Free Republic

Dust storms that fouled Kern County’s air in May could mean months of delay for two major Kern County freeway projects. A project to widen Highway 46 from Holloway Road west to Highway 33 at Blackwells Corner will almost certainly be delayed for five months or more, said Ron Brummett, executive director of the Kern Council of Governments. And the Westside Parkway in Bakersfield, a freeway that’s to run west from a point near Highway 99 to Heath Road, might also be delayed if dickering over air quality standards goes on too long. The Environmental Protection Agency, Brummett said, is...

KNZR-AM Bakersfield Talk-host Jaz McKay finds himself involved in a controversy over some phony Barack Obama bumperstickers posted on the station website. The graphics feature the Obama '08 graphic with phrases such as “Kill Whitey” and “Yes We Can…kill white folks” beneath the logo. McKay tells KGET-TV “It’s a joke, please get over it.” KTEG also reports that station management stands by the controversial host. Also: http://www.kget.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=52e9ca64-c1aa-4c64-bf94-6c85ab06b9e9 (Has video. Logos are off the website.) Local radio talk show host Jaz McKay is taking some heat after some controversial Barack Obama bumper stickers found their way onto the station's website. McKay...

State wildlife officials have told city planners that an approved development slated to be built on Bakersfield's northeast bluffs threatens an endangered cactus. The California Department of Fish and Game says a planned housing subdivision known as The Canyons would wipe out about 100 Bakersfield cactus plants, a species found only around the city. The agency said the cactus could not recover from the loss. If the project goes forward, the agency has threatened to void a 1994 agreement with the city allowing developers to destroy some endangered species in exchange for fees to conserve habitat elsewhere.

Bakersfield plans to spare the life of a bothersome beaver blamed for gnawing down nine cottonwood trees along a popular bike path. Thursday, the California Department of Fish and Game announced it planned to exterminate the beaver, which lives near a path along the Kern River. Bakersfield Recreation and Parks Department Director Dianne Hoover says she's asking the state wildlife agency to rescind a permit to kill the beaver. Instead, the city wants to relocate the animal or find another alternative solution. An animal welfare researcher at Indiana University is also talking with local officials to try to find a...

Hello fellow California FReepers! It's Joe here from Move America Forward. We are working on the final planning for the "Honoring Our Heroes at the Holidays" national pro-troop tour that takes place November 26 - December 17. We have a small problem, that I need some help from a Bakersfield-area FReeper. We are submitting our permit application to hold our Bakersfield event at Beach Park in the national pro-troop holiday tour. Our event in Bakersfield will take place on Wednesday, November 28th at 9:00 AM. But we have been told we need a live, human body to turn in the...

Trustees of a school district in Bakersfield, Calif., will decide Monday night whether to allow posters bearing the nation's motto — In God We Trust — and other historical documents to be displayed in district classrooms. Among the documents to be voted on are the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Kern County High School District trustees initially proposed the measure as a way of promoting patriotism. But the proposal has sparked contentious debate. Board President Bob Hampton, a former teacher in the district, told the L.A. Times that he'll vote against the posters because they reflect a "spiritual agenda." "The...

Bakersfield, Calif. (AP) -- A bid to make English the official language of this San Joaquin Valley city failed after much debate. The city council also shot down on Wednesday another proposal that would have made clear that Bakersfield is not a sanctuary for illegal immigrants, but it approved a resolution calling on the federal government to enact immigration reform. After the meeting, opponents of the English-only and the sanctuary resolutions praised the council for making the "morally correct" decision. . . . Famed labor leader Dolores Huerta, who spoke to city council members, called the defeated resolutions "hateful" and...

Bakersfield Republican Kevin McCarthy is building party clout and recruiting GOP candidates. WASHINGTON -- When House Republicans launched an early advertising blitz last month targeting 18 House Democratic freshmen elected from Republican-leaning districts in November, behind the scenes was Rep. Kevin McCarthy.Not only was the campaign McCarthy's idea, the Bakersfield Republican freshman helped finance it, writing a $10,000 check out of his ample campaign surpluses from his easy 2006 race to succeed former Rep. Bill Thomas.Democrats blasted the attack ads as "desperate and misleading." But according to Republican leaders, the ad campaign was a huge success and has added immensely...

