Shafter - Wasco Football Game Tonight

The Shafter - Wasco football game is tonight in Wasco. The Bivouac has a bunch of stuff on the game here.

Freudian Headlines

"Parra-Gilmore race pivotal"

That's the lead headline on the Bakersfield Californian website right now. Actually, Gilmore is running against Fran Florez. Perhaps the Californian editors were unconsciously thinking that Gilmore should have been ranked higher in Maxim Magazine's list of "hottest politicians," which pegged Nicole Parra fourth.

Speaking of politics, the mix-ups over at the Californian, they aren't limited to the staff today. Currently more readers select George W. Bush as their favorite president than select Jefferson or Washington.

Fran Florez Profile

Interesting profile of our own Fran Florez in the Californian today. Fran has been active in the community for a long time, seemingly without making enemies. John Guinn's comments about her being someone who builds consensus strikes me as genuine and are born out under the reputational microscope of small town life. Good luck, Fran!

Football Preview is Out

The Californian published its football preview for the SSL. Coach Steve Denman of Tehachapi seems to have mastered preseason favorite coach-speak, managing to compliment everyone a little differently, but equally.

“It’s going to be tight,” he said. “Wasco is improving, they’re real physical and gave us everything we could handle last year. Taft is loaded. ... BCHS is probably the most talented team as far as skill positions. Arvin could surprise you, they won the (JV) league as sophomores. And Shafter, they say they don’t have anybody over there, but you know, they’re playing a little possum, I think.”

Zach Ewing doesn't think Shafter is "playing a little possum," though. He picked Shafter to go winless on the season.

Uh... Thanks, I guess.

I believe this site has been linked for the first time.  Actually it's a "probationary link" from a blog about the Shafter High boys basketball team.  The author, writing under the name of Shafter's namesake, the General William Rufus Shafter, says that Shafter News is "mostly dedicated to commentary on Shafter-related Bakersfield Californian articles.  Given the dearth of Shafter news online, I'll take it."   

This must have been written before I got into writing essays on education statistics, development, and sales taxes, which are far too boring to be the subject of a Californian article.   Anyway, it's good to know that someone is reading.

Sales Taxes

What could be more interesting? Actually it is pretty interesting. The City of Shafter has been pursuing businesses with the idea of growing their sales tax revenue for a number of years. Not unusual, I am sure. What is unusual is how successful they have been, especially last year. In the fiscal year ending June 30, 2007, the City more than doubled it's sales tax revenue from $3.1 million to $6.4 million. This was without raising the rate. Before that, sales tax revenue had been growing, but much more modestly.  It was at $1.8 million in 2004, $2.1 in 2005, and $3.1 in 2006.  To put this further in perspective, the City's total budget last year was less than $10 million, so nearly 70% of expenditures were covered by sales taxes. By comparison, Bakersfield takes in sales tax revenue that is consistently around 45% of expenditures, covering the rest through property taxes, gas and water fees, etc. This growth is expected to pause this year with sales taxes budgeted at just over $5 million due to slowing economic conditions. The downturn is accentuated by the fact that quite a few Shafter businesses are tied directly to construction.  Still, Shafter is doing pretty well. 

The big push in 2007 seems to have been driven by several number of new openings and expansions. Performance Food Group built and occupied a building near the airport, Scotts Fertilizer opened a new facility employing 30 people, both Bethlehem and Precast Concrete expanded their operations. Formica opened a warehouse operation near 7th Standard employing 20 people. The Target distribution center, which opened in 2002, continued to grow, reaching 800 employees in 2007.  (Note- I don't think that the Target distribution center actually generates sales taxes, though I could be mistaken.)

Taxable sales from these companies were all to other businesses and almost all of them to customers outside of Shafter. The demographics right now simply don't support much of a consumer driven economy.  Moreover, even Shafter's middle class, small as it is, mostly shops for groceries, home improvement supplies, and just about everything else in Bakersfield.  This makes the recent achievements all the more impressive and provides the backdrop to the growth of Bakersfield toward the edge of Shafter and the widening of 7th Standard, which could prove a windfall (the good kind, not like finding a hand) for Shafter.  Retail follows traffic and disposable income.  If current trends continue, 7th Standard will have both in spades.  Retail development on the northern side of 7th Standard would allow the City of Shafter to collect retail sales taxes with minimal infrastructure construction and maintenance.  Not only would the retail taxes from the Shafter middle class stay in the city, but the shopping of Northern Bakersfieldians would also be contributing to the coffers of Shafter.   

What's wild is that the City is already flush.  At the last reporting, Shafter had $25.9 million in unreserved cash.  That's right.  The City of Shafter could operate as it does now for nearly three years with no revenue.  Bakersfield, whose budget is 15 times as large had an unreserved balance of $35.8 million.  

