TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

If you catch the Academy Awards Sunday night, watch for a behind-the-scenes trick: the seat filler. The seat filler patiently stands for hours in formal wear, waiting for the winner to collect his or her Oscar or for someone famous to run to the bathroom -- at which time the seat filler makes a mad dash to the empty seat before the camera pans the room.

The seat filler exists to create the appearance of a packed house. Sure it's a façade, but hey, it's Hollywood. Besides, the room looks full to folks watching at home where perception is reality.

Seems like a lot of people are into the seat-filler craze these days. Whether it's Wisconsin or the Central Valley, the angry mob is for rent. They're seat fillers who create an image to influence folks watching at home.

Take the Central Valley transportation hearing hosted by Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The purpose was to get public input on Highway 99 projects. But a funny thing happened on the way. Hundreds of people who coincidentally wanted high-speed rail showed up!

The Fresno Bee reports that a local official stood to speak, but rather than talk about Highway 99, she asked the crowd if it supported high-speed rail. The Bee reports that 90 percent of the audience stood! How did she know so many would be at a hearing about Highway 99 to support HSR?

The answer is in a series of intercepted government e-mails forwarded to me by Assemblywoman Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield. They're between the California High-Speed Rail Authority CEO Roelof Van Ark and a Linda Thompson from Thompson Public Affairs about getting 300-400 people to the hearing and fill as many seats as they can with supporters of high-speed rail. They essentially planned to hijack the meeting.

In the e-mail Van Ark says, "Trust that you are ... helping to ensure that the industry and labor are out in full-force to flood any negative contributors."

Well, that explains why so many of the people had prefab signs touting high-speed rail, and why the local official knew who would stand in support!

Seat fillers.

There's a slew of questions about this that I'll leave to smarter columnists like Lois Henry, but it's definitely worth asking why a CEO of a government entity used tax dollars to hire a PR firm to help drown out any opposition from the public he serves. Does his project not stand on its own merits without seat-fillers?

The Los Angeles Times reported that in a prepared statement, Van Ark defended the authority by saying lobbying is necessary to update Congress on California high-speed rail efforts and obtain federal funds for them.

I know that these shenanigans aren't new, but they're really getting on my nerves. Doesn't anyone believe in anything strongly enough to show up without a rent-a-mob? Remember Spartacus Miller, former owner of the Padre Hotel who stood alone against what he saw as overregulation by the city council? Or the Ladies of Annexation, who years after winning their battle to prevent city annexation of a neighborhood continued to be watchdogs on property issues.

Even the "Shame On" guys with signs trying to get you to boycott some business due to a labor dispute are standing there because some union paid them less than prevailing wage to do it!

Recently I saw picket signs at Panama Lane's Fresh & Easy and decided to see what it was all about. I asked a man why he was there.

"Fresh & Easy doesn't pay their employees a fair wage," he said.

I said, "It's clearly full of employees so it must pay well enough."

"I used to work here and wasn't paid enough," he said.

"Why didn't you just find another job?" I asked.

"I did," he said. "I work for the union, picketing this store."

Good grief!

I can honestly say that in recent years the only sincerely organic public statement I have seen was the 2009 Bakersfield tea party. These guys were SUCH political outsiders that they told now-Speaker of the House John Boehner that he couldn't speak at their event but was welcome to stand with the audience (which to his credit, he humbly did).

As a retired Hollywood awards show seat filler, I can tell you that being in the mix can be fun (albeit painful with the high heels). But I was part of a trick. We created a phony image for the audience that might be good enough for Hollywood, but not for the American people.

Inga Barks, who hosts a talk show on KMJ AM 580, is one of three community columnists whose work appears here every Saturday. These are the opinions of Barks, not necessarily The Californian. You can e-mail her at ibarks@bakersfield.com. Next week: Ric Llewellyn.