OCEAN CITY, Md.- Police are warning businesses in Ocean City to be on the lookout for counterfeit money. Ocean City police say they are investigating several cases where fake currency has been passed at local businesses in the last few days. Police say the first case occurred on May 19 in which three counterfeit $50 bills were discovered by a local merchant. On June 2 and again on Wednesday, six more cases of counterfeit $20 bills and one $100 bill were discovered by merchants and banks, according to police. The bills are described as good quality, with slight fading...

Veteran character actor and Hollywood bad boy Tom Sizemore is in trouble with the law again, this time in Bakersfield. Sizemore was arrested on three drug-related charges by Bakersfield police after the actor challenged a hotel desk clerk to a fight, Bakersfield Det. Greg Terry said. Sizemore, in town shooting an independent movie, was trying to check into the Four Points Sheraton Hotel on California Avenue Tuesday morning at about 7:30 a.m., Terry said. Sizemore and another actor, Jason Salcedo, got into an argument with hotel staff, Terry said, and after Sizemore challenged a clerk to a fight, the police...

BAKERSFIELD - As Democratic leaders push for withdrawal, members of another group are pressing for greater support of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. They began their national tour Thursday in San Francisco and held a rally in Bakersfield Friday, on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom’s fourth anniversary. MoveAmericaForward.org is on its second day of a national “These Colors Don’t Run” trek across 25 cities. The caravan arrived at Heritage Park in Bakersfield displaying “These colors don’t run” support for troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Deborah Johns’ son is serving in Iraq and has joined the pro-troop caravan to...

A patriotic caravan of military families arrived in Bakersfield on Thursday night, one of dozens of stops on their way to our nation's capitol. The group Move America Forward waved American flags as they arrived at the Doubletree Hotel around 9 p.m. Their journey began Thursday morning in San Francisco and will end on March 17 in Washington, D.C. Along the way, they plan to collect thousands of U.S. flags to show America's support for our troops who are fighting abroad. "These young men and women answered the call of duty after 9-11 to serve our country and we need...

A 31-year-old man is in critical condition after setting himself ablaze in an apparent protest over a school district's decision to call winter and spring break, Christmas and Easter break. The protester, reportedly draped in a flag, ignited a decorated Christmas tree, an American flag and a revolutionary flag replica that read "Don't Tread on Me" before pouring a can of fuel on himself in front of the Kern County Court Building in Bakersfield, Calif., yesterday afternoon. The man, whose name was not released, survived, thanks to the quick action of a sheriff's deputy and several court employees. (Story continues...

BAKERSFIELD - A Bakersfield man has been freed after more than a year "lost" in the chaos of the post Hurricane Katrina Louisiana jail system. Pedro Parra, 44, was booked into the New Orleans jail on Oct. 13, 2005 and not brought to court until last week. He never had a lawyer and no charges were filed against him. He was simply "lost" for 13 months, an Orleans Parish prosecutor admitted in expressing the parish's "profound apology." "It's terrible," said the prisoner's lawyer, Daniel Rodriguez of Bakersfield. "It's just shocking. It’s just not forgivable for the system to ignore him...

In the picturesque northwest corner of Montana only 30 miles from Glacier National Park, signs have begun to appear on windows in the city of Kalispell that proclaim "No Hate Here." ... The two teens are those spokeskids for white separatists, Lamb and Lynx Gaede, who vaulted to international attention after they appeared on ABC's "Primetime" last year. The girls, their mother, April, and stepfather Mark Harrington recently moved to Montana from Bakersfield, Calif., after April told "Primetime" that Bakersfield was "not white enough." Now Kalispell has put the family on notice, "Not in my backyard."

