Sunday, November 15, 2015

[Kern County] Standing room only crowd at Rosamond town hall meeting

Blog note: this article references a 2015 Kern County Grand Jury report about the Rosamond Community Services District
ROSAMOND, Ca-- It was standing room only Wednesday night at a town hall meeting in Rosamond.
The hot topic, the effort to recall Ed MacKay, Olaf Landsgaard, and Dennis Shingledecker from the Rosamond Community Services District Board of Directors.
" We don't want to stop our town from growing, but we can't afford to keep them in power." said Daniel Morski.
Morski moderated the town hall meeting, he said it's not about the past members of the RCSD, past employees of the RCSD or even about family and friends of former RCSD GM Steve Perez. This meeting tonight is about developing a plan to deal with the future of Rosamond which will be under the influence of a Community Services District Board that does not recognize nor represent the vast majority of Rosamond residents.
"Given the vast amount of money that the current board has gone through in the past eight months, we can’t afford the future!" said Greg Williams. "Every week, it seems that we see a little more influence from the city of Lancaster in our small town. First it was the district legal counsel who also represents the City of Lancaster and more recently, we inherited Ron Smith, former Lancaster Vice Mayor and City Council member.” “In fact,” continued Williams, “Ron Smith was a paid political consultant for MacKay, Landsgaard and Shingledecker when they ran for election to the RCSD board last year. In retrospect, the hiring of Ron Smith appears to have been repayment of a political debt.”
The town hall meeting also featured a petition with hundreds of signature on it, demanding the recall of the RCSD board members. Recall organizers have registered dozens of new voters in the civic effort.
Current RCSD board member, Byron Glennan was in attendance and challenged the people present to publicize the recall effort to family and friends. “Time is running out,” Glennan said, “Before we know it December 8th will be here.”
December 8, 2015 is the date that the recall effort must turn it 1,676 valid signatures to meet the legal requirement to enable a special recall election for the RCSD.
Much of the talk tonight centered around findings of the Kern County Grand Jury Report issued in June 2015.
Several people present made comments that the current board members have dismissed the opinion of the Kern County Grand Jury, and actually wondered aloud as to why the grand jury didn’t remove the board from power.
While the majority of those at the town hall meeting Wednesday night were for the recall, there were some in the crowd who asked valid questions and in turn received prompt and detailed responses from experts in the crowd.
This was the first of two town hall meetings.
The next meeting is scheduled for 18 November from 7 – 9 PM at the Wayside Community Chapel in Rosamond.
November 14, 2015
Mojave Desert News


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