Think outside of the Bake Box

I found an interesting letter in the Opinion section of the paper today. Steve Perez offered a good explanation for the “brain drain” going on in Kern County. There has been a lot of talk in the news lately about the lack of “white collar” employment in city a whose population is exploding. Perez believes that the problem “has to do with the decision-making philosophy of local leaders -- always choosing the quick-buck, short-term decision rather than the more difficult, long-term investment. Interestingly, many of Bakersfield's most controversial decisions came down to that philosophy: sludge, mega-dairies and extending the 58 and 178 freeways in the 1960s and 1970s.” Personally, I don’t like to point fingers when it comes to complex issues like this, but I have to admit Perez makes a very good point.

His argument is given credence in another article in the paper today. The piece “More people, more waste” tells us that our sewer systems are not equipped to handle the growing population. According to the article, “In 2000, the city completed a 4-million–gallon-a-day expansion of the treatment plant” and thus “figured they were good until 2010.” Now they’re scrambling to develop bigger sewage treatment plants to keep up with the growth.

I cannot claim to know anything about city planning, but it does seem to me that we need leaders who will stop thinking about Bakersfield as a “small town” and start thinking about the “big city” we have already become.