• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

$1.50 SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2018 • BAKERSFIELD.COM TBC MEDIA BOOKS C8 • CLASSIFIEDS D1 • EYE STREET C1 • KERN BUSINESS NEWS A12 • NATION & WORLD A11 • OBITUARIES A8 • OPINION A14 • PUZZLES C3 • SPORTS B1 • TRAVEL C9 • TV C6 It’s a working-class community of salt-of-the-earth Retiring DA Americans. It’s a troubled, ignored wasteland of drugs, homelessness and poverty. It’s a battlefi eld that pits presents hope against hopelessness and determination against The first in Robert despair. Here, bands of good citizens work tirelessly to Price’s ongoing series on her closing the enclaves, districts and neighborhoods pull lost souls from the abyss and lift the place’s standing that make up the fabric of Kern County. in the eyes of both the world and its own residents. argument the fight to save oildale ALEX HORVATH / THE CALIFORNIAN Lisa Green, whose tenure ends Jan. 4, refl ects on time as Kern’s top prosecutor and notable trials BY JASON KOTOWSKI [email protected] With an unwavering dedication to vic- tims’ rights, Kern County District Attorney Lisa Green successfully prosecuted a mul- titude of complex cases — including that of one of the most notorious murderers in county history — and oversaw the office at a time when technological advances brought greater scrutiny on law enforce- ment in general. After a 35-year career, the last eight as the county’s top prosecutor, Green, 60, said she’s prepared to step away. She re- tires effective Jan. 4. Scott Spielman, who acted as Green’s second-in-command, said she is the first person who comes to mind when he thinks of attorneys who have most influ- enced him. “Her tenacity and her very strong sense of what’s right and wrong is what I ad- mire,” he said. Veteran defense attorney David A. Torres also used “tenacity” in describing Green, as well as “aggressive,” noting her refusal to give up when seeking justice for ALEX HORVATH / THE CALIFORNIAN victims. Green shattered the glass ceiling, he “Oildale, CA: Home of Good Schools, Good Homes and Good Citizens.” That’s the slogan that Linda and Fred Enyeart said, in 2011 upon becoming the first use to promote their love for Oildale. The flyer, conceived, designed and posted by the Enyearts, conveys admirable female district attorney in the office’s aspirations and some core truths about Oildale. history — dating back to 1866. As DA, she demonstrated effective and efficient skills FLYER IS TAPED TO THE FRONT GLASS DOORS of Wattenbarger hardware, the Oil dale in management, personnel and fiscal ac- lumber store and neighborhood institution founded in 1946. It reads: “Oildale, CA: countability, he said. “From an attorney’s perspective, she A Home of Good Schools, Good Homes and Good Citizens.” • The flyer, conceived, had an extremely successful career.” designed and posted by Fred and Linda Enyeart, conveys admirable aspirations and some Despite those skills, Green has no plans to practice law in the future. core truths about Oildale. But it tells only part of the story of Bakersfield’s northern append- She’s looking forward to simple plea- age, ZIP code 93308. • The unincorporated blue-collar enclave of 32,000 directly across sures such as being able to get a workout the Kern River from Bakersfield has a well-defined sense of place and a distinct personality, in at a “regular hour” instead of squeezing one in at 5 a.m. before heading to the of- much of it good but much of it undesirable. • People like the Enyearts have been working fice. Or sitting down with a good book in hard to shift the perception, both among Oildale’s own residents and the world beyond. hand. More time with her husband, more visits to her children. As many as five separate citizens’ committees, as well as local church groups, are actively And she will closely follow the progress working to alleviate the community’s multitude of problems, but it is a daunting task. of her beloved Buffalo Bills. An ardent “Oildale is a community full of hard- of Oildale, especially south of Norris Please see GREEN | A3 working people, many of whom are look- Road and west of North Chester Avenue, INSIDE ing for ways to improve,” Mike Maggard, a white ghetto of scruffy rentals sprin- THE CALIFORNIAN Kern County’s 3rd District supervisor kled with abandoned shacks. Some lots, and unofficial mayor of Oildale, says especially south of Decatur Street, are SEE: A map charts diplomatically. “Some are well along the almost Third World in appearance. points of interest around the area. A4 path and some are at the beginning.” Exacerbating the struggle of south Some time after its founding in 1909, Oildale is a persistent drug problem of READ: Learn about Oildale, originally known as Waits or alarming dimensions. When