At the Doorstep

I had been working on this post for a while, but the resolution of the water dispute between Shafter and Bakersfield makes it particularly relevant.  

Much has been made of the excesses of the housing market and nothing illustrates overreach like a development abandoned unfinished. With a new article out that Kern County is once again among the leaders in foreclosures, it might seem that the expanding footprint of Bakersfield has been entirely speculator-fueled. The pace of growth in recent years was certainly not sustainable. However, the expansion of Bakersfield toward Shafter is a longer term trend. Compare these two maps of Shafter (Green blip in the upper left hand corner) and Northwest Bakersfield.  Apologies for the low image quality.  The first is from 1990. The green signifies areas with population density greater than 1000 persons per square mile, which any suburb or town easily hits. The tan is basically undeveloped.  The key line here is 7th Standard (running East-West not quite halfway down).  After some disputes, that has become the dividing line between Shafter and Bakersfield.  

In this first map, from 1990, the vast majority of Bakersfield lay to the south of the Kern River.  The northwest had little pockets of development, especially along the 99 and Rosedale Highway (East-West about 3 quarters of the way down)

The bottom map is from 2000.  Look at the growth to the west and the north.  I didn't include all of Bakersfield in this map because the detail would have become even more obscure than it already is, however, the other borders of Bakersfield hardly move.  This is sort of obvious to anyone who has been paying attention, but Bakersfield is taking up land and primarily in the direction of Shafter.  In the time since 2000, the trend has continued and even accelerated with the housing boom.  Bakersfield's growth has pushed up nearly to 7th Standard, which actually isn't all that new.  What is new is that it now is approaching that line with a much wider front - about 5 miles across at it's closest point, from the 99 to Allen Road - than the sliver that approached that line in the past. 

Development is still about a mile away from 7th Standard. Yet, all signs point toward 7th Standard itself becoming a major road and a stimulus to new commercial development in the next decade.  Not only has there been significant residential growth all along the south of the road (with favorable demographics, I might add), but also some new commercial development near the 99.   More importantly, work is under way on an overpass to eliminate the rail crossing near the 99 and I understand that it will be widened to four lanes soon.   Traffic on 7th Standard between Santa Fe and 99 was at 8,700 vehicles per day in 2007, which was up nearly 25% over 2005 counts.  With four lanes, traffic will continue to increase, making it a a draw for commercial development in the vicious/virtuous cycle of traffic-commercial development-more traffic.  

This could have a large impact on Shafter in the future.  For one thing, it seems to play directly into the City of Shafter's tax farming strategy of recent years.  More on that in another post. The other point is that it suggests the possibility of two geographically distinct Shafters. One of the main drivers of growth in the Northwest has been the schools.  Norris in particular has been among the best in Bakersfield for years.  You can see from this map (you have to look hard) that the boundary of Richland School District is actually about half a mile north of Seventh Standard.   A half mile deep, the length of Seventh Standard between 99 and Santa Fe is in Shafter, but in the Norris and Rosedale school districts.  This, not the city line is more likely to be the next stopping point of Bakersfield's northward push and it seems entirely plausible that growth will shift directions there, leaving a little (and relatively wealthy) strip of Shafter that is indistinguishable from Bakersfield, except in address and that is entirely distinct from Shafter as we now know it.  

New Shafter Press Editor

CSUB Isaac Rocha has taken over editorial duties from fellow Cal State alum Melissa Hill.  Rocha has written for several of the Bakersfield Californian's online publications and the CSUB Runner.  Here is a piece he wrote in 1999 about then Shafter High principal of Shafter High, Jaime Quinonez.

Bakersfield Approves Water Deal

The Californian reports that Shafter will buy water from Bakersfield at the rate of $311/acre foot or about 10 cents per 100 gallons.   This should put an end (for now) to the dispute between the two cities over the development of the 7th Standard area.  

Mighty Max Mysteries

The "possible truck" has been found and found to be real. Unfortunately it was not the truck that killed Shafter 17 year old Nancy Medina, but it was "really, really close," according to Capt. Jeff Bell of the Shafter Police Department. You might wonder what it means for a truck to be really close to being the truck that hit someone. Such are the mysteries of the Mighty Max.

Water and the Borderlands

Between Shafter and Bakersfield, that is. According to this article, the Bakersfield City Council will consider whether to ratify an agreement to settle the third of three lawsuits between Shafter and Bakersfield at their meeting on Wednesday.

Shafter had planned to use water from a wastewater treatment plant for farms, freeing up fresher water for new development. But Bakersfield sued, saying Shafter didn't have the right to use that water for development — only Bakersfield does.

Recent agendas of the Shafter City Council do not mention the agreement.

