Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
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It's not a scaled down model or a toy – Tina Cunningham holds a 32-inch "winglet" that engineers at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base hope will be the first aircraft to fly on Mars. According to engineer/pilot Robert "Red" Jensen (seen in the background of the Armstrong model shop), the instrument-carrying flying wings will be folded to fit in 4x4x12-inch spaces and used as ballast on a Mars rover heat shield before being deployed at 12,000 feet over the s...
The city of Tehachapi is run as a business. "We are a non-profit business," City Manager Greg Garrett told members of the Kiwanis Club of Tehachapi on Jan. 31 at the Tehachapi Police Department Community Room. "The trick is keeping the lights on," he said. The city operates the water and service utilities and owns, among other properties, the train depot museum, the BeeKay Theatre, the police department building and the wastewater treatment plant. "We have highly trained professionals," he...
The city of Tehachapi has rejected a citizen's petition that would have required the City Council to rescind its Dec. 4 ordinance establishing district-based elections. According to the city, mistakes in content and wording invalidated the signed forms that resident Peter Graff delivered to City Hall on Jan. 2, 2018. The forms bore 565 signatures, which were more than the ten percent of the city's registered voters (436) needed to validate the petition and trigger a referendum on the November...
Guild gifts $584,365 for surgery suites...
With funds derived from operating a small thrift shop, the Tehachapi Hospital Guild has presented the Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District with more than half a million dollars to purchase capital equipment for two surgical suites in the new hospital. Jane Welden, vice president of the 70-member volunteer organization, handed district Chief Financial Officer Chet Beedle two checks totaling $584,365.78 at the Jan. 16 district board meeting at the district office, 305 S. Robinson St. The checks...
Service to the community – The Kiwanis Club of Tehachapi board of directors and all club members invite guests to the club's Welcome dinner, 6:00 p.m., Wed., Jan 24, 2018 at the home of President-elect Ron Gaiser. Chef Ilona Klar will present a gourmet meal. For information call 661-822-4515. The growing club is planning a major new signature event in 2019. Shown, the board following their Jan. 6, 2018 meeting at the Gaiser home. From left, standing, director Don Bowman, Gaiser, President J...
It ain't over yet! City Council could face tough decision Signed petition forms filed Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018 at Tehachapi City Hall may trigger suspension of the City Council's ordinance that jettisoned the at-large election system in favor of five single-member council districts. Former Tehachapi police officer Pete Graff filed the petitions on behalf of residents who oppose the City Council's 5-0 vote Dec. 4, 2017 to approve the election district ordinance. The opponents assert that voters shou...
The one thing that is missing in the Tehachapi valleys on a hot summer day is an ole swimming hole. Michelle Vance, manager of the Tehachapi Valley Recreation and Park District, aims to remedy that defect by opening Brite Lake (Jacobsen Reservoir) to swimming. While the Tehachapi-Cummings County Water District owns Brite Lake, the Rec & Park district manages the campground and fishing access. The two public districts are negotiating a change in the historic ban on swimming in the lake. "The proc...
The opening of the new Tehachapi Branch of the Kern County Library system at 212 South Green St. on Dec. 4 was a community celebration. The library is open Mon. and Wed. 11-7 p.m. , Fri. and Sat. 9-5 p.m....
It was a full house at the Wells Education Center board room Nov. 6 as the Tehachapi City Council honored the sponsors and 263 volunteers who have made the Tehachapi GranFondo cycling event No. 13 in the nation. Local non-profit organizations received checks for a total of $22,000 for their work supporting the popular event and providing volunteers. Below left, attorneys Maricela Marroquin (left) and Youstina Aziz, both of the Los Angeles firm Richards Watson Gershon, are of counsel to the city...
A resident of a city that has adopted a district-based election system under threat of litigation – as the city of Tehachapi is in the process of doing -- is suing that city and the state of California, arguing that the system is unconstitutional. The suit asserts that the district-based system as defined by the California Voting Rights Act of 2001 (CVRA) is illegal because it requires a city to draw boundaries based primarily on race. "Accordingly, the CVRA flagrantly violates the Fourteenth A...
National Treasure – Built on a 500-acre parcel of rolling, golden, oak-studded land donated by the Tejon Ranch Company, the Bakersfield National Cemetery is the resting place for men and women who have served in the United States armed forces, their spouses and certain members of their families. The site, opened in 2009, is beautifully designed, a place of dignity and respect, and a shining example of what the National Cemetery Administration and the federal government can do. Most of those w...
The three possible configurations for the city of Tehachapi's five new election districts reflect the density of population in the older downtown area and scarce population in the vast rural area in the northern sector of the city. In presenting the proposed maps to the City Council at a special hearing Oct. 12 at Wells Education Center, demographer Dr. Justin Levitt of Glendale-based National Demographics Corporation said that every district has to meet federal laws requiring equal populations...
