Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Sorted by date Results 151 - 175 of 488
At the Oct. 3 City Council meeting, with Police Chief Kent Kroeger standing by, Mayor Phil Smith swore in three new officers of the Tehachapi Police Department. City Manager Greg Garrett also mentioned that the TPD recently received gold medal recognition status from Lexipol for their implementation of policy. The plaque hangs in the lobby of the Tehachapi Police Department. Also appointed at the City Council meeting was new City Treasurer Mariana Gutierrez. Following the resignation of Stacey...
On Oct. 2 at approximately 3 a.m., an officer from the Tehachapi Police Department was patrolling the parking lot of The Home Depot store located in the 500 Block of North Mill Street. The officer observed a pickup truck driving from the rear of the business with the headlights off and immediately saw what appeared to be several sheets of plywood in the open bed of the pickup truck. The vehicle exited The Home Depot parking lot and accelerated rapidly onto the eastbound Highway 58 on-ramp. As...
Last year, Tehachapi Police Department Personnel responded to more than 10,000 total incidents. These incidents included calls for service, criminal investigations, requests for assistance, mental health crisis interventions, school safety and security incidents, code enforcement issues and officer-initiated activities such as traffic stops and patrol checks. To maintain a consistent and professional response, the Department relies on comprehensive, up-to- date policies. Recently, the Tehachapi...
On Sept. 26 the 1,000th Tehachapi resident opted into the free non-emergent text messaging platform to communicate with the City of Tehachapi. Eighteen months ago on April 8, 2021, the City of Tehachapi added a text communication platform for residents to reach us via text message. Text My Gov was added for non-emergent text communication notifications for citizens to notify the City of Tehachapi departments of various issues, concerns or receive information via text message. “We wanted to be able to offer additional communication tools for t...
In a special meeting held on Sept. 21, the Tehachapi City Council voted unanimously to award the contract for the Dennison Water Main Project to California Compaction Company, who submitted the low bid of $649,486.57. According to Andrew Norton from Public Works, the bid was actually under the estimated cost for the project. The projected plan is to replace a .50 mile of 14 inch diameter pipe and ductile fittings, tie-in connections to existing water lines, as well as the removal of the...
At their Sept. 6 meeting, the Tehachapi City Council approved Griffith Construction as the firm to complete the long awaited Pinon St. extension from Brandon Ln. to Dennison Rd. To complete the project, the City of Tehachapi successfully applied for Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) funds that were available through the Kern Council of Governments (KernCOG) for just such a purpose. The funds totaling $885,299 will provide for 88.53% of the project. The project requires an 11% match...
Three City Council members will be considered re-elected as they were the only ones to file as candidates for their offices before the Aug. 11 election filing deadline. At a City Council meeting held on Aug. 23, City Elections Official Ashley Whitmore explained that election law allows, when there is no opponent for a seat, the city to appoint the candidates to their offices. As they were the only ones to file, Phil Smith will remain the councilman for District 1, as will Joan Pogon-Cord for...
On Aug. 8, the Tehachapi Planning Commission unanimously approved a mixed-use project to be located on the southeast corner of Tehachapi Blvd. and Hayes St. next to the Ranch House Motel and across Hayes from Red House BBQ. This project was originally brought before the Planning Commission at a Special Meeting held on June 27 with no decision made. The mixed use project, as originally proposed, contained retail space and eight two-story dwelling units to be located on the half-acre lot. The...
The Tehachapi City Council began their Aug. 15 meeting with City Clerk Tory Marsh swearing in Sergeant James Clark, the newest member of the Tehachapi Police Department. Clark comes from Los Angeles and brings with him ten years police experience. Police Chief Kent Kroeger said he was delighted to have Clark as a member of his department. Mayor Phil Smith presented a Certificate of Recognition to City Treasurer Stacy Curry who recently turned in her resignation. The City Council voted 5-0 to adv...
A small group of interested locals hiked to a canyon on Bear Mountain recently to visit a rock art site whose location had been lost in the fog of time. Among the hikers was Fred Fickert, 75, who first discovered the artwork almost 60 years ago, when he was a 16-year-old on horseback gathering cattle on his family's ranch, which later became Bear Valley Springs. Back in 1966, all of Bear Valley and most of Bear Mountain were owned by the Fickert clan. The family first moved to Bear Valley in...
The Stallion Springs Police Department and the Kern County Fire Department held a meet and greet barbecue at the Community Center. More than 200 residents attended to enjoy the free burgers, hot dogs and ice cream provided by the CSD and the SSPD. The event was to say "thank you" to all residents for their support and for them to get to know our new CSD employees and SSPD officers, as well as the local Fire Department staff. Coming soon A Senior Activity Center will be coming soon to Stallion...
When I was 17 and fresh out of high school, I was hired as an operator at the local telephone office. I earned 65 cents an hour. Six days a weeks, eight hour days on a split shift of four hours on four hours off and four hours on again. It broke up one's day to where you really could not plan to go anywhere far from town. We had a vocabulary that we used and each word emerged as the soul of kind, polite conversation. No matter how rude or irate some people were, we were the soul of tact. People...