Michael Owens thinks he knows what his father would have said if he'd had a chance to size things up at Valley Baptist Church Sunday afternoon. "So," Owens' 56-year-old son said, surveying the full house as he imagined his famous father might have, "you came to see ol' Buck." They did indeed, a good 2,000 of them. Fans, employees, business associates, music-business elite -- the people he'd touched in a half-century as a chart-topping megastar, weekly TV host, industry icon and civic booster without peer. Thousands more watched from home or listened via radio or the Internet. They praised Owens,...

WESTWOOD ONE LAUNCHES THE MONICA CROWLEY SHOW --New Program to Air Saturdays, Noon - 3 p.m. ET-- Beginning Saturday, April 1, 2006 New York, NY Monday, Mar 20, 2006 - Westwood One (NYSE: WON) is proud to announce the national launch of The Monica Crowley Show, the three-hour talk program hosted by author and news personality Monica Crowley. The show begins Saturday, April 1, 2006, and will air from noon to 3 p.m. ET. The Monica Crowley Show will debut on major market stations across the country including: WABC-AM New York, WTKK-FM Boston and WTNT-AM Washington DC. The show will...

BUCK OWENS PASSES AWAY Bakersfield, Ca By: Kyle Brown 1:36 PM Saturday, March 25th, 2006 03-25-2006 KUZZ Radio owner and Country Music Hall of Fame musician Alvis E. "Buck" Owens died early Saturday morning at his Bakersfield, CA home. His family says Buck died in his sleep and the cause of death is not yet known. Buck was born on August 12, 1929 in Sherman, Texas. The son of a sharecropper, Buck traveled with his family to the Phoenix, Arizona area in 1937 as they searched for a better life. Eventually, they traveled to California's San Joaquin Valley, doing farm...

Country singer Buck Owens, who had a string of US hit records, has died at the age of 76. Owens, who notched 15 consecutive US country number ones in the mid-1960s, died at home in Los Angeles, his spokesman said. Owens co-hosted US variety TV show Hee Haw from 1969 to 1986 and had hits with singles including I've Got a Tiger by the Tail and Love's Gonna Live Here. The Beatles recorded a cover of his song Act Naturally in 1965. Born in Texas, Owens moved to the Californian town of Bakersfield in 1951 and became associated with...

Conservative Republicans who are upset with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are heading to Bakersfield this weekend and are certain to vent their feelings. However, most experts say a full-blown conservative revolt against the GOP's only major candidate for the state's highest office is unlikely. The California Republican Assembly, which represents the conservative wing of the Republican Party, will gather at the DoubleTree Hotel starting Friday for its election-year nominating convention. CRA president Mike Spence was among conservatives who until recently were threatening to lead a movement to withdraw the Republican Party's endorsement of Schwarzenegger. However, that threat appears to have been...

A second female teacher has been accused of molesting a male student, Kern County Superior Court records show. Jennifer Lynn Sanchez, 31, a mathematics teacher at Buena Vista Continuation High School in Taft, was charged on Dec. 22 with four counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a 17-year-old student, and one count each of oral copulation and sodomy with the same student. She has resigned from her teaching job, school officials said Thursday. She has pleaded not guilty in the Taft division of Kern County Superior Court and is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on Jan. 26. Her bail initially...

BAKERSFIELD - A robbery suspect from Palmdale who reportedly ran from officers was shot and killed Sunday night, Bakersfield police officials said. Erson Alexander Welchen, 22, died at 11:15 p.m. Sunday at the Kern Medical Center emergency room, according to the Kern County Sheriff's Department coroner's division. Welchen was in a Cadillac with three other people suspected of robbing a Rite Aid when the car was pulled over by an officer at 10:17 p.m. near the 3200 block of Panama Lane. According to a department statement, the Cadillac had been spotted by another officer leaving the Rite Aid. When driver...

