Blog note: this opinion piece (partial) references a grand jury report. The piece also addresses other matters not related to the grand jury (not included in this blog).
While acknowledging that county officials didn’t do the greatest job of reorganizing the venerable Kern County Board of Trade, county supervisors Tuesday voted to change the name of the agency and eliminate its 10-member advisory Board.
The Board’s action followed release of a report by the Kern County Grand Jury which argued that the Board of Trade essentially no longer exists, with its economic development efforts now handled by the Kern County Economic Development Corporation, and tourism and filming promotion by an “Office of County Wide Communications” in the County Administrative Office, which absorbed Board responsibilities in 2012.
Northcutt comments
At Tuesday’s Board meeting, Trade Board member Karen Northcutt, who represents the Kern River Valley, criticized the grand jury report and also the way county officials have been managing efforts to promote tourism and attract filming to Kern in recent years.
“The Board has a robust history” of promoting Kern County, Northcutt said, recalling an event in the former BAE hangar at the Mojave Air & Spaceport some years ago that attracted 200 people and allowed airport businesses to promote their operations with booths in the building.
Nothing like that has occurred since, she said, adding the Board has not had a meeting for 18 months despite asking county staff to hold one.
The only current evidence of any Board activity in Eastern Kern is a bimonthly report delivered by a CAO employee at East Kern Economic Alliance meetings.
While the grand jury report claims that Board staff attend local Chamber of Commerce meetings, that has not been the case in Mojave.
The county maintains a web site, Visitkern.com, which lists several “day trips,” none of which mention Mojave. Two of the trips include visits to Tehachapi and to Boron and California City, both of the trips listed as being in “South Kern,” wherever that is.
The only “event” listed for the entire county is Kernville’s “Whiskey Flat Days.”
Times change
Some explanation for the current state of affairs can be attributed to advances of technology, which has significantly changed promotion and advertising.
Colorful brochures have been replaced by web pages and social media. I answer the Mojave Chamber of Commerce phone, and only about four or five times a year do I get a call from someone without internet access requesting a brochure.
Each month I also respond to requests for information and reservations for the Plane Crazy Saturday events at the Mojave Air & Spaceport, which attract visitors from all over the globe, especially from Europe and Japan and which is promoted online.
But Northcutt noted that many people in the Kern River Valley and elsewhere do not have access to the internet.
Change made ‘under the radar’
She also complained that the proposed changes to promoting the county and its many communities has been handled “under the radar.”
Megan Pearson, who manages the new Office of County Wide Communications which now promotes tourism and filming in Kern, defended the office’s efforts which include representing the county at trade shows, including one this week.
Northcutt and others who addressed the board also criticized the Grand Jury report and asked if it could be amended.
County Administrative Officer Ryan Alsop said the county’s response is required by law to be submitted the day of the meeting.
Supervisors Mick Gleason and David Couch asked that follow-up information be submitted to the grand jury to “clarify” some comments contained in its report.
I personally believe supervisors should continue to have a county-wide Board of representatives to advise county officials on promotion efforts, like the many Boards that perform similar duties for other county operations.
Northcutt said that while Board members were paid a stipend, they returned their checks to the county and then received IRS1099 tax forms requiring them to pay taxes on the money they refused.
We’ll have to wait and see how the new promotion operations works out.
February 16, 2020
Antelope Valley Press
By Bill Deaver
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