Storylines to watch for Kern County in 2022 | News

Here’s a few items that are expected to be especially impactful as 2022 unfolds.

One of the most hotly debated issues of 2021 may not even be implemented in 2022: a COVID-19 vaccination mandate for K-12 students. Either way, it will certainly become one of the most hotly debated issues for the year. In October, Gov. Gavin Newsom made the announcement California would mandate vaccinations for students the same way it had for measles. The absolute earliest any mandate could go into effect for anyone would be fall 2022, because Pfizer recently submitted a request for the full FDA authorization of its vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds. The Kern County Superintendent of Schools has sought to tamp down some of the panic that Newsom stoked in many local parents with his announcement, saying it’s likely that any mandate affecting schoolchildren — whether from the Legislature or the state’s Department of Public Health — would not be like a measles vaccination and would include personal, religious and medical exemptions, as it has for college students and teachers.

In 2015, water runoff on the Kern River ended up at just 13 percent of normal, the driest the river has ever been — at least since the late 1800s when water watchers began keeping track. In 2021, just six years later, the river experienced its second driest year, reaching just 15 percent of normal. What a difference a wet December makes. Weather models had indicated that below normal precipitation was likely this winter, but the last month of 2021 has brought plentiful rain to the valley and snow to the mountains. Weather patterns in 2022 will determine the next steps.

The new district boundaries will be tested for the first time during statewide primary election in June. California’s political map has been redrawn to account for new data provided by the 2020 census. It’s unclear what, if anything, will change as a result. While the Kern County Board of Supervisors opted to maintain relatively similar boundaries, congressional and state Assembly and Senate districts have been altered in ways that could potentially challenge incumbents. Experts in particular point to the district represented by Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford, which now contains the highest proportion of voting-age Latinos in the entire state at 59 percent. In general, the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, the independent body tasked with drawing the new maps, gave more voting power to Latinos across the Central Valley, a distribution of political power advocates say is long overdue. The primary election will provide the first hint at the impact of redistricting.

It seems like a lifetime ago when public health experts held any hope of eradicating COVID-19 through quarantine and business closures. At the outset of the pandemic, health policies were aimed at preventing hospitals from being overwhelmed by a tsunami of coronavirus patients. Those policies proved to be just enough to prevent such a wave, but the country and world has struggled with surge after surge, pushing hospitals to the brink. As 2021 comes to a close, the highly infectious omicron variant appears to be pushing yet another surge. Whether or not omicron proves deadly enough to wreak havoc on hospitals remains to be seen, but 2022 will likely be the year in which the future of the pandemic is decided. Under the worst-case scenario projected by a state, cases in Kern County are projected to peak with 986 on March 4. That would be the highest ever recorded in the county, but its likelihood depends on how many people are vaccinated or receive boosters in the next few weeks.

New high-end rental buildings in downtown Bakersfield may have been just the beginning. Amid a surge in new arrivals from bigger cities during the pandemic, investor attention has begun to focus on the city’s core. Projects like Moneywise Wealth Management’s plan to turn the former Woolworth’s building on 19th Street into offices, housing, retail and a music venue are coming despite continuing problems with vandalism, crime and homelessless downtown. Part of the idea behind the trend is that bringing in more full-time residents will lead to more — and wealthier — eyes and ears around the clock. Look for plans to be disclosed soon for the future of the Greyhound station on 18th Street and a major office building along Chester Avenue. Bakersfield government is getting in on the action with plans to promote underused retail buildings that might attract new owners and new investment in line with the City Council’s goal of revitalizing downtown.

On Jan. 26, Kern County will conduct its annual point-in-time count of the homeless population for the first time in two years. The count, which involves hundreds of volunteers fanning throughout Kern County to register individuals living in shelters and outside, is meant to provide a snapshot of the homeless population each year. Last year, the Bakersfield-Kern Regional Homeless Collaborative relied on figures from its database to conduct the survey, the results of which experts cautioned against comparing to previous years. The count will return in-person this year, providing the first glimpse of how the homeless population has changed over the past two years. The city and county’s continued responses to homelessness will continue to expand in 2022, along with the impact of additional beds being opened in shelters. Signs indicate homelessness is still growing locally.

