A northern California city comes out of bankruptcy with steep cuts in union pensions, and more defense of the NRA

 * ...PENSION REFORM: With all the talk about rising pensions costs, experts say the city of Vallejo in the Bay Area may provide a road map for reform. The city has the dubious distinction of being home to the largest municipal bankruptcy in years, and it is now submitting reforms to a federal judge. According to the Wall Street Journal, union salaries and benefits rose to make up 80 percent of the city's budget, untenable by any standards. The city has now reached new contracts with the police, fire and management unions that - among other things - will shrink health care benefits for retires to $300 a month, down from $1,500 a month. The former city manager of another Bay Area city said Vallejo was "an example of how compensation and benefits had been part of the politics of the city and it ultimately got the city in trouble." Sound familiar?

 * ... GLEANERS: One of the great benefits of living in California is the abundance of fruit trees that grace our yards. Many of us have an orange, lemon, lime or grapefruit tree somewhere on our property. And this is the time of year when so much of our back yard fruit goes unused. The folks over at the Golden Empire Gleaners would love to redirect some of that fruit to the needy. Pam Fiorini, Gleaners executive director, is looking for community groups that would be willing to pick fruit at homes of folks who want to donate it. It could be a Scout troop, church group or an individual. Or, if you can do it yourself, ,you can drop off the fruit at the Gleaner warehouse at 1326 30th Street, Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to noon. Or call and arrange for it to be picked up, (661) 324-2767. 

 * ... LEMONADE LOCKS: Touched base the other day with Kelly Giblin, administrator over at the LeBeau Thelen law firm. Turns out she has a new side business trying to help those who are losing their hair because of cancer or other ailments. The idea: in-home consultations with a full line of wigs. "Having been diagnosed with alopecia several years ago and going through the trauma of losing my hair, I realized that there is a huge need in this community for this type of service. I also realized how embarrassing, intimidating and impersonal it can be to try on wig in the middle of a store if you are suffering from hair loss." The business is called Lemonade Locks: when life hands you lemons, call Lemonade Locks. Interested? Call (661) 900-6672.

 * ... NRA: Another email from a reader defending the National Rifle Association. Said Karla Jadwin: "I am the widow of Tom Jadwin, lifetime member of the NRA and two time chair of the annual Friends of the NRA dinner here in Bakersfield. The group fund raiser about which your reader complained, raises money to educate the youth in our area about firearm safety. Period. It's not much of a stretch of understand the purpose there: saving lives! It saddens me to see the uniformed public decry all firearms. Perhaps legislation should eliminate automobiles since so many senseless deaths are caused on the nation's roads by those enormous hunks of metal?" 

 * ... DID YOU KNOW? Did you know the Kern Valley Bank opened for business on the southeast corner of 18th Street and  Chester Avenue on July 6, 1889. The next day, July 7, was the great fire that leveled downtown, including the bank. The Goodwill is now located in that spot.

 * ... BAKERSFIELDISM: From reader Bill Black: "You know you're a Bakersfield old-timer if you remember the good root bear at the "Q-ne-Q drive-in on Chester Avenue in the late 1940s." Bill was a student at Bakersfield Junior College at the time.

Should the presence of freshly paroled prisoners make us nervous? And is the NRA responsible for the Tucson shootings?

 * ... EX CONS: There are few bigger fans of columnist Valerie Schultz than me, but even friends can disagree. Valerie, who writes an often poignant, insightful lifestyle column for The Californian, took me to task last week for voicing the fears of many when busloads of freshly paroled ex-cons show up at the downtown bus station. She advised prayer and a little sensitivity and said even blog entries can "damage a person's fledgling hopes." First, I both work and live downtown, so I confess being a tad more sensitive than the average Joe when groups of parolees are dumped downtown and fade into the adjacent residential neighborhood. And yes, I'm all for prayer and this is a nation of second chances. But the hard truth is that California's recidivism rate is 70 percent - the highest in the nation - meaning that seven out of every 10 parolees who walk out of that bus station will end up back behind bars. Can you imagine the outcry if these guys were being released at The Marketplace? Or Seven Oaks? Or near Riverlakes? As a friend told me last Friday; "A friend of mine who works for Probations told me if the public knew the backgrounds of the people they are paroling because of overcrowding, there would be a revolution." It's time to relocate the bus station to a less intrusive area. (photo from movie 'Sin Nombre')

 * ... NRA HEAT: I also took some heat from reader Robin Walters, who was incredulous that I would publicize an upcoming fund raiser for the National  Rifle Association (NRA). "Are you serious?" Walters wrote. "Encourage a 'fun' dinner to support the ability of anyone to carry a 30-round clip for their Glock to public meetings and places where people congregate." I concede our nation is on edge after the Tucson shooting, but Walters is clearly off target (no pun intended) here. First, 30-round clips like the kind used in Tucson are illegal in California but more important, it's an insult and a cheap shot born of ignorance to compare people who enjoy the shooting sports to some wing nut who opened fire on a crowd of innocents. Robin:  I'd be happy to buy you a ticket to the NRA dinner, set for February 4, so you can meet some of our community's  most decent and honorable people.