Given that housing starts nationally were at the lowest level they have been since 1991, it may be a while yet before this agreement matters.

If a rabbit's foot brings a little good luck...

The subject of this story about a couple's discovery of a decomposing human hand in a storage shed is odd enough without the unnamed author describing the find as a "windfall."  

The term comes from ripe fruit knocked to the ground by wind, a stroke of luck, apparently, for ladder-worn harvesters.  It has come to refer to any "unexpected, unearned, or sudden gain or advantage."  

Update: 

It seems that Jason Kowtowski doesn't appreciate what great luck it is to stumble upon a human hand.  He has written a longer story sans windfall reference.

How to Have a "Great School District"

Scores from the 2006-07 STAR test of California schools were released on Tuesday. This is major event in the life of local schools. Not only does it effect their status under No Child Left Behind, but the scores are published in the newspaper as a source of public pride and shame. This is intentional. The decade-long movement for standardized testing and school accountability is based on the idea that we should know which schools are doing a good job and which are failing. Jack O'Connell, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, for example, called the tests a “bright light on school performance.”

Test scores are supposed to shine a light on the teachers and administrators. Yet, inevitably, someone will note that some of the light is shining past schools to the demographic profile of their students. Assistant Superintendent for the Kern High School District, Joe Thompson, for example, told the Californian that kids who are poor and learning English tend to bring Kern scores down.

Thompson's point seems reasonable enough, but how much difference do poverty and language make? I took this as an invitation for study and found that they actually matter a great deal of difference, even within Kern County. Have a look at this chart below. The dots are scores from Kern elementary districts on STAR tests (called API Base) in the last three sets of scores plotted by the percentage of students receiving free or reduced lunch. There is a pretty clear relationship here. As the percentage of students that qualify for free or reduced lunch goes up by one, it knocks down the average API by 2 points. On this basis alone, then, we should expect the difference in the scores of Richland (~80% free and reduced lunch) and Fruitvale or Norris (~5%) to be about 150 points. The actual difference is typically just a little more, about 185 points.

Surprisingly, not speaking English isn't quite as powerful a drag on test scores (see the chart below). However, note how few districts with more than a quarter of their students learning English score over 700. Consider too the fact that all of the Kern districts with scores better than 750 in the past three years have had fewer than 15% of their students considered "English Learners."

At the elementary level, differences in Kern district test scores are primarily differences of demography. Poverty alone, measured by participation in the free or reduced lunch program explains almost 70% of the differences in scores, according to a regression model. That is not to say that some schools are not better than others. Most of the districts either consistently outperformed or consistently underperformed a prediction model based on subsidized lunch participation and the percentage of English Learners. Fruitvale and Norris did well by this standard, but so did Delano. Richland was a modest underachiever after taking these factors into account. But these differences are small by comparison. The most direct, though perhaps not the best, way to win test score honor in Kern County seems to be reducing the number of poor, non-English speakers in your schools.

Shafter High Grad Rubio To Run for Florez's State Senate Seat in 2010

The longer stories are on the sidebar. Dean Florez will be termed out in 2010 and, he hopes, moving on up to Lt. Governor.

Michael Rubio graduated from SHS in 1995 and has had quite a rise. He lives in Bakersfield now, but is tied both personally and professionally (he got his political start working for Florez) to Shafter.

Interesting, however, that Florez and Rubio don't seem to be coordinating much now, judging by Dean's comments.

I'd say that Rubio received quite a gift in the words of Kern County Republican Chair Ken Duncan who says that Rubio really should be thinking about his own finances more. "You know, Ken, I just have this problem with putting the public good, first. It's probably my greatest weakness."

Mission Bank to Move into New Digs in November

With the announcement of their second quarter earnings, Mission Bank also said that they will be occupying a new building in Shafter in November. They had earlier said that the move would happen during the second quarter, but no matter. I am sure it will happen this time.

Local banks are important. The untold (or at least less told) story of current financial crisis is the story of how the excessive reliance on credit scores at the heart of so many problems was closely tied to the consolidation of the banking industry in recent decades. Historically, local bankers were the personal judges of reputation and credit-worthiness, but banks owned from afar took underwriting decisions out of the hands of local bankers and standardized them using credit scores and statistics. Standardizing the process has had some undoubtedly good effects - for example, such decisions are blind to race and other things that have made capital flow more easily to privileged groups - however it also contributed to the recent silliness.

Here is an article that says more about the moral goodness of local banks.

In short, local banks are a good thing in general and the fact that Mission Bank is in Shafter and will soon be occupying a real building is also good. It bespeaks commitment. If it turned out that Shafter branch manager A.J. Antongiovanni actually lived in Shafter, well then you would hear a full-throated endorsement.

