UC Regents look for another 10 percent rise in tuition and the Grimm and Anderson families come to the aid of the YMCA

 * ... TUITION HIKE: Not that it's a surprise, but it looks like we're in for yet another tuition hike for the budget challenged University of California system. The UC Regents say they will seek another 10 percent tuition hike, on top of an 8 percent increase already set for this fall. It's hard to keep up with the rising tuition costs but this will bring undergraduate tuition to $12,200, almost a $2,000 increase from where it is now. And remember, this is just tuition. Room and board can easily add another $10,000 a year and by the time you throw in books, food and incidentals, the average student is looking at $25,000 or more a year. Lastly, all this comes on top of news that the more selective campuses like Berkeley, UCLA and San Diego are admitting record numbers of nonresidents simply because they pay a much higher out of state tuition.  

* ... YMCA: Steve Anderson and his wife, Kari Grimm Anderson, have stepped in to help the Kern County YMCA expand its programs to Delano and Arvin. Grimmway Farms is sponsoring programs in Arvin and S.C. Anderson is doing the same in Delano and possibly McFarland. Steve Anderson also dropped a personal $5,000 donation check to the Y, which is struggling to rebuild its program base.


* ... MORE YMCA: Janelle Webb is another longtime supporter of the "Y" and wrote to urge everyone to support our local Kern County chapter. She said her 6-year-old daughter Karalee attends the Y's summer day care and is participating in a drama program, a Disney Musical Revue. "The YMCA drama production is superb with the children receiving individual attention and nurturing for their skills with the finished performance something that could be recommended for any stage."

 * ... SPOTTED: Nice to see so many folks swimming and kayaking the Kern River through town on a steamy holiday weekend. The area from Beach Park down to the Park at River Walk was busy and it's all relatively safe and shallow, at least compared to the raging Kern up the canyon. We will all miss these days when the river returns to a dusty shadow of its former self.

 * ... NEWCOMERS: Ran into Neil Walker and his wife Pam the other day. Neil is with Kern Oil and Refining and a former president of Bakersfield Breakfast Rotary and they were escorting around town Pam's sister, Tish, and her husband Mike Burnett. The Burnetts live in La Canada Flintridge but are moving to Bakersfield to retire. They were touring town when the temperature was well north of 100 but in good spirits nonetheless. These are the kind of newcomers who will undoubtedly enrich our community.

 * ... BAKERSFIELDISM:  Rosalee (Gelb) Pogue solved the mystery of the old downtown bowling alley which she identified as the Bakersfield Bowling Academy, located across from the Rice Bowl. "What a flash from the past it was to see the 'Bakersfieldism' in the paper this morning.  I use to go bowling with my father when I was young (in the mid 1950s). The bowling alley in question was The Bakersfield Bowling Academy across from the Rice Bowl. There was the other alley on East 19th (or 18th, I still get those confused) just east of Union called San Joaquin Bowling. Thanks also to readers Tony Bernal, Dave Wilkerson, Craig Holland, and Vicki Philips for also identifying these two old bowling centers.

Bako Bits: Cafe Med celebrates an anniversary and Raggae Fest leaves a reader unimpressed

 * ... CAFE MED: Hats off to Meir Brown and his crew over at Cafe Med, which is celebrating 20 years in business. I visited Cafe Med my first week in Bakersfield more than 17 years ago and it has remained one of my favorite dining spots ever since. Meir always makes his customers feel special and through July 10, he is offering a free dessert with lunch or dinner.

 * ... PROPERTY TAXES: Here's some good news for city and county officials: the taxable value of all property in Kern County has been put at $84 billion, an increase of about $2 billion over last year. Assessor James W. Fitch's office said that is largely due to increases in the oil and gas industry due to investments in new construction. Agricultural and wind energy properties also showed an increase. Homeowners, however, didn't fare so well. Of the 200,000 residential properties in Kern County, about 80,000 actually lost value. The office said some properties had lost value for four straight years. Of course, that does mean lower property taxes but also fewer dollars to local government.

 * ... KERN RIVER: The kayaks, paddle boards and tubes are out in force on the Kern River between Beach Park and the Park at River Walk. Of course, who knows how long we'll have water in the river, but it doesn't take much of an imagination to think about all the commerce - restaurants, water craft rentals etc - that would grow up along the river if we had year-round water.


 * ... RAGGAE: The recent Reggae Fest and Art Show in Stramler Park was apparently a big success, but not with everyone. One reader, Martha Gray, said he was appalled at the foul lyrics used by the bands at what she felt was advertised as a family event. "What I witnessed was dancing fit for Deja Vu that was also seen by many youngsters in the crowd, and triple X-rated lyrics that were sometime chanted by the crowd of maybe 500 people. Stramler is a county park and the county should be monitoring whether a concert is adults only or a family event." 

 * ... Y MEMORY: The movement to restore the local "Y" (formerly known as the YMCA) to its previous glory drew this memory from long-time Bakersfield plaintiff's lawyer Milt Younger. He was about six years old when he attended a summer camp in the Sierra's sponsored by the YMCA. The camp director was Pat Kelley, who later went on to become a state Assemblyman, and Younger said he shared a cabin with Pat's twin boys, Tom and John Kelly. Of course John Kelley went on to become a Superior Court judge while his brother became a real estate developer. Younger said a camp counselor once found the twins fighting and promptly hauled them down to a creek and dunked them. That stopped the fight, at least for a time being.

 * ... RIO GRANDE: Geraldine Sproul wrote to say she too remembers the old Rio Grande service station that stood at the corner of North Chester and Robert's Lane where the McDonalds now stands. "I happen to have a picture of Emmit Blaisdell and Richard Blaisdell sitting on a three-wheel Indian motorcycle" in front of the station in 1944. That would two years before the parents of Kenny Barnes ran the station. Sproul said the Blaisdells owned the whole corner there and the brick building that faces North Chester that is now Oildale Glass. "The brick building was originally a bakery. Then in the late 1940s or 1950s it become a cabinet shop."

 * ... BAKERSFIELDISM: Denney Evans writes that you may be a Bakersfield old timer "if you remember the Jimi Hendrix concert at the Civic in the late 1960s. Pretty sure I was there."