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 * ... GOOD DEED: Health care professional Darlyn Baker wrote to talk about an unexpected good deed. In her words:  "After reading what you wrote about Mimi Audelo's Starbucks' experience in today's paper, I wanted to share with you an act of kindness bestowed upon me by a perfect stranger. Last week I was at the drive through Starbucks on Oswell.  It was taking a very long time for the car in front of me to leave.  I see the driver and the employee pleasantly chatting as if no one else was in line.  By now there were five cars behind me.  The driver soon leans out of her window and with a big smile hollers to me, 'I'm sorry.  It's not my fault.  I only bought two drinks but they made them wrong.'  Finally she leaves.  When I go to pay, the employee says, 'She paid for yours!'  I was truly humbled and my emotion changed from annoyance to gratitude.  How nice that was of her.  I will never forget her nice gesture.  She has inspired me to do the same."

 * ... DID YOU KNOW? Did you know that the first studio for KERO-TV 23 (then Channel 10) was the ballroom at the old Hotel El Tejon where the Bank of America tower is now located?

 * ... STONES: From local political consultant Gene Tackett: "Old timer? No way. But I did see the Rolling Stones play the Civic (auditorium) in August 1966. I got lots of satisfaction!"

 * ... BAKERSFIELDISM: You know you're from Bakersfield when you always thankful if there's water in your river.

Study suggests Valley housing recovery could take decades, and assessing your risk of disease

* ... HOUSING WOES: Economists have a grim new warning for areas like Bakersfield that were ground zero in the housing bubble: we may be in for years of a long-term decline that will be unlike anything we have ever seen. This is the conclusion of a recent Rockefeller Institute study, cited by The Los Angeles Times, that noted former boom towns like Bakersfield could take literally decades to recover. Said one expert: "The housing boom elevated home prices in a number of areas far, far above what can be supported by the economic fundamentals, and so prices have fallen significantly, and they will remain below their previous peaks for a decade, or even two decades." The result: foreclosures are turning developments on the outskirts of metro areas "into the nation's newest slums. Complicating any recovery for these beaten-down areas is the difficulty predicting which neighborhoods will fare worst."

 * ... DISEASE RISK: If you knew a blood test could accurately predict if you would eventually contract a disease, would you take it? According to a study at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, an overwhelming number of Americans would. Of course all this is hypothetical, but it indicates the willingness of most of us to deal with reality. As it stands now, all we can do is deal with the predictive numbers. Here are some odds of an adult developing certain diseases, as compiled by the Wall Street Journal from data provided by the National Cancer Institute: About 16 percent of men born today will be diagnosed with prostate cancer; of adults who live to 55, the risk for Alzheimer's is about 17 percent for women and 9 percent for men; for people with no heart disease at the age of 50, more than half of men and 40 percent of women will go on to develop it in their lifetime; about 12 percent of women born today will be diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime; and half of us will develop arthritis of the knee by the age of 85. 

* ... NRA DINNER: Local gun rights supporters are putting together a dinner to raise funds for Friends of the National Rifle Association. The Southern Valley chapter is organizing the dinner, set for Friday, February 4 at the Bakersfield Elks Lodge. Last year the Friends of the NRA granted over $492,000 to Central California shooting and  hunting programs. These dinners are always fun and feature both live and silent auctions and special drawings for custom knives, firearms and NRA commissioned art. Interested? Call Cyndi Benson at (661) 205-8569 to purchase tickets. Individual dinner tickets are $50 and group packages are also available.

 * ... OTHER CALIFORNIA: A pretty damning story on the Central Valley is making the rounds among our community's policy makers. It was written for the National Review by Victor Davis Hanson, a former Fresno State professor who now works at the Hoover Institution. In it, he decries the slow decline of the Central Valley and lashes out at the coastal elitists who simply don't seem to care. While the state champions diversity, he notes some areas of the Valley are almost 100 percent Hispanic, virtual ghettos existing in an over regulated state. "Trash piles are commonplace out here - composed of everything from half-empty paint cans and plastic toys to diapers and moldy food. I have never seen a rural sheriff cite a litterer, or witnesses state EPA workers cleaning up these unauthorized wastelands. So I would suggest to Bay Area scientists that the environment is taking a much harder beating down here in central California than it is in the Delta. Perhaps before we cut off more irrigation water to the west side of the valley, we might invest some green dollars into cleaning up the unsightly and sometimes dangerous garbage that now litters the outskirts of our rural communities."

 * ... SOUP MIX: Stopped by the farmer's market at the corner of Brimhall Road and Calloway Drive Saturday morning and was impressed with the winter vegetables. This is soup weather and all the fresh produce was there: onions, potatoes, beets, radishes, lettuce, kale, nuts, garlic, herbs, brussel sprouts and so much more. These local farmer's markets are well worth supporting.

 * ... BAKERSFIELDISM: You know you're a Bakersfield old timer if "you remember when South Chester ended at Terrace Way. It did not go through to Union Avenue until after World War II." Thanks to reader William Upshaw for that one.