Anyway they’ve premiered a blog with several of their correspondents. Of note is a piece by Richard Florida analyzing high-speed rail projects across the country, looking at likely stimulus funding recipients based on the economic output of the regions where rail is proposed.

He has a lot of interesting things to say about the concept of the “mega-region” and it should be pretty obvious to folks who live out here that desert communities like Barstow and the Palm Desert areas to the south represent the eastern edge of the Los Angeles “mega-region.”

More importantly, if the portioning of the money for high-speed rail is done in a fashion anywhere near as logical as his analysis, there’s absolutely no chance that the Maglev project from Anaheim to Las Vegas will see a cent of federal funding.

In fact, even when politics get involved, as it inevitably does in any major government project does, it still won’t see a cent. It doesn’t pay political dividends to use federal money to pay for a project (which will cost more than the entire sum President Obama is setting aside for high-speed rail) to serve primarily tourists in one particular travel corridor. It’s not even included in Florida’s map.

(Aside to fomer mayor Lawrence Dale: Your assistance in the organization of Barstow’s Tea Party might have been treated more seriously if you didn’t continue endorsing wasteful federal pork projects like this one.)

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Post from: The Editor's Desk

The inspiration for the editorial was comments and quotes I’ve read from folks who actually seem to think it’s the mayor’s or City Council’s fault that crime happens — that they are somehow able to control who comes to Barstow and where they live and how people behave in their homes. People blame the city for Section 8 housing, which: one, is only used by 150 families in all of Barstow, so folks are confusing “Section 8” with “everybody in Barstow who is really poor”; and two, is a federal program between the government and landlords that the city has little control over. The city tried to introduce the rental inspection program in part to deal with the fact actually Barstow’s worst housing has nothing to do with Section 8, but they ran afoul of the Constitution and dropped it.

Also, there’s the element of the discussion that is actually the result of public safety unions going after public officials who have tried to hold the line against increasing expenses, trying to use fear of crime as a hammer to beat them out of office.

Furthermore, while the city can pass ordinances and arrest folks for crimes, the county runs the courts, not the city. The city is not responsible for sentencing.

I do think, though. that by trying to discourage folks from expecting too much from city leaders, who play much more of an advisory role than enforcement role, I might have gone too far and gave the impression I think city leaders have no responsibility at all. The City Council and mayor do play an important role — by setting the public safety budget, they set the tone for the police department to set priorities. A tighter budget means a less proactive police department. A looser budget gives them more flexibility and better able to innovate new ways to fight crime. So, they are very important. Their decisions will be even more important should Measure D fail.

I will admit that I probably don’t see local crime the same way people who have lived in Barstow for most of their lives see crime. This was highlighted in a discussion I had with a local leader last month over our editorial position against Measure D. He argued with me about how “unsafe” Barstow was and tried to get me on the pro-D side by asking me if I would feel comfortable if my family were to visit and spend time downtown Barstow at night.

There was a problem with his argument that became clear (and defused the conflict a little bit) after I answered: My family lives in St. Louis. My dad actually knew a couple of the victims of that horrifying City Hall shooting in Kirkwood earlier this year. Barstow’s crime problems don’t seem as significant to us. Personal experience can cloud perceptions of crime. I’ve been all over the place, some places safer than others. I’ve lived large chunks of my life in the Orlando area, where tourism can cause a significant amount of opportunistic crime, and St. Louis, where violent crime is a daily concern.

As I’ve said before, I grew up in the middle of the drug war. The idea some people have that you should be able to just go around not worrying about your personal safety is alien to me — a fantasy. The idea that any place called “downtown” would be a safe place to wander at night is not something I think will ever happen again. I hold myself responsible for my own and my family’s own protection first. If police are able to arrive on time in a crisis to contribute to our safety, they have my appreciation and financial support. But it’s never been part of my mindset that this is how the public safety works. I’ve always treated them as the folks you deal with after the crime happens.

So I think there may be an element to my editorial writing that comes from this experience. I don’t think violent crime is as big a problem in Barstow as some folks do, statistics notwithstanding. My observations from our reporting of violent crime are that most commonly the victim knows the criminal responsible. This certainly doesn’t make it any better (especially not for the victim), but I don’t think the average Barstow resident is more likely to be a victim of violence here than elsewhere. Because the nature of violent crime here in Barstow is often related to tumultuous relationships between the participants, often as a result of domestic abuse or drugs, it’s the area where the mayor and City Council has the least control and influence. Domestic abuse is a chronic social issue that involves a number of other agencies. The drug problem … we’ll I’ve gone over that one quite a few times. If we didn’t create the black market for drugs with our very laws, we would reduce the amount of drug-related violence significantly.

Property-related crime, however, is a big deal, and I agree with Chief Burns making property crime-fighting and prevention a priority. These are the crimes that are likely to have a direct impact on an average Barstow residents’ lives. So I’d be more interested in how leaders perceive that particular issue than violent crimes or “code enforcement” issues, which has become a tool to harass people who don’t treat their private property the way other people want them to.

Post from: The Editor's Desk

I prefer to vote on Election Day morning myself, so I can try to gauge what kind of turnout is likely. It helps us figure out how to “deploy” ourselves to cover the election locally

Post from: The Editor's Desk

As per my argument in the early days of this blog about letting journalists participate in the political process, but informing readers, I’m also putting my mouth where my money is and letting you know.

I will probably write a personal plea to voters that will run at the end of October to encourage folks to vote it down.

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An additional comment I didn’t have room for in the editorial: When we put city leaders on the hook for economic development, that encourages them to stretch and abuse their authority in order to bring in projects. It’s not just more revenue for the city, it’s also votes to stay in office.

This means that when municipal governments misuse eminent domain in order to provide land to private developers or take money away from fire and school districts with redevelopment agencies, part of the reason is that these leaders are on the spot to bring economic projects to town or else face problems at the polls.

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The fire department plans to follow suit. Why are they doing this? Because the departments feel they are understaffed and it’s a way to get the money to keep their numbers up to what they need them to be. The alternative would be layoffs.

Interesting. Read the full story at the Fresno Bee here.

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Pension Watch is a project of FACT, the Fullerton Association of Conerned Taxpayers, in order to keep an eye on the serious issues developing as California’s public employee pension crisis gets worse and worse.

Post from: The Editor's Desk

I thought to myself, “Pain? Isn’t that one of the arguments of allowing medical marijuana? That it helps deal with chronic pain?”

Sure enough, I did an online check and discovered that marijuana is a possible medical treatment for scoliosis pain.

Now this is interesting because San Bernardino is one of only two counties in the state that has resisted following California law and allowing prescriptions of medical marijuana within our county, arguing a conflict between the state law and federal drug laws. They keep losing their suits, but they keep trying.

So the county’s own resistance to medical marijuana use helped drive Postmus into the arms of meth. I wonder if anybody notes the irony.

Although to be fair to the county, a man operating a medical marijuana dispensary in Morro Bay that is perfectly legal under our state law was just convicted in a federal trial and could face years in prison. But now that I think about it, I find it highly unlikely the county is concerned that individual practitioners would face federal sanctions. They’re probably more concerned about federal subsidies county agencies and organizations receive to help fight this stupid drug war.

Oh, and by the way, here’s a great Huffington Post piece about the drug war. Postmus might feel better to note that the current Democratic presidential candidate and the wife of the Republican candidate have used drugs in the past. And of course, both our current Republican president and previous Democratic president are widely believed to have also done drugs in their youth.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

Plus, it’s educational! A little bit.

Post from: The Editor's Desk