Copper thieves strip the AC units at the Gleaners, Sheriff Donny Youngblood wants new tax to hire more deputies and the new CSUB presidents makes the rounds about town

Friday, July 6, 2018

Welcome to Bakersfield Observed. Our mission is to celebrate life in Kern County by focusing on newsmakers and events and the local characters who make this such a special place. Email your news and notes to rsbeene@yahoo.com. 

 * ... COPPER THEFT: There has been a rash of copper wire thefts around town, and the favorite target for thieves are air conditioning units. Across town, business people are showing up for work

only to find their AC units disassembled and stripped of all copper wire. It happened this week at the Golden Empire Gleaners, an organization dedicated to providing food for the most needy among us. The Gleaners posted this on their Facebook page: "Sometime during the Independence Day holiday, unknown person(s) entered the Gleaners property through a hole in the chain link fence. They then scaled an eight foot wall at the rear (north) of the building and stripped our seven ton commercial HVAC unit of its copper. It is a total loss and can not be repaired."

 * ... NEW TAXES: Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood is going to ask the Board of Supervisors to place a sales tax increase on the November ballot to fund public safety. The city of Bakersfield already has a similar proposal that would raise $50 million for public safety initiatives. Youngblood argues, convincingly, that his deputies already make less money that their counterparts in Bakersfield and Shafter and that any new positions in Bakersfield would likely be filled by deputies eager to earn more money.

 * ... CSUB PRESIDENT: This is the first week of work for new CSUB President Lynnette Zelezny, and she spent the time introducing herself to students, faculty and newsmakers about town. She appeared on virtually every local television station, on KERN NewsTalk as my guest and she also appeared in the pages of The Bakersfield Californian. I spotted Zelezny having dinner at Uricchio's Trattoria with Mayor Karen Goh and CSUB marketing specialist Michael Lukens.

 * ... OPIODS: There is a growing body of evidence that medicinal marijuana can help those suffering from opiod addictions. One study found that in states that allow the sale of medicinal marijuana, opiod addiction dropped an average of 24 percent as addicts turned from harder drugs to medicinal pot for relief.

 * ... SPOTTED ON TWITTER: "I’ll call it a “smart phone” the day I yell, “Where’s my phone?!” and it answers."

 * ... MORE TWITTER: :"I’m at that stage in life where my bladder is at its weakest and my phobia of public toilets is at its strongest."

 * ... RIP THE DOME: So did you hear The Dome, that iconic east Bakersfield building that once hosted wrestling and boxing matches, has been sold and will likely be torn down? That's the word from reports that say the building, dating from the 1940s, has been sold to a private company that has an immigration detention center next door. The list price of The Dome was $2.2 million but no official word yet on the exact sales price.

 * ... MEMORIES: Check out this photo of the Haberfelde Building under construction in 1913.

Longtime Bakersfield boxing and music venue The Dome is purchased by a local church and a local girl in named 1st Team All America on the Colorado State University lacrosse team

 * ... THE DOME: The Dome, the Bakersfield entertainment center know as a venue for boxing and live music, has been purchased by a local church-affiliated organization. The new name will be the Cross Family Center at The Dome. Toure Tyler, pastor of the Cross Christian Church, said they hope to continue using the Dome for concerts and boxing but he also has plans to make it more of a community center to reach out to needy youth.

 * ... LACROSSE: Congratulation to Abby Wattenbarger, a former Garces Memorial High School athlete who has been named 1st Team All America in Lacrosse at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. She played tennis and basketball at Garces and never played Lacrosse until going to school at CSU. She is the daughter of Doug and Elle Wattenbarger. (file photos of CSU lacrosse)

 * ... BAD FORM? There are always two sides to every story, and Bonnie Navarrette wrote to present her side. She admitted being the driver who rolled through a four-way stop sign near East Hills the other day, only to be chastised by another driver. "I am the woman involved in the altercation (the reader) described except, he didn't state the whole story. (He) is implying that he was just trying to be nice when in fact he stalked me down in the Big 5 parking lot and after he didn't get the response  he was looking for told me to kiss his (a...)_ flipped me off and went tearing off in the parking lot. I do not make it a habit to get in arguments with old men in parking lots especially with my children with me, so I went in the store. What else was I supposed to do? The only lesson my children learned that day was there are very rude people in this town trying to disguise themselves as polite."

 * ... INTERNSHIPS: The local office of state Assemblywoman Shannon Grove is taking applications for unpaid summer  internships. There is a five week commitment and you but have graduated from high school with a minimum GPA of 3.0 and be at least 18 years old. If interested, send a resume, cover letter, and transcript to: Cathy Abernathy, Office of Assemblywoman Shannon Grove, 4900 California Ave # 100 B, Bakersfield, CA 93309.

 * ... TAFT COLLEGE: Taft College will be holding its commencement on Friday, May 24, at the Taft Union High football stadium. This comes while the school is showing a 15 percent jump in enrollment for summer and an 18 percent increase for the fall.

 * ... RELAY: Among the 300-plus teams out at Relay for Life last week was Dominic's Dugout, named in memory of Dominic Cornejo, a Garces High graduate who died of cancer several years ago. His parents, Gerry and Irma Cornejo, told me the team raised $45,000.  "We relay so that those lost to cancer will not be forgotten, that those who face cancer will be supported, and that one day cancer will be eliminated," they said.