The big, stand-alone industrial building just north of Tehachapi Boulevard east of Dennison is the Chemtool manufacturing plant. While the absence of signage at the site and strangely shaped tankers rolling in and out render the plant anonymous and rather mysterious, the company is the west coast anchor of the fifth largest grease maker in the world. The Tehachapi Chemtool plant produces custom grease products, blending oil with specialty chemicals that can make the grease last longer, perform...
In an analysis of the amended California Voting Rights Act, Marguerite Mary Leoni and Christopher E. Skinnell, writing for the League of California Cities, cite the cities of Dinuba (population 23,961, Tulare County) and Santa Paula (population 30,335, Ventura County) as examples of "small jurisdictions" that underwent federal voting rights litigation. The city of Tehachapi, now on an accelerated track to switch from an at-large to by-district City Council election process to satisfy a voting ri...
'More than one' voting rights complainant For supplementary coverage of this topic, read City Council forced to change election process on page 11: http://www.theloopnewspaper.com/story/2017/09/16/local-news/city-council-forced-to-change-election-process/3867.html...
It was "impromptu exuberance" that prompted Scaled Composites test pilot Mike Melvill to roll SpaceShipOne as it glided back to earth on Sept. 29, 2004 to claim the $10 million Xprize for the first privately funded suborbital spaceflight. On the way up, the vertical ship had rolled uncontrollably 29 times, beginning at 160,000 feet. "Engineer Jim Tigh predicted it [the rolls] would happen," Melville, 76, told Forde Files after he spoke at the Tehachapi Society of Pilots Celebration of Flight...
High school students will build an airplane – The Arts, Science and Technology Education Corp. of Tehachapi (AST) and its anonymous angel donor from The Foundation for the Carolinas has given $85,000.00 to the Tehachapi Society of Pilots (TSP) to fund student construction of a kit airplane. The check, presented at the Tehachapi Society of Pilots Celebration of Flight, Sept. 9, 2017 at Tehachapi Municipal Airport, will purchase a Federal Aviation Administration-certified airplane construction k...
Future commerce in the city of Tehachapi – The vehicle and truck pump stations and metal frame of the 14,788 square foot building of the Pilot Flying J Travel Center are emerging quickly at the Summit (where Hwy. 58 crosses the train tracks and Tehachapi Boulevard). The company's traveling construction crew is expected to complete the project in October. In a configuration similar to the nearby Love's Travel Stop, the project will have access points for vehicles on Tehachapi Boulevard and n...
A year after Joel Beckmann's death on Aug. 31, 2016, the STEAM Center (science, technology, engineering, arts/agriculture and mathematics) is bursting with programs and ideas. STEAM provided 2,200 solar eclipse glasses and instruction to Tehachapi schools. Beckmann was STEAM's driving spirit....
The total cost of building and equipping Adventist Health Tehachapi Valley Hospital will be $98.9 to $99 million, perhaps a bit more, according to Eugene Suksi, CEO of the Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District. "It is likely to hit $100 million," Suksi said. The people of the healthcare district approved two bond measures of $15 million in 2004 and $50 million in 2009 to build the hospital. A change in architect and an environmental challenge delayed construction, adding millions to the cost. The...
Tehachapi's second major truck stop is due to open this year as seasoned traveling crews drive construction of the Pilot Flying J Travel Center toward completion. "They are due to open in October," Tehachapi City Manager Greg Garrett told The Loop. "We have inspectors out there three times a day." Local contractors are hired for certain jobs, Garrett said, while the corporate core team takes the lead. The Pilot construction workers are staying in local hotels, he said, and – as it is s...
The Tehachapi Unified School District (TUSD) has implemented a program that seeks to change student bad behavior by rewarding good behavior. The concept is called Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support (PBIS) and is the outcome of a national initiative to find a better solution to disruptive behavior than suspension. "Students who are suspended have a higher dropout rate," Clair Rhea, learning director at Golden Hills Elementary School, said during a presentation at the Greater Tehachapi...
Kern Economic Development Corporation President and CE0 Richard Chapman told the Greater Tehachapi Economic Development Council July 5 that hubs of technology and business innovation are sprouting up and driving economic growth. Typically, the hubs – known as regional innovation centers -- are private-public partnerships that provide space, resources and infrastructure for start-ups and businesses that are moving up through a cycle of technological growth (see graphic on the Silicon Valley w...
Determined director – Ten-year-old Phoebe Morgan-VerHagen of Tehachapi co-directed two of the 10-minute plays recently presented in Tehachapi Community Theatre's Playwright's Festival. Phoebe's mom, Tanya White, said her daughter began asking her when she was four years old how she could get on television. "It's a phase," White thought, and agreed to take her to auditions in Los Angeles and find an agent. One day as they were at Sony Studios, they shared an elevator with Steven Spielberg. The r...
