Breaking news ... a Citizens Initiative is being pressed to put the question of legal, regulated marijuana on the ballot

 This is not entirely unexpected but it looks like there is a push to put the question of regulating marijuana in Kern County on the ballot, bypassing our City Council and Board of Supervisors who have rejected the idea. I will be chatting with the organizers of this ballot initiative at 2 p.m. on KERN NewsTalk 96.1 FM today ... if you are out of the area listen to the interview live on KERNRADIO.COM ... 

Bakersfield lags the state in well being and socio-economics and local oil producers slow down production and begin laying off workers to respond to a global oil glut

 * … RANKINGS: Bakersfield posted some low rankings in a new survey by the Social Science Research Council that measures well-being and access to socio-economic upward mobility based on race, ethnicity, gender and geographic location. Some key findings about Bakersfield: Our index score of 3.69 is 30 percent below the California average and the median

earnings range from $36,031 for whites to $18,865 for Latinos, a spread of over $17,000. And, almost half of all Latino adults in the Bakersfield metro area did not complete high school. "This is more than twice the rate for African Americans in the Bakersfield metro area, and the highest rate of any group in any of the ten biggest metro areas," according to the report.

* … OIL: With the benchmark price of Kern County crude oil now under $60 a barrel, more producers are laying off service workers until the price stabilizes. All this may be good for consumers as the price of gas drops, but lower oil prices will have a devastating impact on county tax revenue, 40 percent of which comes from the energy sector. The price of oil has plummeted more than 40 percent since July, one of the sharpest drops in memory.

* … SCAM: A local restaurant was the target of a familiar scam the other day. A "very professional" man called the manager posing as a collector for the utility PGE, demanding $900 on a cash card or the power would be cut off later that day. The manager "almost fell for it," the owner told me, but at the last minute called the utility and learned it was a hoax.

 * … RAIN: A huge storm is headed to the Bay Area, where meteorologists expect as much as 7.5 inches of rain. That's terrific news for the drought and northern California, and let's hope some of it trickles down to the Central Valley. One thing is for certain: we are a long way from recovering from the drought.

 * … SPOTTED: Posted on Facebook was this: "Fatherhood is accidentally turning your daughter's white blouse pink because you're being 'economical' with the wash, then washing it by itself with bleach to turn it back to white before anyone notices."

 * … BURGLARY: Another house - this one downtown near Jastro Park - was burglarized this week when someone kicked the door open in broad daylight. This is the time of year when these kinds of burglaries and break-ins spike, so watch out for your neighbors.

 * … GOOD FORM: I received a nice hand written note from a friend the other day, thanking me for something I considered almost inconsequential. It serves as a reminder of the power of a personal note, not in text or in email, but offered in a way that speaks to sincerity and thought.

 * … BAD FORM: Miriam Martin called to share a story of someone who broke into her car the other night. "They saw my straw bag and must have thought it was my purse," she said. "It contained my scriptures, my Bible and my hymnal. They weren't homeless because they left two blankets I had in the back seat!"

Local businesses sell out to foreign companies and remembering when Judy Garland came to town

 * ... LOCAL BUSINESS: Interesting to note that two long-time privately held local businesses, Physicians Automated Labs and Townsend Designs, have been sold to foreign companies. PAL sold to an Australian company looking for a way to enter the American market and Townsend, which makes orthopedic braces, was purchased by an French company with similar ambitions. Coming out of this recession U.S. and foreign corporations are sitting on billions of untapped capital, and my guess is these won't be the last well-run local companies acquired by outside interests.


 * ... JUDY GARLAND: Had a nice call from long-time resident David Kropf, who remembered a special day in 1931 when a young Judy Garland came to Bakersfield. "It was October 4, 1931, and Judy's father drove her from Lancaster in a 1928 Chevy. She was nine years old at the time. She sang at the Masonic Temple on 18th Street. It was a Monday night and the Santa Ana winds were blowing, but a thousand people showed up."  Kropf said Judy's father, Frank Gumm, played the piano while his daughter sang. Eight years later, at the age of 16, Garland was cast as Dorothy Gale in "The Wizard of Oz." She died at 47 due to a drug overdose.

 

 * ... SHOTGUN SPORTS: The Kern County Gun Club is offering free lessons in the basics of gun handling and trap and skeet shooting for youths aged 7 to 18. The club will provide the guns, ammunition, targets and instructors on February 12, March 19, April 9 and May 7. The instruction starts at 9 a.m. Call Cyndi Benson at (661) 205-8569 for more information. The club is located adjacent to the Lake Buena Vista Recreation Area and has always offered a robust youth program in the shotgun sports.

 * ... BAKO MEMORY: Reader Shirley Strickler dropped me a note asking if anyone else remembered the public dances at the Armory and Lake Ming in the late 1960s. "I saw the Isley Brothers at the Armory. The crowd was never very big and for the most part in control. there was a live band every time and they were mostly local bands. You could never do this is today's world - the riot would be big and people would be dead!"

 * ... DID YOU KNOW? The building that houses the Buena Vista Museum on Chester Avenue was originally a JC Penny's store? It later moved to 19th Street and Chester Avenue in 1949. The building is now owned by Michael and Cheryl Artz who also own the historic brownstone (McGill apartment building) at 19th and B street.

 * ... BAKERSFIELDISM: From fellow Rotarian Vince Bertolucci: You know you're a Bakersfield old-timer if "you remember the large swimming hole, called the plunge, at Belle Terrace and Union Avenue. They also had a dance pavilion with named bands. I heard Jimmy Dorsey there when I was young."