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Posted by lward Tue Apr 18, 2006 14:07:00 PDT
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0 responses 0 comments Businesses and community organizations answered Cal State Bakersfield President Horace Mitchell’s call for public-private partnership ideas with six proposals for Southwest Bakersfield, including a baseball stadium, two towers of hotels and condominiums and a children’s learning center. The idea behind the proposals is that CSUB would allow private, public or nonprofit organizations to build and run facilities on the southern part of campus, along Camino Media, on the condition the facilities benefit the university’s academic mission. Mitchell said he had been in discussions with officials of the Bakersfield Blaze and the city, who agreed that a new city baseball stadium should be located in the Southwest. Mitchell said he and City Manager Alan Tandy had conferred with representatives of the Los Angeles Dodgers and were told the baseball team would be interested in an affiliation with a minor league team, if a new stadium were built at Cal State. The ballpark could help the CSUB athletics program move from Division II to Division I. The university administration will evaluate the six proposals over the next weeks before deciding how to proceed.

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Milton Woolsey, professor of education at CSUB, has been named “Professor of Education of the Year” for 2006 by the Association of California School Administrators.

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Raffle tickets for the local St. Jude Dream Home are on sale now and available at Wells Fargo branches, Hancock Fabrics and Green Frog Markets. The raffle will raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which treats children with cancer. One of the $100 tickets will earn the buyer a 2,400-square-foot Lenox home in Shafter’s Brookside Estates worth about $492,200. Anyone who buys a ticket before May 19 will also be entered in an early bird raffle for a year’s worth of free groceries from Green Frog Markets. The drawing for the house and other prizes will be held Aug. 5.

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Kern County Superintendent of Schools Larry Reider has promised new hiring rules for bus drivers after Tara Lea Cook, 35, was arrested in March after passing out behind the wheel of a KCOS’ bus, according to the California Highway Patrol. The current screening process includes driving records, criminal background checks and pre-employment drug testing.
Currently, following federal requirements, 50 percent of the district’s bus drivers are subject to random drug tests each year, and 10 percent are subject to random alcohol tests. Both those numbers will be increased, Reider said. The district is looking at adding pre-employment alcohol testing to its screening process. The district also may increase the number of employees who are trained in spotting signs that would be considered reasonably suspicious.

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Vincent Rojas, president and chief executive officer of Kern Schools Federal Credit Union, has been honored as the 2006 recipient of the CSUB President’s Medal. Rojas was presented his medal Wednesday at CSUB’s annual President’s Associates Dinner at Seven Oaks Country Club.

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Julio R. Blanco has been appointed dean of the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at CSUB. Blanco, who is currently chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at California State University, Northridge, will assume his new position on Aug. 14.

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