Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Sorted by date Results 1378 - 1402 of 1547
Fire clearance season comes early this year, and the sound of mowers and weed whackers echoes off the mountainsides. Just what are we whacking anyway, and what if it took almost no extra effort to increase the amount and variety of wildflowers on your land? Since Spaniards brought cattle to the new world, California has undergone a wholesale change from native perennial flowering plants and grasses to non-native annual grasses that grow fast, die young, and fuel conflagrations of wildfire. Most...
I want to share with you something that is amazing to me. I overheard a conversation in a coffee shop the other day between three teenage girls. They were talking about the parents of one of their friends who had just bought an expensive Range Rover. One of the teenage girls said to the others, “Wow, they are so rich!” Well, I couldn’t just sit there and not say anything, so I chimed in saying, “You know, what you drive doesn’t have anything to do with whether you’re rich or poor.” The...
Walmart update At the April 17 City Council meeting, Development Services Director Jay Schlosser presented two Walmart related issues. At their Feb. 21 Council meeting, the Tehachapi City Council voted for Mayor Ed Grimes to sign a Memorandum of Understanding between the City of Tehachapi and Walmart for the formation of a Mello-Roos Communities Facilities District. This CFD, financed entirely by Walmart, would ensure that Walmart would pay for landscaping, lighting and any additional police...
Technology advances everyday making yesterday’s methods of doing business obsolete, or is it? Communication is the key to successful relationships in both our personal and business lives. The way we communicate is constantly evolving as technology advances, and so does the way we talk or better said, communicate with each other. We live in a world of text messages, direct messages, personal messages, and video chats when it wasn’t that long ago we actually talked to people face to face. Opi...
Much activity on Monroe campus Monroe Principal Steve Bsharah assisted by Jaime Lopez and Brittany McCalman updated the School Board on the year's activities at the Monroe campus including Monroe Continuation High School, Tehachapi Independent Learning Academy (TILA), the Adult School and Cerro Coso Community College. All programs operate out of the Monroe facility. Monroe is focusing on attendance this year, using letters and the School Resource Officer to meet with parents. They have had guest...
Police Foundation Fundraiser Jim Wallace and Kim Nixon, representing the Tehachapi Police Foundation, appeared before the City Council on April 3 to present plans for their Honoring the Thin Blue Line Banquet which will be held on May 18 at Rose Garden Estate in Cummings Valley. The event will occur during National Police Week which was established in 1962 by President John F. Kennedy. This will be the first event sponsored by the Tehachapi Police Foundation that was founded last year. Nixon als...
Tehachapi's Public Works Department removed eight dead trees along the south side of Tehachapi Blvd. between Curry St. and Green St. and replaced them with eight new trees. The remaining trees on Tehachapi Blvd. appear to be healthy and do not need to be replaced. The project was completed ahead of schedule taking only two days for the crews to complete. The Public Works team would also like to express their thanks in the public's help in "slowing for the cone zone" during the lane closure on...
The past few years have been challenging economically for the County of Kern. Due to the fall in the price of oil, the county has endured budget cuts and hiring freezes, and this past year, public safety was cut to balance the budget. Anything that can save the county money and allow us to operate more efficiently and productively, while still maintaining a high-quality level of service to our constituents, should be put to use. The Lean Six Sigma initiative is one that I am excited to see imple...
The City of Tehachapi has completed a water conservation project that will save approximately 38 acre feet of potable water each year (there are 325,851 gallons per each acre foot). The water conservation project was completed by the Public Works Department. City staff used 450 feet of two inch pipe to bring treated effluent water from the Recycled Water Pump Station to the Headworks for daily operation of the JWC Screenings, Washer, and Compactor Preliminary Treatment System. The project took...
On March 16, the Tehachapi Lions Club heard the "State of Tehachapi Address" from Tehachapi City Manager, Greg Garrett. Garrett's presentation carefully explained all branches of the city from the Administration, Economic Development, and Police Department to the Public Works Department. Garrett explained that like everything in life, Tehachapi has been changing and the City has been doing their best to keep up with and manage the changes. The general plan by the City is wholly centered on...
Civic and business leaders from the greater Tehachapi area were in attendance at the Seventeenth Annual Kern County Economic Summit that was held in Bakersfield on Wed., Mar. 15. Eastern Kern County was one topic of discussion and the availability and recruitment of a qualified work force. The half day conference featured speakers representing CSUB, Edwards Air Force Base, NAWS China Lake, and Rio Tinto (Borax) among others. Mayor Ed Grimes, Mayor Pro-tem Susan Wiggins, City Manager Greg...
Don’t make me send this money back to the State! The Toilet Rebate Program so many of you participated in (thanks!) is financed through a State Grant. The Grant contract deadline is looming, and toilet rebate applications must be received at TCCWD by August 31, 2017. The Program was set up to provide rebates for 1,000 toilets, and as I’m typing, we’ve provided 698 rebates. Any money we don’t use will be re-absorbed into the State coffers. Don’t make me send the money back. It’s up to you to make sure we use it all up! If you’ve already chang...
