Bakersfield quietly pulls its application to become a host city for the 2013 Tour of California, another casualty of the culture of doping in professional cycling

* ... TOUR: The folks behind the effort to bring the Tour of California cycling race back to Bakersfield have quietly withdrawn their request to be a host city next year. Sources close to the effort told me they are backing off in part because of the doping scandal that led to Lance Armstrong being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles. Sponsors like Nike have dropped Armstrong, and last week Rabobank said it too would drop its sponsorship of a major European cycling team. (Rabobank was also a huge sponsor of the Tour of California and had a big presence at this year's time trial event on the Panorama bluffs). An insider told me that raising money to bring the tour back was hard enough, and the doping scandal was the final nail in the coffin. "We'll just let 2013 pass and then take another look in 2014," I was told.

* ... SCARED: Here is something to remember on Halloween. New research seems to prove the old adage that you can literally be "scared to death." That's right, researchers now believe that some people have "acute, sudden heart failure" when they suffer a severe traumatic experience. And this is happening in otherwise perfectly healthy people. "These include victims of muggings and break-ins who assailants never touched them; children who died on amusement park rides; car accident victims who sustained only minor injuries and a man who jumped off the roof" of a hospital but suffered severe heart damage even before hitting the ground, said a story in The Wall Street Journal.

 * ... SPOTTED: Two old box springs and mattresses, along with an equally grungy brown recliner, are unceremoniously dumped in Jastro Park over the weekend.

* ... CHRISTIAN: Bakersfield College has a new president and she will be taking over during a time of tremendous challenge for community colleges. On Monday, new president Dr. Sonya Christian will join me on Californian Radio (KERN 1180) to talk about her plans on leading the school. When she takes over full time in January, she will become the school's 10th president. Tune in at 9 a.m. and call in with your questions to (661) 842-5376.

 * ... THEFT: My earlier piece on theft at airports by security personnel drew this note from Michael Tasos. "Greetings from North Georgia. Interesting point about airport thefts. A few years ago, while vacationing in Maui, my son and I were going to play golf. When I reached into my bag, I found that my 5, 7, and 9 irons, as well as two wedges were missing. I asked my son if he had been messing with my clubs before we left and he had not. I contacted Delta and they paid for the stolen clubs immediately. You're right, theft must be rampant. I also found the random assortment of clubs that were pilfered to be quite odd. I guess someone was building a set."

 * ... RIP: George Antonio Borba, the patriarch of the dairy-farming Borba family, died last week after a long battle with cancer. Borba is a familiar name in Kern County, thanks to his family and his sons moving their dairy operations here almost a decade ago. Borba was president of the California Milk Producers Cooperative. He was 80 years old and lived his entire life in the Ontario and Chino area.

Bako bits: an explosion of swine flu cases locally and the local ties to Citizens Business Bank

* ... SWINE FLU CASES EXPLODE: Heard some alarming news regarding the swine flu Wednesday from Dr. Raj Patel, a co-owner of Preferred Family Care Physicians off Truxtun Extension and my personal doctor. Patel said his office has seen a virtual explosion of the swine flu (H1N1) in recent weeks, going from two to three diagnosed cases a day to 20 to 25 a day in just two weeks. These numbers far outstrip the  number of swine flu cases that the Kern County health department reported earlier this week, but Patel says the cases are real and frightening. "We've stopped counting," he said. "Every day it is more and more and more. We are swamped." Patel received his first shipment of the H1N1 vaccine but went through it in a couple days and is awaiting a new shipment. Now comes word that the U.S. health authorities are warning there will be shortage of the H1N1 vaccine (read the story here) and that there may not be sufficient quantities to cover everyone until December. Patel said the Centers for Disease Control estimates that 8 percent of all Americans have the swine flu now, and by the end of the year fully 60 percent of us will have some kind of flu: either a regular version of the flu or the H1N1.

 * ... THE LOCAL CONNECTION TO CITIZENS: Had a nice chat the other day with Ray Dezember, the retired banker who knows just about everybody in town. Ray reminded me that Citizens Business Bank, which took over the failed San Joaquin Bank, has a strong connection to Bakersfield. For you local history buffs, Ray was running the old American National Bank when it was absorbed by Wells Fargo Bank back in 1990. Working with Ray at American National was D. Linn Wiley, who shortly thereafter went to Ontario to become CEO of Citizens Business Bank. Linn has since retired but remains as vice chairman of the board at Citizens. Other American National alumni now working at Citizens Business Bank include Harold Hanson, John Ivy and John Tait. Ray said it was Linn Wiley who actually recruited Citizens CEO Christopher Myers.

 * ... WHERE'S MIKE OLAGUE? Speaking of local bankers, lots of folks are wondering what happened to Michael Olague, the longtime Bakersfield banker who has been replaced as head of the regional Rabobank office. Rabobank is a private, well diversified Dutch-held company that keeps a tight rein on public announcements, and it's not saying anything about what happened to Olague. All the office would say is that the new regional president is Anker Fanoe. Olague previously ran the regional Bank of America office and worked for a time at the old San Joaquin Bank.


 * ... THE MESS WITH LOCAL APPRAISALS: Readers of this blog know I am a big fan of local appraiser Gary Crabtree and his "Crabtree Report," which remains one of the single most authoritative sources on the local housing market. I'm always impressed by the depth and breadth of his reports, which in this day and age makes for a sobering read. His latest report shows Bakersfield remaining the seventh worst foreclosure market in the nation with a staggering 13.14 per 1,000 households. And the mess with out of town appraisers supplying incomplete or erroneous appraisals remains a big problem. From his report:

 "The HVCC (Home Valuation Code of Conduct) is continuing to cause problems with low appraisals performed by either lesser experienced and/or geographically incompetent appraisers ... Research of the MLS appraiser members indicates that 58 percent of the appraiser members are from out of the area as far north as San Francisco and as far south as San Diego, with one appraiser from Huntsville, Alabama. What is even more concerning is that according to the California Office of Real Estate Appraisers there are a total of 119 licensed appraisers in Bakersfield, yet only 50 are 'appraiser members' of the MLS. This begs the question: where and how are the other 69 members obtaining their market data information or do they possess a real estate license and are Realtor members?"