Kern’s B3K Prosperity economic development collaboration in 2020 identified a lack of support for budding entrepreneurs and, a year later, multiple projects have come forward to seize what the initiative’s participants see as a key opportunity for promoting the creation of good local jobs. By mid-December 2021, three new business accelerators had been announced to deliver an intensive introduction to scalable business success, one at Bitwise Industries’ tech hub on 18th Street downtown, another in Kernville and a third at Cal State Bakersfield. The surge came after research by B3K pointed to the area’s strong entrepreneurial spirit, in comparison with its peers. But it also noted the county’s relatively dismal success rate.

The slow decline of eastern Kern’s aerospace industry may soon be reversed if a broad coalition of county interests wins federal funding for strengthening an industry cluster that includes two military bases and stretches as far south as Palmdale. Hopes are high that an application filed in October for federal funding will net a planning grant that can be parlayed into up to $75 million more for creation of what’s being called the Aerospace Valley Coalition Industry Cluster Initiative. Disparate groups united by the B3K Prosperity economic initiative have spoken up in support of the application, which among other things proposes a wind tunnel and business incubator. The idea is that, by concentrating aerospace innovation, testing and manufacturing, a hub will be created that attracts deep talent and generates high-quality jobs across skill levels.

The problem has grown tenfold over the past few years, and officials with the county of Kern, the Kern County Farm Bureau, rural residents and growers are looking toward increased enforcement and cleanup efforts to combat rural dumping in 2022. Kern County Chief Administrative Officer Ryan Alsop told The Californian last fall that the problem extends into all areas of the county. Increased funding will allow the county to expand from a single cleanup crew to five illegal-dump crews that will be deployed throughout the county. Increases in fines for illegal dumping have been approved in hopes of putting a dent in the problem by hitting illegal dumpers where it hurts.

The American Hockey League was hit hard by COVID-19 late in 2021, particularly during the December surge, but even beyond that, the Bakersfield Condors have experienced pretty much every possible way a game can be postponed. They had six games delayed in a three-week span (the Teddy Bear Toss, thankfully, remained intact) due to flooding in Abbotsford, British Columbia; malfunctioning ice equipment in Ontario; COVID-19 protocols affecting the Stockton Heat; and two separate instances of the Condors’ own COVID-19 issues. They most recently had a seventh game shelved on Dec. 27 due to a virus outbreak among the San Jose Barracuda. All this sets up Bakersfield for a packed second half of the season that features, for example, six road games in the first 10 days of 2022 — and that’s pending any more postponements. This will not be the pace of a normal season, and conditioning could make or break a team hovering around .500. Of course, other teams will be dealing with similar or more severe scheduling issues, and the Condors thrived under unusual circumstances last season and claimed the Chick Trophy as Pacific Division champions.

As around the country and the world, so too is esports growing in Kern County, where local Papa John’s Pizza franchisee Jason Maples opened the Bakersfield eSports Center on Golden State Highway in October. The event space is starting to fall into a regular routine featuring promotions such as discounted gameplay for students on Thursdays and weekend tournaments for games like Super Smash Bros. and Valorant. Maples has previously mentioned plans to open satellite facilities elsewhere in Bakersfield later in 2022. They could play a key role in the development of a local esports ecosystem that also features a Kern High School District league that has taken place in the spring since 2018. With Bakersfield products now earning spots on varsity college esports rosters around the country (David Hernandez at Culver-Stockton College, Juan Jimenez at Columbia International University, Tim Nielsen at Waldorf University), the city is establishing an ever-so-slightly greater presence in competitive video gaming.

The Bakersfield Magic, an expansion team in The Basketball League, plays its first home game on March 11 against the California Sea-Kings. The Magic, which is coached by Bakersfield High graduate Karaya Gage, will play a 24-game schedule as part of the TBL’s West Division, with the regular season ending May 28. The Magic is the first professional team to play locally since the NBA G-League’s Bakersfield Jam was sold to the Phoenix Suns and moved to Prescott Valley, Ariz., following the 2015-16 season.

For the first time in nearly two years, the CIF State Wrestling Championships are scheduled to compete at Mechanics Bank Arena on Feb. 22-24. The event, which featured 896 boys and girls wrestlers from 270 schools in 2020, was canceled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was the first time since 2004 that the event was not held in Bakersfield, after relocating from Stockton. The three-day event attracts thousands to the arena and fills up local hotels.