On Monday, March 13, the Tehachapi Planning Commission was presented with three resolutions regarding the proposed Flying J Travel Center which will be located at the corner of Tehachapi Blvd. and Steuber Rd. Travis Crawford, Principal Environmental Planner for Crawford & Bowen Planning, Inc. of Visalia, made a visual presentation of their Environmental Impact Report to the Committee. He said that the project will encompass 12.44 acres with 2/3 being devoted to the Flying J Travel Center and...
Are you a woman in business or someone who has always thought about having her own business? If so, there’s an event coming up, and it is designed just for you. The event, happening on Saturday, April 1, is called Wine, Women, and Wealth, and it’s going to be great. There will be great wine from two of Kern County’s local award winning vineyards, Great women who are going to tell their stories about owning and operating a small business and what it took for them to achieve their success, and i...
At the March 1 meeting of the Greater Tehachapi Economic Development Council, Tom Mendes regional representative of the State Board of Equilization presented a new tax exemption available to many small businesses. He told the group that most people don't know that if they produce anything, they may only have to pay about half of the sales tax on any equipment purchased after July 1, 2014. There are just a few forms to fill out and the claim can be retroactive He said that there are about 500 or...
Airport navigation issues On March 6, Tehachapi resident and pilot, Joe Biviano presented to the City Council a report on airport safety concerns and issues that he felt could not be handled with just a phone call. Biviano, a pilot with thousands of hours of experience and also a test pilot, prepared a detailed audio visual demonstration of problems that he had identified with the Precision Approach Path Indicator system (PAPI). This is the visual glide slope indicators that keep a pilot on...
At their Feb. 21 meeting, the Tehachapi City Council approved a plan that could move the City closer to making the Tehachapi Event Center, Rodeo Grounds and Motocross Track a reality. They voted to apply to the FAA to have that part of the airport property removed from federal obligations while keeping it within the City's Airport Enterprise Fund. A Brief History The City originally envisioned a motocross track on the airport grounds in 2006. The small triangle of land located north of the...
Tehachapi Mayor Ed Grimes was reappointed as a member of the Public Safety Policy Committee of the League of California Cities. As a long-standing member of the committee, Ed Grimes also served as Chair. Mayor Grimes will hold his term on the Public Safety Policy Committee until the League’s Annual Conference in the fall of 2017. “I am honored to serve as a member of the League of California Cities Public Safety Policy Committee. We have an opportunity to invest in strong relationships with bot...
Most small business owners are hard-working individuals that are so busy trying to make a living that they don’t have time for the seemingly unnecessary peripheral issues. They often leave issues of great financial importance up to others, and this could prove to be a grave mistake. One of those issues is investment and retirement account advice. For years there has been a lack of transparency in the financial services industry, and if the Department of Labor has its way, this is all going to ch...
With a vote of 3-2, the City Council defeated a proposal by newly elected City Councilman Kenneth Hetge requesting that the City draft an ordinance limiting the number of years a citizen can serve on the City Council. His proposal included a lifetime limit of three terms or 12 years of total service, stating that this would mirror the 2012 California state proposition supporting term limits. Mayor Grimes added that the 2012 proposition exempted any official sitting at the time of the vote....
The Tehachapi Association of Teachers and the Tehachapi Unified School District have been in contract negotiations for the current school year for many months. Negotiations continue and the Teachers Association hopes for a fair settlement. At the recent school board meeting several district teachers spoke with this writer regarding their concerns. Keely Lowe, a second grade teacher from Cummings Valley Elementary said, “I feel teachers add a lot of value to our community. We are very hard working and we need to get regular cost of living r...
With a lengthy agenda the Golden Hills Community Services District Jan. 19 meeting was called to order for open session at 6 p.m. The meeting began with financial reports presented to the Board and the public. It was ascertained that the district is doing good for this year. A quarterly report will be presented at the February meeting. After approval of items on the consent calendar, a discussion ensued regarding a policy whereby documents requested and produced upon request of one director be provided to all directors. It was decided the...
"We are so fortunate to have an educated and experienced local travel agent now", that's what people in Tehachapi are saying about Jenni Richard, the owner of Travel by Jenni. Jenni opened up her office in town on Brian Way in November, but has been running her business since 2006. Her agency specializes in all inclusive resorts, groups, and river and ocean cruising. She has lived in England and traveled to twenty-five countries thus far. The main message that she wants people to hear is that...
Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) Let’s begin with changes under Obamacare. The Internal Revenue Service has 5 tax forms as part of your federal tax return. Some of you will receive a Form 1095 (do not throw this away, we will need the information to prepare your 2016 federal tax return). If you have not received a Form 1095, we are required to ask you several questions about your health care coverage to help you avoid penalties and comply with the new federal requirements. This additional work we...
At the Jan. 17 City Council meeting, Development Services Director Jay Schlosser again addressed the issue of the delayed completion of the road work that began on Valley Blvd. last May. Weather and survey errors had caused delays in the project and costs to exceed the budget. At the Nov. 7 meeting, the Council approved a change order increasing approved budget overages to $160,000 to be billed on a time and materials basis. After the holiday season, it was obvious that the approved increase was...
