Government roundup: New home construction way down from last year
By The Bakersfield Californian
New home construction in Bakersfield slowed significantly in April compared to a year earlier, the city's latest monthly building report shows.
Just nine permits for single-family homes were pulled last month, down from 77 in April 2010.
April's number is still better than February's dismal count of two -- the lowest anyone currently at the city can remember -- but shows new home construction remains well below bubble-year levels. During the peak of the construction boom in 2005, builders here pulled 5,216 single-family permits, which averages out to more than 434 a month.
For the year so far from January through April, the total count is 143, less than half of the 304 pulled a year earlier.
Homebuilders have been smarting in the recession as they compete with foreclosed and short-sale homes. Local builders also say increased development fees are an added burden, as are new state regulations that took effect in January requiring fire sprinkler systems in all new homes.
Foreclosure filings, meanwhile, dipped in April compared to a year ago.
Some 570 default notices were filed countywide, down from 831 a year earlier and also down from March's count of 801, according to the Kern County Recorder's office. Default notices are the first legal step in a possible foreclosure.
Actual foreclosures slipped to 583 in April from 749 a year earlier.
The pace of foreclosure filings has yo-yoed in recent years as new regulations and incidents such as the robo-signing controversy affect how banks handle troubled mortgages.
Foreclosures peaked in 2008 at 8,560 after dipping to 280 in 2005, according to county records going back to 1995.
Ted James, director of the Kern County Development Services Agency and a popular, nearly 30-year veteran of county government, is retiring.
James will leave the county in August, just as he turns age 60 and therefore can take advantage of the county's "3 at 60" retirement benefit.
He plans to stay in Bakersfield but doesn't know what exactly he will do, perhaps consult or do volunteer work.
"I'm just getting over the issue of retiring," James quipped.
James leads the umbrella agency that oversees and coordinates the departments of Planning and Community Development; Engineering, Surveying and Permit Services; and Roads.
He came to Kern County from Fresno County in 1982 as a senior planner. He became principal planner in 1986, planning division chief in 1987 and planning director in 1990. He was appointed to his current post, then called Resource Management Agency director, on an interim basis in 2009 and permanently in 2010.
Also retiring is Rick Davis, executive director of the Kern County Board of Trade. He's leaving May 20, according to the County Administrative Office.
He oversees the county's tourism marketing efforts and is its film commissioner. He previously was manager and chief engineer of the county's KGOV television station and before joining county government spent 20-plus years working in the performing, technical and management sectors of the entertainment industry, according to an online biography.
Several local organizations received part of more than $4.2 million in federal money to combat homelessness, according to the office of Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno.
The grants went to groups in Fresno, Kings and Kern County.
"This critical funding will allow some of the San Joaquin Valley's best nonprofit, faith-based, and governmental organizations to continue fighting the scourge of homelessness in our communities," said Costa in a news release.
Among the local recipients and the amount awarded are:
* Bakersfield Homeless Center, $90,000
* Flood Bakersfield Ministries, $89,038
* County of Kern Housing Authority, $1,743,780
* Kern County Mental Health, $74,592
* Clinica Sierra Vista, $662,832
* HMIS Expansion, $75,000
Most CommentedMost Popular
Since Karen Goh returned to Kern County from a publishing career in New York in 2004, she has helped foster a strong network of Christian leaders in government, politics, media, business and nonprofits.
California voters approved Proposition 215 in 1996, giving "seriously ill Californians ... the right to obtain and use marijuana for medical purposes" as recommended by a physician.
Is Kern County, as has widely been reported, really the expulsion capital of California? That's the question posed Friday by state Sen. Michael Rubio, D-Shafter, to 50 or so Kern County educators, elementary and high school district administrators and community leaders.
Kern County has agreed to pay a Kern River Valley family $1 million for wrongfully taking their son in 2008 when the family was in a dispute with the South Fork Union School District over how school officials were dealing with the boy's food allergies.
A Bakersfield mother of two who took up competitive cycling nine months ago after an injury ended her marathoning career died Sunday while competing in a bicycle race outside Yosemite National Park.
A Bakersfield police officer shot and killed a man who was armed with a gun in a northwest Bakersfield apartment Monday morning.
Since Karen Goh returned to Kern County from a publishing career in New York in 2004, she has helped foster a strong network of Christian leaders in government, politics, media, business and nonprofits.
Kern County has agreed to pay a Kern River Valley family $1 million for wrongfully taking their son in 2008 when the family was in a dispute with the South Fork Union School District over how school officials were dealing with the boy's food allergies.