the weather some of Oildale’s vital Northside, grew into a mod- is warm, ashen people statistics. A5 est village built around the emerge midafternoon from Kern River Oil Field, a 2-bil- the darkened garages and lion-barrel field that at one squatter-infested alleys time was the fifth-largest around Warren Avenue to operating onshore oil field in congregate, among other ONLINE DINERS CAN BET the Lower 48 states. Today, at places, outside the Long- AT BAKERSFIELD.COM ON THIS HORSE No. 10, it is still significant. branch Saloon and a mo- READ: The story of The Dust Bowl migra- bile-phone store next door. how Oildale was born, Pete Tittl visits Horse in the tion of the 1930s and ’40s It’s not uncommon to as told by George Alley Vintage Steakhouse brought waves of migrants ROBERT PRICE see a user half-sprawled on Gilbert Lynch, a Kern to California from Okla- THE CALIFORNIAN the sidewalk outside the County historian and EYE STREET | C1 homa, Texas and the south- phone store in the throes of longtime Californian ern Plains states, and many remained self-induced spasms — tweaking, in the contributor who died in Oildale after the war to work in ag- vernacular of the street — from a blast of in 2010. riculture and especially oil. The heavy crystal meth or some other illicit drug. WATCH: Robert Price concentration of Okies in Oildale seems This is Bakersfield’s Tenderloin District. introduces a quick GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN to have made them slower to assimilate Methamphetamine and heroin have visual tour of the Partial closure likely to extend into the California mainstream than the been issues here for years. Then, a community. progeny of other Dust Bowl migrants, few years ago, along came fentanyl, a past Christmas amid standoff creating the insulated culture that came synthetic opioid that is 80 to 100 times WATCH: Sports Editor over border wall funds PAGE A11 to define the community. stronger than morphine. It can be added Teddy Feinberg joins to heroin to increase its potency or used Price as he visits the TWEAKING ON THE SIDEWALK by itself, street-marketed as highly po- Highland Cafe. The oil patch continues to sustain tent heroin and injected by users who WATCH: Longbranch families in Oildale and throughout metro might never know the difference. Saloon bartender Anne Bakersfield. But pervasive poverty and all Clifton remembers the COLLEGE BASKETBALL that comes with it have rendered much Please see OILDALE | A4 Oildale of old. CSUB’s Rickey Holden is giving it his all to make a better life for 3-year-old daughter PAGE B1 SUBSCRIBER SERVICES 58/44 TO REPORT A NEWS TIP 392-5777, 800-953-5353 or [email protected] Complete forecast | A16 395-7384, 800-540-0646 or [email protected] A4 The Bakersfield Californian Sunday, December 23, 2018 LOCAL ROBERT PRICE / THE CALIFORNIAN Daniel Moffett and Rocket. OILDALE Continued from PAGE A1 “We have to be careful just open- ing the bindle, because you can be overcome by it,” Kern County Sher- iff Donny Youngblood says. “That’s the stuff that takes a lot of people down,” says Daniel Moffett, pushing a shopping cart down Roberts Lane, his dog, Rocket, in tow. “Too many people.” Moffett accepts a $5 bill and con- tinues west on Roberts. If I need to find him later, he says, he sleeps behind the doughnut shop a half- mile down the road. PREGNANT, HOMELESS AND HIGH Danielle, 27, is sitting at a picnic ALEX HORVATH / THE CALIFORNIAN table outside Young’s Drive-in, a Forty-eight-year employee Steve Robinson and 24-year employee Brad Robinson cut plywood to order. The father-and-son team love working 1950s-era mom-and-pop burger together at Wattenbarger Do-It Center in Oildale. joint on Oildale Drive. Danielle — not her real name — is high on Oildale like it used to be,” Hobbs JAMES RD S WA OU E R meth and talking to her boyfriend, said. “To us, you’re a person, not RE H D Bobby, in a speed-slur that defies a number, not a dollar bill. But it’s comprehension. She is thin as a not like it was. Everybody knew Oildale reed, except for the football-sized everybody, and everybody was paunch that juts from her abdo- friendly.” men. She is five months pregnant. Well, not everybody. 1 Her mother, Ali, at times frantic Longtime residents speak of a PETROL RD with grief, at times resigned to her threat, spray-painted on the back KERN RIVER daughter’s circumstances, has just of a billboard in some tellings, OIL FIELD pulled away in her little Hyundai, reading “N-----, Don’t Let The Sun The having met Danielle and Bobby Set On You in Oildale.” It remained 21 here just long enough to buy them for years, until the early 1960s — Bakersfield MERLE HAGGARD DR burgers, french fries, fried zucchini and much later, according to some Californian and milkshakes.

Load more

  3

Copy Link