Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Sorted by date Results 201 - 225 of 323
The California Highway Patrol Mojave Station (Mojave Area/Inland Division) opened its spacious two-year-old facility at 1313 Hwy. 58 (not the weigh station at Cache Creek) to the public on Aug. 6, 2016. Officers were on hand to answer questions and demonstrate their tools, including less lethal shotguns, tasers, drug-sniffing dogs, car seat education and impaired driver education. Lt. John Williams is commander of the Mojave Area, which is recruiting men and women between the ages of 15 and 21...
Big kitchen – Ooohs issued forth from Tehachapi Hospital staffers at the Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District board of directors meeting Aug. 16 when Lisa Polansky, senior project manager for SHP Project Development, showed images of the spacious kitchen in the Replacement Tehachapi Acute Care Hospital. The staffers are familiar with the cramped conditions at the existing hospital, where every inch of space is utilized, and offices and services have spilled out into mobile units and old h...
The Tehachapi-Cummings County Water District board of directors has named Assistant Manager Tom Neisler to succeed retiring District Manager John Martin. The board came to their decision at the end of a marathon closed meeting at the district Brite Lake headquarters on Fri., Aug. 26 that began at 2 p.m. and ended just before 7 p.m. A committee of board chairman David Worden and director Jonathan Hall had narrowed a field of 30 candidates to eight. The final two were the subject of intense...
Wine tasting boutiques offer the charm of Tuscany, convivial company, award-winning wines Looking for that APPELLATION In the wine grape cultivation and tasting room business, every vineyard owner cheers for the success of other vineyards in the vicinity. Visitors like to ramble from one tasting room to another, the more destinations the merrier. "We're all in the game together," Bob Souza of Souza Family Vineyard said. "We support each other." The vintners hope to gain a coveted Appellation...
The Triassic Vineyard wine tasting room rises from the gentle southfacing slope of Cummings Valley like a modern pyramid, beckoning visitors to come in, sit on the deck and enjoy the soft evening breeze and view of the beautiful valley. This part of the valley, in addition to its sunny exposure, consists of volcanically pressured ancient marine sediments that produce exceptional wines. Owners Jim and Sally Arnold, like the Souzas before them, left their former business to launch into an...
Mike and Michele Dorner of Dorner Family Vineyard have created a forested wonderland in their corner of Cummings Valley where they book one wedding a weekend so the participants can relax and enjoy their special time. The Dorners will sell their own wine in a forthcoming wine tasting boutique and they are building four Tuscan-style guest villas. They have planted more than 600 trees in 52 varieties on the property and have 500 vines of Reisling and Zinfandel grapes. With extra grapes purchased...
August 1, 2016 was to be the day the Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District turned over all of its assets and operations to Adventist Health in a 30-year lease agreement, but the state-run program that administers the Medi-Cal and Medicare programs has delayed in transferring the district's license. Healthcare district CEO Eugene Suksi told the Aug. 3 meeting of the Greater Tehachapi Economic Development Council that the contractor Noridian still has the application, creating "a lull before the...
Changes are on the horizon for the Tehachapi Hospital Guild as Adventist Health takes over management of the Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District's old and new hospitals and three clinics. Since its charter in 1975, the nonprofit Guild – by selling used clothing and items at the Guild Thrift Shop – has provided the hospital with hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase vital medical equipment. Following its founding, the Guild helped keep the hospital afloat. "Had it not been for that gro...
A recent challenge by a newsmaker to "read the Constitution" is a worthy provocation. Orders from Amazon for copies of the document reportedly have risen in the wake of the statement. The more the Constitution is studied, the better. It is remarkably short, clear and direct. The following is a portion of writer Jameson Parker's answer on his blog to a person who disagrees with Parker's position against altering the nation's foundational law. Parker's elegant response resonates with Forde Files....
Zanya Biviano, community outreach volunteer for Optimal Hospice Care, told the Kiwanis Club of Tehachapi at its Aug. 3 meeting at Perfetto restaurant that often people who are preparing to die will share confidences with a neutral observer that they never have told anyone. Hospice volunteers, in comforting the terminally ill, may find that the patient needs to talk about long-buried childhood memories or issues. "It may be things that have never been addressed by the patient," she said. "We just...
If there were any serious objections to the proposed route of the California High-Speed Rail (HSR) track over the Tehachapi pass, the 45 people who attended the project community update July 20 in Tehachapi were pretty quiet about it. The single question from the audience following the HSR Authority presentation related to fire safety along the electric rail line. People got answers to their questions from a dozen project engineers and managers who fielded questions one-on-one in a relaxed...
In 1950, Marine Reservist George Williamson, age 21 and already a veteran of the World War II battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, received orders to report again for duty. Troops of the Peoples Republic of Korea (Communist North Korea) had invaded the Republic of Korea (South Korea), sweeping in quickly to control the capital Seoul and all of the country except a small corner in the southeast called Pusan. U.S. and other U.N. troops swiftly mobilized to stop the onslaught, in what became the first...