Photo Gallery - Tuesday Tuesday morning started in Bakersfield bright and early on the air with Channel 29 Eyewitness News Daybreak. Afterward we met with supporters and media outside the studios of KERN 1410 AM. Then, it was on the air at KERN. The caravan then left Bakersfield for the trip to Los Angeles. The first stop was the studios of KFI 640 AM in Burbank. Burbank photos courtesy of MAF friend John Thompson. From Burbank the caravan drove on to join the Al Rantel Show at KABC 790 AM in Los Angeles, and then went on to meet...

As a Vietnam veteran, Bakersfield resident Bob Blount said he will never oppose a sitting president during time of war. "I'm not pro-war," he said. "I know what war looks like. I've been through it." Blount was one of about a dozen locals who showed up to support the "You Don't Speak for Me, Cindy" tour during the organization's appearance Tuesday morning in Bakersfield. The caravan-style tour, which began in San Francisco on Monday, is a counter-protest of sorts, designed as a response to Cindy Sheehan, the military mom whose vigil near President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas has energized...

Song springs from Bakersfield roots 8/21/05 BARNEY BRANTINGHAM Whenever I write about Bakersfield, poking a little innocent fun at our dusty San Joaquin Valley neighbor, some people take it the wrong way. Now I've heard from ex-Bakersfieldian (Bakersfieldite?) Karen Jones of Santa Ynez, who's written an affectionate song about B-Town and recorded it in one take. It's delightful, sung in her twangy voice with twangy accompaniment. Here are some of the lyrics: "We got equal opportunity. Everybody's down and out like me. "Bakersfield's got lots of bars, toothless whores and beat-up cars, rusted, busted missing locks. Sittin' up on concrete...

SACRAMENTO -- Amid the first signs of possible trouble in raising money for his special election campaign, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is sending top administration officials out looking for free media -- beginning with a stop in Bakersfield next Tuesday. Tom Campbell, the governor's finance director, and Margaret Fortune, a senior education adviser, will hold "an informal discussion" with Bakersfield business and community leaders about the issues in the election, said Todd Harris, spokesman for the governor's campaign organization. Details on the time and place of the event had not been worked out Thursday, Harris said, but the media will be...

SACRAMENTO -- Willie Brown, who for years was demonized as the autocratic liberal who stymied Kern County's Republican politicians, has become a registered lobbyist, and one of his first clients is the city of Bakersfield. Brown, the flamboyant and controversial former Assembly speaker and San Francisco mayor, has been retained to help get a bill passed that will give the city more clout in turf battles with nearby cities and the county. But he wasn't hired directly by the City Council, City Manager Alan Tandy said Monday. He was retained by a law firm that has a consulting contract with...

Today is a no-burn day in most of Kern County, and local air pollution control inspectors are using high tech gadgets to seek out violators -- a method some say is against the law because it amounts to an illegal searches of people's homes. The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District is using six new infrared heat detectors, called non-contact infrared thermometers, to catch people burning wood in their fireplaces on designated no-burn days. With the devices, pollution control inspectors can be outside a home, point the infrared scanner at a chimney, pull the trigger and get a temperature...

Yesterday, I drove by the welfare department in Bakersfield, California to see if anyone was registering voters there (as sometimes is the case). Sure enough, there was a democrat voter registration table. Now, hold your fire on the location. In all fairness, we Republicans have sometimes registered voters at the welfare office, though with probably far less of a natural constituency. Anyways, I parked, walked up, and listened to a woman I will refer to as "Rat-lady" as she attempted to register voters. A woman I will refer to as Maisha came over to the table to register to vote....

Officials await tests to confirm possibility of new West Nile Cases in Kern County: State announces first horse infection in Kern.

Bakersfield Neighborhood Covered In Oil Homes Ruined By Oil Spill POSTED: 7:56 p.m. PDT April 16, 2004 BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- A malfunctioning oil well left a west Bakersfield neighborhood covered in black, KERO reported. Residents of Sunnybank Avenue didn't strike oil -- it struck them. Oil soaked trees, covered driveways and destroyed lawns. Ted Sisco's home was covered in oil. "It's a mess. How do you replace mature trees?" Sisco told KERO. Oil shot into the sky Thursday, leaving homes covered in oil. Officials evacuated 10 homes for several hours. A $750,000 home will likely have to be torn...

