Community Input
Results from Phase III Community Forums:
Stockdale High School - April 13, 2000
Our Slogan
- The spirit of "Baker's Field" still lives
- "Hot spot - Cool Place"
- Come stay for awhile
- The Venice of the Valley
- California's hometown
- Don't just drive thru: Stay for awhile
- The biggest small town you'll find
Our Image
- A community that embraces all of its members
- Smart planners
- Clean, safe city
- Attractive convention city with arts, theatre, music
- Green & Water
- Trend setting and innovative
Our Reputation
- Residents committed to higher standards
- Helpful
- Loving community
- Friendly, caring community
- A place where people can come to raise a family
- Still a family community
- Friendly
- SLO of the valley - a place people want to be
Civic Culture
- Kids want pools
Business Environment
- Fostering family owned business
- "Business-friendly" govt. agencies
- Organic Ag
- An international agriculture and trade center
- Vibrant downtown and many business clusters in all areas of Bakersfield
- More locally owned businesses
Arts & Culture
- Music center
- Opera house
- Kern River School of Art
- Art Museum
- Beautiful Central Park
- Music Center for Symphony
- IMAX Theater
- Children's Museum - hands on
Education
- Engineering, other hi-tech university courses
- Less than 5% dropout rate
- Each H.S. graduate to have a resume and samples of work on a CD
Heart of the City
- The Kern River Green Belt
- Kern River Parkway with Sam Lynn the middle and a park
- More people living there
- Outdoor cafes
- A vibrant downtown full of activity and people
- Diverse, friendly people
- Cafes/restaurants/shopping - a downtwon marketplace
- A dome in the center of the city with a controlled atmosphere
Our Values
- Small town
- Character counts
- Family oriented - high morals and caring
Technology
- Internet hub - also fulfillment
- More computer access in classrooms
Transportation
- Airplanes +++.com
- Monorali to L.A. and In town light rail
- Car pools encouraged
- Hovercraft and computer guidance systems for all vehicles
- Community clusters so people can walk to shopping, work, school, etc.
- Bakersfield is a major stop on the interstate high speed rail
Biggest Changes
- Direction of growth from SW to NE
- Cessation of developer-driven planning
- More deputy sheriffs in county areas
- Competitive newspaper (another choice besides the Californian
- Widespread youth centers throughout the community and each neighborhood
Break Thrus
- Healing center
- No poverty, hunger, or joblessness
- Cleanest air in the valley
- We conquered the "digital divide" - a computer in every home
- Lots of water in river and parks all year
Looking back I'm most proud of…
- The changes we've made in improvement of air quality, health care, ag techniques, conservation of farmland, city growth towards the hills (East)…
- A successful Vision 2020 project!!!
What's our Vision for our Economy over the next 10-20 years?
- Lots of entry and high tech jobs
- Crafts training through apprenticeship programs for students that may not go on to college
- State and federal offices
- Advance from an ag based economy to a more technologically based economy
- More jobs in financial sector
- Less dependancy on oil and ag
- Less government/more entrepreneurial spirit
- More diversity
- Hometown owned business
- More support for zoo, art museum
- Light manufacturing (computer componenets, etc.)
- Canneries, chees factories, dehydrators, etc. - outside of Bakersfield to create more good jobs
What kind of Economic Development Initiatives do we want to create?
- Quality business clusters
- Vocation opportunities for students who don't go to college
- We need more workers for service areas
- Waiver of some fees for infill development
- Canneries to use produce grown here
- Tax incentives to draw desirable businesses
What kind of jobs do we want to attract here over the next 10-20 years?
- Information age work - higher paying and educational strategies to achieve
- Historic tours
- Jobs for kids
- International commerce
- Electronically connected home based jobs
- Quality medical care
- We need to improve teachers performance
- Publishing
- Movie industry
- Research centers
- Healing Center - "Complementary Care"
- Think tanks
- Medical clinic - private
Our Vision for Downtown
- Modern airport
- Expand K.C. Museum
- Clear off blocks downtown and build homes
- Utilize Hopper property
- Trees
- More green on 58 and 99
- New City Hall on Truxtun with park between city hall and county admin building.
- Single and multi family housing in the area of Central Park
- Art Museum expanded downtown
- Housing in the Northeast
- World renowned museum complex at K.C. Museum site
- New baseball stadium at Sam Lynn
- Underpass of Hwy 178 thru town with parkway on top
- Nordstrom along Chester Ave. Upscale housing near Riverwalk
- Riverwalk completed to tourist and recreation area between Truxtun and California
- High density housing downtown
- Farmers Market and entertainment at night like SLO
- A beautiful park for children (Central Park) with a Carousel - near Bak. Museum of Art
- Lakeview: revitalized neighborhoods - parks that are safe - neighborhood supermarkets and retailers
In our Community's Future We Wanted and We Got…
- Better shopping ( ex. Nordstrom)
- Tree ordinance
- Low cost entertainment for teens
- Better schools K-12
- Protection of air and water quality
- Water Park
- River Walk
- More government support for the Arts
- Mandatory recycling
- More efficient public transportation system
- Lots of open space interspersed throughout the city
- Cracker Barrel!
- We need educational support for ag based business: i.e.ag training inbusiness, growth, etc.
- Higher paying jobs
- Curbside recycling
- Large community Foundation
- Landscaped 99 freeway
- Continuous Crosstown freeway
- "BART" type transit
- A beautiful river
- Arboreal atmosphere - tall, cooling
- Whitewater Parks, "slolam boating"
- Better enforcement of traffic laws
- An area outside of greater Bakersfield for dairies, chesse factories, oil refineries, etc.
- Clean air and water
- Ag land protected primarily with row crops
- Clean safe water running year round in the Kern
In our Community' Future We Didn't Want and We Didn't Get…
- L.A. Refuse or from any other place
- Loss of prime agricultural lands to urban sprawl
- Urban blight (existing, un-used facilities)
- Sprawl/without planning
- Polluted air
- Unwed parents and teen pregnancies
- Mega dairies
- Excessive pesticides
- No homeless
- Messy freeways
- Sprawl
- To be the dairy center of CA
- Air that's polluted
- Abandoned buildings
- More WWF Shows
- Developments without dust control
- Crowding
- Developer-driven (tailwagging dog) planning
- More government
Metropolitan Bakersfield - 2010 General Planning Area
- Fill in blanks before building outward
- Upscale housing downtown
- Hwy 178 connects to Golden State North to connection with Hageman
- Residential construction to the Northeast
- Whitewater Park and Recreational Area at the East end of river - Develop/clean the river
- Clean, safe water running in the Kern year round
- No housing In SW quadrant
- Big dairies are great in the right place (S end)
- Protect Ag lands with primarily row crops as we have had traditionally - yes on 3,000 cow dairies properly located with dairy inspectors and egulations to oversee. Cap the number of dairies in CA
- Small sized dairies (3000 cows are enough) S of 223
- Several parks S of town - more trees
- Housing with trees ala "Old Westchester and Oleander"
- Beltway around community from 58 S along Taft Hwy to I-5 and N to connect with 7th Standard
Common Themes
- Trees
- Water
- River as resource
- Changes
- Houses/homes
- Downtown redevelopment
- Freeway connection
- Clean air
- Proper planning
- Education
- Arts
- Diversity employment/education
- Family town