Fires – Above, a helicopter vacuums up water at Middle Lake in Bear Valley Springs through a snorkel, filling its tank in 45 seconds. Helicopters fitted with buckets scooped up loads in 10 seconds. The helicopters, staged as closely as a minute apart, dropped the water on the Deer Fire, which advanced up the hill from Hwy. 223. Air tankers dropped fire bright red retardant. The blaze started July 1, 2016, covered 1,785 acres and was 93 percent contained by July 6. It threatened homes in BVS and...
Lakes in Southern California usually are man-made domestic water reservoirs like Brite Lake, and no human contact is allowed. Three Island Lake at Bear Valley Springs is a real swimming lake where youngsters can jump off of rope swings into the water and swim around the islands. At right, brothers Kayden (in the water) and Quinten enjoy a summer day during a visit with their grandad. Non-residents of BVS need to go a bit farther to find a swimming hole, such as reservoir Lake Isabella (swimming...
In Bear Valley Springs and Stallion Springs, deer and elk stroll casually around homes, streets, golf courses and lakes without fear. This trio of American Elk attracted onlookers on July 4 at North Lower Valley Road. The two communities share borders with Tejon Ranch, where an abundance of wild animals live freely on 270,000 acres of natural habitat. According to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Tejon-area elk population is descended from a group of 300 Rocky Mountain Elk...
George M. Williamson, 87, of Bear Valley Springs, saw fierce action in WWII and Korea; the Marines called him again during Vietnam. George Williamson was 12 years old in 1941 when the expanding Japanese empire attacked Pearl Harbor and drew the United States into the global conflict that had been going on since 1939. A native of Cincinnati, Williamson had lost his parents in a car accident. His mother's sister adopted him, and he went to live on the forested, sparsely populated Mercer Island,...
An audible gasp arose from the community leaders at the June 1, 2016 meeting of the Greater Tehachapi Economic Development Council when Tehachapi Unified School District (TUSD) Superintendent Susan Andreas-Bervel pointed out one of the harsh realities of the way California is now funding schools. Under the formula, which began phasing in during the 2013-2014 school year, school districts with a greater percentage of high-need students receive more money than districts that do not have enough...
It's awesome when you first see them – a hundred beautiful black wild horses cavorting in their own mystical valley just a few dozen miles from the city of Tehachapi. These are the wild horses of Oak Creek, who live and play in a secluded private canyon surrounded by the Tehachapi mountains. They are most likely descendents of once-domesticated animals and might correctly be called feral. Their confirmation (and DNA) indicates descent from the sturdy, strong Morgan breed. Diana and Steve P...
H is for hospital -- Measure H, which sought approval from residents of the Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District (TVHD) to affiliate with Adventist Health and OK a 30-year lease of all district properties, roared to a victory June 7 with 5,521 "yes" votes (89.02 percent) and 681 "no" votes (10.98 percent). As it was not a tax measure, it needed only a simple majority (50 percent plus one) to pass, and the voters were not taking any chances. The people of the district have fought hard for the...
The Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District's clinics in Tehachapi, California City and Mojave are modest, unassuming and absolutely vital to the rural population they serve. Some of the patients, newly signed up under subsidized insurance, have not had proper health care for years. had proper health care for years. "There's a longer wait now," said Elizabeth Herrera, LVN, who manages the trio of clinics with quiet efficiency and a calm demeanor. "It's six weeks for an appointment. Before, it was t...
Above, top photo, Jason Meyer, 14, of Rosamond, salutes during a ceremony May 12, 2016, at Love's Travel Stop for the Fallen Soldier Cart that is being transported from Seattle to Washington, D.C. accompanied by patriotic fanfare and motorcycle escorts of veterans. The carrier, seen in the lower photo on the left, will be used for the transport of deceased service members. "We don't want them treated as cargo," escort James Rea said. During transport, a cart carrying a deceased veteran will be...
A derelict country club building on an overgrown golf course located adjacent to a weed-covered slab that once was a tennis court went up in flames on May 5, 2016, and everyone cheered. The Kern County Fire Department incinerated the building as a training exercise and at the same time rid the Golden Hills Community Services District (CSD) of what had become a derelict eyesore, an attractive nuisance and a general pain in the neck. At one time, the structure was the home of Golden Hills Country...
Full circle – The husband and wife physician team of Dr. Harold Schlotthauer and Dr. Madge Schlotthauer, who established a hospital in Tehachapi in 1934 and served the community until 1969, were Seventh Day Adventists. Today, it is Adventist Health that is proposing to fund completion of the new hospital and lease and operate the Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District properties (Proposition H, on the June 7 ballot, seeks voter approval for affiliation between Adventist Health and the h...
Some residents in Bear Valley Springs and Stallion Springs who want to vote on Proposition H are not sure they can vote. The Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District encompasses all of the Tehachapi valleys and adjacent areas to the north and south, dips down into the Central Valley on the west side (at one point crossing Bear Mountain Road, or Hwy. 223) and extends down the east side into California City. Only residents who live within the boundary can vote on Prop H, the passage of which would...
Under a grant from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Office of Economic Adjustment, representatives of two economic development consulting firms have begun researching East Kern County. Their job is to discover the economic strengths and weaknesses of the communities in East Kern and to help structure plans for the future. County Supervisors Zack Scrivner and Mick Gleason, who together represent all of East Kern, won the grant, which is being administered by the county. Vicki Doll and Fawn...
