of directors at Seven Oaks Grand Island. Bob is trying to increase homeowner influence and threw his hat into the ring for the August 22 election.

* ... QUAKE MEMORIES: Marjorie Poore Payne shared with me her memories of the 1952 earthquake, when her family was living at their dairy farm in Lamont. After the "big July shaker," Marjorie's mother took the children to the then-famous Union Avenue pool. "My mother stayed while we swam for several hours until, over the loud speaker, it was announced that everyone should get out of the pool and go home that there had been another big quake. We did return home to Lamont to find that waterlines were broken and major damage for the operation of the dairy barn. My dad had to truck in water for the cows and of course have a generator to milk the cows. The memories still linger and every July and August I remember that unexpected and most frightening event."

More warning signs on the economy , lamenting Halloween and a celebration at Chain, Cohn and Stiles law firm

 * ... A NEW  CHILL IN HOME SALES: In this dour market we're all looking for signs of hope that the economy is on the rebound, but it can be misleading (and reckless) to latch onto a headline and jump to conclusions. Take some recent housing statistics, for example, which showed improving sales and stabilizing prices, leading some to decry the rebound under way. The real truth always rests in the details, and as the New York Times noted recently, we may be looking at a new chill in home sales, not a rebound. Why? Here's a salient passage from the Times): (you can read the entire piece here):

 "Artificially low interest rates and a government tax credit are luring buyers, but both those inducements are scheduled to end. Defaults and distress sales are rising in the middle and upper price ranges. And millions of people have lost so much equity that they are locked into their homes for years, a modern variation of the Victorian debtor’s prison that is freezing a large swath of the market.
 "... The only hot sector of the real estate market has been foreclosures. Investors and first-time buyers have been competing for these, often creating bidding wars. But with the economy still weak, many analysts expect more foreclosures."

 Locally some 70 percent of our home sales come in the "distressed" category, so while that's a good thing in terms  of moving inventory, the larger threat (as the Times notes) is coming in the mid-to higher-end homes where folks with excellent credit are now getting into trouble because of job losses or simply being upside down in their mortgages. As the story noted, in California defaults are "beginning to migrate from the subprime inland areas to the more exclusive coastal region" in cities like Santa Barbara (defaults up 25 percent) and San Luis Obispo (defaults rose 46  percent). The truth is always in the details and we need to pay attention to it.

 * ... CHAINLAW CELEBRATES 75 YEARS: I stopped by the recent celebration of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the law firm of Chain, Cohn and Stiles, the plaintiff's "slip and fall" law firm formerly known as Chain-Younger. Dave Cohn, a principal in the firm and a personal friend, held the event in the outdoor, shaded annex  next to the downtown Bank of America building where the firm is headquartered. The event was catered by Lisa Borda of Bord A Petite and among those attending were Carla Musser of Chevron, former Cal State Bakersfield development officer Mike Chertok, Colleen McGauley and Teresa Fahsbender of CASA and Jim and Beverly Camp of the Camp farming families. Conspicuously absent from the soiree was Milt Younger, Cohn's uncle who was one of the founders and driving forces behind Chain-Younger for decades, who left the firm and has continued law practice with his old partner Tim Lemucchi.

 * ... SWINE FLU UPDATE: I noted here recently that the folks over at Preferred Family Physicians on Truxtun Extension had seen a spike in swine flu cases, up to as many as 20 a day. (previous post here) Dr. Raj Patel, who owns the place along with Dr. John Heidrick, told me Thursday the numbers had now declined significantly. "We don't know why but it's quite a relief," he said. "This week we've had two or three cases a day, much better than last week." Patel said it was puzzling why he had seen such a dramatic change but warned "we shouldn't celebrate" or let our guard down. Like other medical providers across town, Preferred Family has yet to receive more shipments of the swine flu vaccine.

 * ... A SCROOGE'S TAKE ON HALLOWEEN: Accepting my own Scrooge-like tendencies, I have to wonder if I am alone in dreading Halloween and the carnival-like atmosphere it creates in Bakersfield. In many neighborhoods Halloween is marked by hundreds - seems  like thousands - of strangers showing up at your door, some pushing strollers with infants and holding a sack hoping for a large Snickers. It's a never-ending stream of total strangers who leave a trail of candy wrappers up and down the street until the supply runs out. When the Californian posted a question about Halloween and out of neighborhood kids on Facebook Thursday (the question was: Should parents be driving their kids to different neighborhoods to trick or treat?), a couple of responses that caught my eye. (go to the Facebook link here) Enough said.

 "NO. Leave the van and baby in strollers (who obviously can't eat candy) and accept the neighborhood you live in."

 "The bus loads of kids is why I don't give out candy anymore. I want to see my neighborhood kids, interact with them and their parents. When I see a bus or van unload of 10 plus kids I turn off my lights."

 "Children don't get to decide which family or neighborhood they are born or live. If the neighborhood is unsafe, then by all means, visit a SAFE neighborhood. All children deserve a fun and safe night of trick-or-treating."