The City of Tehachapi would like to thank all of those that made this year’s All-American 4th of July Festival and activities a tremendous success. Special thanks to our title sponsor Alta One Federal Credit Union for their support of the All-American 4th of July Festival. The day started with a successful All-American 5K presented by the Tehachapi Valley Recreation and Park District which included a ticket to the Ed Grimes Memorial Pancake Breakfast benefitting the Tehachapi Warriors Football program. This is a huge undertaking involving s...
The City Council has re-appointed both Kim Nixon and Linda Hollingsworth to the Planning Commission. They were both voted in unanimously by the City Council and their term will last until June 6 of 2026. Two companies have bid for landscaping work around the city. Brightview Landscaping won the contract of $29,704 monthly, out bidding Alpha Scapes Inc. $31,661 monthly. This is one of the larger landscaping companies in the country and are based out of the San Fernando Valley. They have worked...
In a two-hour budget meeting held on June 6, the Tehachapi City Council approved a balanced $33.3 million budget for the City of Tehachapi for 2022/23, they also approved preliminary budgets for the years 2023/24 through 2026/27. At the regular Council meeting that followed the budget meeting, the City Council approved an agreement with CalTrans that is necessary for work to begin on the engineering phase of plans to construct new curb, gutter and sidewalk on Dennison Road between Tehachapi...
On May 31, at approximately 7:15 a.m., the Tehachapi Police Department was notified by Tehachapi Unified School District personnel of a potential threat toward an unidentified school campus. School personnel indicated a male juvenile had made a post on a social media platform indicating he looked like he was going to pull a school shooting. The juvenile was not a student in the Tehachapi Unified School District but was found to be a resident in the Tehachapi area. Officers from the Tehachapi...
On May 16, the Tehachapi City Council proclaimed May 15-21 as National Police Week in Tehachapi. Mayor Phil Smith presented Tehachapi Police Chief Kent Kroeger and members of the Tehachapi Police Department with the proclamation at the beginning of the council meeting that night. Mayor Smith expressed his deepest thanks to the law enforcement community and our Tehachapi Police Officers. Chief Kroeger accepted the proclamation on behalf of all men and women who serve and protect their...
National Police Week At the City Council meeting held on May 16, Mayor Phil Smith presented a certificate proclaiming May 16-21 National Police Week. Following that presentation, Smith honored Sgt. Amelia Thompson with a Certificate of Recognition for her 15 years of service with the Tehachapi Police Department. Thompson, who has been with the department since 2007, is retiring and moving to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Thompson said if she had it to do over she would still pick Tehachapi, adding that...
Budget season is undoubtedly a crucial time each year. With the City of Tehachapi operating on a July 1-June 30 fiscal calendar, we must work to adopt a new five-year budget in the month of June. While fiscal responsibility has served us well over the last few decades, the budget process this year is especially difficult thanks in part to the rising costs of basic contract services, including critical fire safety from the County of Kern, and a slew of unfunded mandates by the State of...
On May 17 at approximately 1 a.m., officers with the Tehachapi Police Department conducted a traffic enforcement stop on a vehicle for equipment violations on West Valley Boulevard near the intersection with Griffin Street. Almost simultaneously, the Tehachapi Police Communications Center advised of a theft of a catalytic converter that had just occurred in the 900 block of Mulberry Street. Witnesses reported the vehicle, a silver Saturn Vue, was last seen westbound on Cherry Lane. The officer...
May is bicycle safety month and the Tehachapi Police Department will be hosting a bicycle safety rodeo for children ages 12 and under on Saturday May 14 from 10 a.m. to noon in the public parking lot located at 220 W. C St., in Tehachapi. A bicycle obstacle course will be set up for the children to maneuver through to test their riding abilities and knowledge of safety. The course will include road signs (STOP, Caution, Yield, etc.), cones for children to navigate their bicycles through while...
May 2022 proclaimed Community Action Month At their May 2 meeting, the Tehachapi City Council unanimously proclaimed the month of May 2022 as Community Action Month and presented a Certificate of Recognition to Pritika Ram of Community Action Partnership Kern (CAPK). Ram told councilmembers that Community Action Partnership was formed in May of 1965 as part of the War on Poverty. It now administers 17 programs in Kern County aimed at meeting child, family and individual needs. Under Ram's...
How are our roads going to change in the next 24 years? This week, Tehachapi City Council was visited by Robert Ball from the Kern Council of Governments (Kern COG), a small group of council members which helps guide the county and acquire funding for transportation improvements. Ball was at the meeting to talk about the new Regional Transportation Plan. Every four years, Kern COG revises their 24-year plan for the region's transportation network based upon changes in land use assumptions and...
On Saturday, April 30, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. the Tehachapi Police Department and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration will provide the public an opportunity to prevent prescription drug abuse and theft by ridding their homes of potentially dangerous expired, unused and unwanted prescription drugs. Bring your tablets, capsules, patches, and other solid forms of prescription drugs for disposal to the Tehachapi Police Department at 220 West C Street. Liquids (including intravenous solutions),...
At the April 4 City Council meeting, Tehachapi City Manager Greg Garrett announced that an upcoming CalTrans project on Highway 58 is currently available for public comment, but will not be completed until 2025. According to CalTrans, the project is currently in the design phase and includes 11.3 miles of Highway 58 to be located between Bealville Rd. and two miles west of the Highway 202 offramp. They will be upgrading existing pavement, guardrails, bridge rails, median barriers, drainage and...