World Water, Valley Water

Be sure to check out this Economist story on water as the next scarce and fantastically expensive resource.

As an agricultural area that receives little rain, water also bears mightily on Shafter and its surroundings. In the 2000 census, 828 Shafter residents worked in agriculture, almost a quarter of the employed workforce. As such a large part of the economy, the pain and joy of agriculture is felt across the area's economy and while rarely a source of joy, water has the potential to cause great pain in the area. The main sources of water for Shafter farmers are politically vulnerable, as the recent run in with defenders of the Delta Smelt has reminded anyone who needed it.

The first signs of scarcity and scramble are beginning to show up in the still green-lawned residential life of Shafter's citizens.  Shafter is moving toward metered water billing under state threat and the massive Seventh Standard developments were postponed over water issues before they were postponed by market conditions.    If the Economist is right these are signs of things to come.  

Indeed, the growth of the Central Valley alone is enough to give pause.  The development of new housing has slowed, but the population projections are still for breakneck growth, partly because the Valley population is so young.  We can be sure that many of those kids are going to want lawns and pools.

The Economist says we should financialize the stuff and trade it like other commodities.

Better functioning water markets would be one way to share out water more efficiently. Once governments have defined water rights clearly, farmers, and others who use water, could be encouraged to trade, first with each other and with industrial and urban users.

The devil is the details and I have no idea how this would play out.  Those who stand to gain the most locally from a trading system are probably those who currently have water rights that they could sell to cities.   Their number is probably pretty close to the number of self-employed farmers - less than 200 in Shafter (as of the last census).  A pretty small number and the really bad news is that a boom in water is different from a boom in oil in that the water infrastructure is already in place.  No new investment is needed, no drilling, no pipelines to build and maintain.  In fact, at the extremes, this would likely decrease local investment, giving water owners a way of making cash directly without putting the water on the ground to grow things and create local jobs.  

U.S. Not So Post-Industrial After All

VW announced that they will be building a $1 Billion plant in Chattanooga.  The factory is scheduled to enter production in 2011 and employ 2,000 'noogans.  That's great, but the signal that making things in the U.S. is becoming economical is even better.  It bodes well for the rural parts of the country, Shafter and the Central Valley included.  Don't expect Toyota to start building cars on Lerdo, but small niche manufacturers having been popping up quickly around Shafter in the last decade or so and the weak dollar represents opportunity for them.  How quickly and how many I will be digging into when I get the time.

Minter Field

The slideshow on the sidebar is provided by Google. It searches for images tagged "Shafter." Pictures from the air show at Minter Field are currently dominating, so I thought now would be a good time to post a link to this story about a basketball league in the early days of Minter Field.  I found this recently on a blog about the history of Shafter High basketball.  It adds some perspective on how World War II impacted the lives of ordinary people in Shafter.

Dean Florez: Local Hero

I chided him for his lottery talk, but Dean Florez is a political star in the making and a genuine success story -  Shafter High, BC, UCLA, Harvard and now moving up California's political ramp to the national scene. He has been selected to chair the California Democrats "58 County Strategy" for the fall elections.  The position will no doubt help him in his first state-wide election as a candidate for Lt. Governor in 2010.  

Florez is also the source of about half of all news stories that mention Shafter, so I want to be clear at the beginning that I am not out to get the guy.

(The picture above shows Florez giving an award to Vince Vaughn.  No connection to anything, really, but there is so much to like about the photo: Vaughn's dazed look, the guy in the background, Florez photo-op steady in the midst of the swirly chaos of the comedy club.  I like it.)

Anna Jelmini: Number Seven in the World Junior Discus Championships, Number One in Your Hearts

The Californian has the story.

Shafter Gets Street View

This may be old news, but I just noticed a few days ago that you can now cruise virtually around the streets of Shafter thanks to Google and their magical panoptic cars.  You can catch some interesting stuff.  Who is that dropping in on the Foxy Lady for a little midday nip? No one.  I checked.  Still, you get the idea.  

Shafter's Leading Newsmaker Has A Bad Idea

Dean Florez is worried that lottery sales are declining.  He shouldn't be.   The idea that state lotteries contribute to "public education," as Florez says, is an abuse of language Orwell could appreciate.  Lotteries spend millions teaching the public to make stupid decisions with their money.  It is an open secret that the poor and the less educated fall for this most often, but I would have thought that "tantalizing" these people with the lure of necessities like gas would be a bit too obvious.

Curious Sentences - If this car exists, it may have been involved

I hope Shafter's finest are thinking about this case more clearly than the author of this sentence:

"Shafter Police have posted 3 pictures of a possible car that may have been responsible for a hit and run accident..."

What exactly is a "possible car?"