Demands that the Shell Bakersfield Refinery remain open intensified Friday, as Sen. Barbara Boxer joined a chorus of calls to the Federal Trade Commission and California Attorney General Bill Lockyer to prevent the closure. "The plant must remain open until a buyer is found and a sale is completed. Otherwise, consumers will pay the prices," Boxer wrote in a letter to FTC Chairman Timothy Muris. Boxer's letter caps a week that has seen a wide array of critics of the proposed closure emerge. Also this week, the FTC announced it is evaluating the situation, and the state Attorney General's office...

Police: 10-Year-Old Driving For Drinker Man Faces DUI, Contributing To Delinquency And Child Endangerment Charges POSTED: 3:46 p.m. PST March 8, 2004 BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- A man who allegedly had a few too many drinks decided he shouldn't drive drunk -- and so handed off his car keys to his underage companions, police said. Lionel Cerda told officers that he had been nodding off, so he first let a 14-year-old drive. B>But when police pulled the car over after midnight on Saturday, they found Cerda in the front seat, with empty bottles at his feet, the 14-year-old in the...

This morning at 9:10 am, George W. Bush landed in Air Force One at Meadows Field here in Bakersfield CA to attend a townhall meeting at a local business. The business is "Rain for Rent", which is a family owned national pipe, tank and pump rental company providing services to the oil, ag and industrial community.Rain for Rent is a good choice because they are based here, but have facilities throughout the US. The owners, the Lake family, I suspect are politically active and supportive of GWB. This meeting will have a tentacle effect in that, company pics and memo's...

Second Amendment Sisters, Inc. - Ladies Handgun Seminar This Saturday, January 31, 2004, Second Amendment Sisters (SAS) will hold a Ladies Handgun Seminar at Second Amendment Sports, 2523 Mohawk St., in Bakersfield, starting at 9 a.m. Forty women will learn the basics of gun safety and self-defense. Most of the women are novice shooters. The event is free and includes lunch. The morning session will consist of classroom instruction on safety and self-defense theory. After lunch, the women will head to the range to shoot, some for the very first time. Instructor will be Don Busse of "Martial Arms" (tactical...

<p>The morning host on KERN-AM (1410), Cox began plugging the actor's candidacy the morning after Schwarzenegger announced his campaign on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno."</p> <p>The payback has been handsome. Cox, who looks like a lot of 39-year-old guys around here — tall, husky and with a tricked-out truck — now is easily recognized around town, a rarity for a voice on the radio. His show has soared in popularity, beaten in the morning commute hours only by KUZZ-AM (550), a country radio station owned by Buck Owens.</p>

. It all surrounds a patrol car, which carried a message some found offensive. The car decal said, "We'll Kick Your Ass".It is the kind of stunt that could have quickly been put to rest.Instead it has prompted a flood of editorial letters to the Bakersfield Californian with mixed reviews on what the sticker said.There is still plenty of controversy over how the sheriff handled it.It is not the act that gets you in trouble, but whether or not it is a cover-up.There may or may not be a cover-up in this case, but there are a lot of different...

<p>A skinny rapist met his match in an angry, 275-pound prostitute, police said.</p> <p>Adrian Castillo Ramirez, 140 pounds, allegedly tried to sexually assault a 24-year-old Bakersfield prostitute who was nearly twice his weight.</p> <p>But she took his knife, stripped him naked and paraded him in front of other prostitutes, after asking how many of them had ever been forced into sex at knifepoint. Then she tried to take him -- still naked -- to the police station, reports said.</p>

TESTING THE FAITHYMCA fliers banned from schoolAd promoting basketball camp mentions 'Christian principles' Posted: December 11, 20031:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com Not known as an overtly Christian organization, the YMCA has come under fire in Bakersfield, Calif., where a school district banned the organization's promotional fliers from its campuses. The local Y can no longer send fliers home with children because a recent one happened to mention the organization puts "Christian principles into practice," reports the Bakersfield Californian. YMCA officials are fuming, the paper reports, and the brouhaha could possibly affect other area school districts. The offending flier, which a district...

