Mojave Desert News contacted the Kern County Grand Jury concerning their latest report on California City which they titled "CODE RED" - A medical term for emergency or formerly a nuclear threat level. Not usually associated with a city or municipality and one that suggests the emergency that all Cal City residents are fully aware of-Measure C and our Public Safety.
Foreperson Amstead and a Mr. Tom Passek of that office spoke with MDN's Kane Wickham briefly concerning these allegations found in the report that suggests large sums of OHV funds being left willy nilly out at Borax Bill unsupervised and unsecured. That is false, and as a SAR volunteer myself, I assured the men this is not the case at all and questioned where such a suggestion even came from. They said 50 people they interviewed told them so. There aren't 50 people associated with the entire OHV Program in Cal City. There never have been-never. Not that many-ever. So, that leaves one to wonder just how accurate the information coming out of Cal City or Bakersfield really is. Another finding they discovered during extensive investigation is that we are in a pickle over the parcel tax. Gee and we needed that KCGJ to tell us that? Their recommendation of "To maintain safety within the community, the City Council should work with the residents to find a solution for the lack of funding for the CCFD and CCPD." (Findings 8 and 9) Gee, we sure are lucky to have the KCGJ to tell us that as if the entire city including Council aren't working to that effect day in and day out. They are. Pointing out the obvious seems to be a skillset in Bakersfield these days and after pointing out the flaws in their report this reporter was told that ".We're not going to listen to anymore, we have meetings to go to." They weren't interested in an actual eyewitness to Borax Bill OHV Operations which as a Search and Rescue volunteer I see every year. They spoke of $40K being left at Borax Bill in cash form last year. Only thing wrong with that is that then finance director Jeanie O'Laughlin was working the OHV booth herself collecting the green sticker cash and taking it back into the city at the end of the day and we all saw that and can testify to that fact. Nobody asked me as a SAR volunteer anything about our OHV program, nor can I find anybody else they might have spoken to though they are sworn to secrecy as to WHAT they said they aren't as to being interviewed by the Bakersfield body that suddenly can't find anything right about Cal City dropping no less than three different reports in as many months all of which basically suggest Cal City is a mess. We actual Cal City residents know what the score is better than people living far away do, and the acceptance of hearsay as evidence of action isn't allowed in any court I ever heard of and yet much of the report relies on what is called interviews of employees, none of whom were under oath at the time they allegedly said these things. When it was suggested that these reports feel like hit pieces more than helpful suggestions the two gentlemen closed the conversation down.; California City will now rebut the current findings as is allowed by law, and hopefully we get a break from the now seemingly constant attacks from Bakersfield. Time will tell.
June 14, 2018
Mojave Desert News
By Kane Wickham
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