Employees evacuated from building when mysterious white powder spills from envelope...

SACRAMENTO -- In an unprecedented honor for a first-termer, Assemblyman Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield was chosen Monday as leader-elect of the Republicans in the state Assembly. He will replace the current leader, Dave Cox of Sacramento, when the Legislature returns from its winter recess in early January. It will be an unusually smooth leadership transition for Assembly Republicans, who are best known for tossing out their leaders in sudden coups. The Assembly Republican leader spearheads GOP strategy on major policy issues in the Legislature. He or she also oversees recruitment of Republican candidates, fund raising and campaign strategy in key...

<p>BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — Bakersfield, Calif., police were searching Tuesday for an elementary-school vice principal in connection with the massacre of an entire family inside their home.</p> <p>The five homicide victims — a grandmother, mother, two young children and an infant — were found dead by a family friend early Tuesday morning. Police said they seemed to have been shot multiple times.</p>

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — When Thomas Anton and his friends throw a barbecue, they tend to go a little overboard. In the past 14 months, they've spent more than $100,000 of their own money and flown across two oceans to grill steaks for 10,000 strangers — all of them sailors aboard U.S. Navy aircraft carriers. That's 7 tons of beef so far, but the barbecuers, who call themselves the Cooks from the Valley, say it's been worth every ounce. It's their way of showing their support for those in harm's way in the war on terrorism.

For years, legend had it that there was a group of powerful men in Bakersfield secretly living gay lives, sometimes with deadly consequences. When the county's No. 2 prosecutor was stabbed to death in his home last year, the "Lords of Bakersfield" legend broke out into the open and the city's daily newspaper decided to confront it head-on.In a series of stories that ran in January, The Bakersfield Californian found evidence of a ring of closeted gay men who had sex with teenage boys and used their influence to keep from being prosecuted. Four of the men ended up slain...

Rally for our troops and for Freedom. FRIDAY 4-6PM Bakersfield, California . We will be on the corner of California and Stockdale in front of Krispy creme. We will be there from 4-6 and usually later, we have spare signs . our group is about as big as the hippies(anti-war) across the street but I think we can get huge compared to them.

Powerful gay men. Vulnerable teen-age boys. Murder. For years, some prominent local men who led secret lives were rumored to be protected. Whispers surrounding another important man's death prompt the question: Is there really a conspiracy? Why we wrote these stories A conspiracy theory born in the late 1970s and early '80s had become a long-forgotten legend until last September, when the slaying of Assistant District Attorney Stephen M. Tauzer gave new life to speculation about "The Lords of Bakersfield." We felt this legend and the crimes that spawned it warranted a closer look. We believed readers would find these...

Bakersfield,CA Pro-troop, Anti-saddam Rally at Krispy Creme on Stockdale and California from Feb.14 4-6pm. hope to see some freepers there.

From: CHP ENTAC URGENT ALERT - PARENTAL ABDUCTION On 08/29/02 at 410 p.m., Cierra Walden was abducted from 100 E. California Bakersfield, CA. Cierra Walden is a 9 year old white female, 4'-6' tall, weighing 60 pounds, with blonde hair and blue eyes. Cierra Walden was last seen wearing a white T-shirt and purple shorts. Suspect Pamela Walden is a white, female, 5'-02' tall, 110 pounds, with brown hair, green eyes, wearing white tank top and blue jeans. Suspect vehicle is a dark blue, Hyundai, 2 door, CA License plate 4SHV526. If seen contact: Bakersfield Police Department at (661)327-7111. For...