May 17, 2023 Originally Published.

Ridgecrest California is the home of Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s “Navy Base”, aka “The Secret City” aka Naval Air Weapons Station at China Lake.

The clown show at the Ridgecrest City Council continues.

Pictured above is Councilman Kyle Blades, a DOD employee working at NAWS China Lake, taking a swig of water after feeding the “community” a complete line of bullshit at the May 3, 2023 Council meeting.

Pictured below is the Mayor of Ridgecrest, Eric A. Bruen, at the May 3, 2023 Council meeting. Mayor Bruen is a clown, take our word for it. The last three council meetings have consisted of awards and presentations, some minor agenda items and literally no members of the public sitting in the council chambers observing or speaking during public comment. Public participation at the City Council is virtually non-existent. Most people just don’t care and they don’t vote either.

It appears that the Council meetings are becoming more of a dog and pony show and less of a place to conduct the people’s business. Apparently the City has no business to discuss or controversial items to debate, with the exception of the usual streets or pool discussions.

All the publicity for the City is directed through Mayor Bruen’s Facebook page, the City’s Facebook page, or the Daily Independent newspaper. Most valley residents are kept ignorant about City politics and plans because that’s the way they want it. It’s called controlling the dialog and boring you to death. It’s bread and circuses and you’ll get your pool. “Trust us” they say.

We don’t have anything good to say about Mayor Bruen, so we’ll save you from the many whys and our usual on-target name calling just this once. Instead, we’ll provide you a real time example how Ridgecrest’s sneaky politicians and bureaucrats are setting up a dystopian AI tracking and geofencing surveillance program that will scare the shit out of you when you understand where this is going.

Before reading further, let’s take a sidetrack and check out this post on Zerohedge.com by John and Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute:

Business As Usual: Shutdown Or Not, The Police State Will Continue To Flourish

Once again, the police state is up to its old tricks, stoking tensions over whether or not the government is forced to shut down, even partially, due to a default on the national debt.

Yet while these political games dominate news headlines, send the stock market into a nosedive, and put federal employees at risk of having to work without pay, nothing about these high-handed theatrics will diminish the immediate and very real dangers of the American Police State with its roadside strip searches, government surveillance, biometric databases, citizens being treated like terrorists, imprisonments for criticizing the government, national ID cards, SWAT team raids, censorship, forcible blood draws and DNA extractions, private prisons, weaponized drones, red light cameras, tasers, active shooter drills, police misconduct and government corruption.

Business As Usual: Shutdown Or Not, The Police State Will Continue To Flourish

Many of you already do know where this is headed, and you might want to make your voices heard before it’s too late. This includes contacting Speaker McCarthy. Just say NO to Kevin and Eric Bruen.

AI is on your doorstep and in your house, both figuratively and literally. You’ll have to use your common sense and critical thinking skills, do your own research, and all you’ll have here is a 11 minute video segment of the Ridgecrest City Council opening the door to the gates of hell to help introduce you to the future of AI, the “Eye in the Sky” and the Super Cloud.

Only you can put a stop to AI tracking being used by government to surveil you right here, right now. If you don’t know what this is all about or why you should be terrified of the prospects, ask yourself a simple question: How will you feel about the government and your corporate masters taking away your freedom in a “New World Order”, where you’re forever controlled by the technocratic global “State” and the “AI Eye in the Sky” watching and seeing everything you do, say and think.

The title of this post may be changed and more information will be referenced in the next few days and weeks. Please take a few minutes to understand the “theme” we’ll be using in the future: Wokeism (and RINOism) is Global Facist-Nazism. You will eat bugs and be happy sooner than you think.

The Ridgecrest City Council didn’t want you to know about it. They want an ignorant and uninformed public to be slowly conditioned and trained to use this technology, ostensibly for “economic development purposes”.

What should concern you even more it the fact that The Daily Independent and The News Review haven’t mentioned a word about it in their papers or on their websites. Why do you think that’s the case?

We’d like to ask John Watkins and Pat Farris, do you really think that AI won’t be real time and deduce exactly who you are and where you are whenever Ron Strand or a future “CEO” or the State wants to know?

What follows below is a perfect example of your local politicians feeding you a line of bullshit while they orchestrate your dystopian future. If you’re not paying attention, you are the problem.

Below are links to the Ridgecrest City Council meeting agenda for 5/3/2023 and the meeting video on Youtube. The complete transcript of the meeting from 1:04:39 is below.

The City Attorney was not present at the meeting and the Council Chambers were empty with exception of City staff. NO members of the public were present.

There was one Agenda item for the entire meeting and it was a Consent Calendar Item.

I called in during the middle of Placer.ai presentation, was placed on hold, and I wasn’t allowed to make public comments at the end of the discussions. See Ron Strand’s “Hand cut to neck”.  

I hang up and Councilman Blades left the meeting and called me from the ante-room. I had dinner with him a month ago and expressed my serious concerns about AI tracking software.

City Manager Ron Strand, Mayor Eric Bruen and Councilman Kyle Blades were fully aware that I was holding on the phone, and they were expecting the call from Mr. Miller, a political crony of the Mayor.

I am entirely confident saying that all of the names in bold orchestrated this stunt in order to surrepticiously sneak the PLACER.AI software into the city’s software pipeline as well as the police department’s surveillance arsenal, ostensibly for “economic development purposes”. Long time City employee and now City Manager Ron Strand was previously the Chief of the Ridgecrest Police Department.

Ron Strand, City Manager and former Chief of the Ridgecrest Police Department.

Scott Miller, a political crony of Mayor Bruen’s and the resident who begins with a “public comment” suggesting a “thermometer”.

Mayor Eric Bruen is the CEO of Desert Valley’s Federal Credit Union.

Councilman Solomon Rajaratnam is the Business development manager of Desert Valleys Federal Credit Union who is on the Economic Development committee (made no comments).

Councilman Kyle Blades is a current DOD employee who is on the Economic Development committee. DHS is currently deploying AI software for domestic purposes.

Councilman John “Skip” Gorman is a retired DOD employee and made comments.

Councilman Scott Hayman is a Chiropractor and made no comments.

PLACER LABS INC., Placer.ai Software  

Desert Valleys Federal Credit Union is the “Sponsor” of the Desert Empire Fair.

“Chip” Holloway is CEO of the Desert Empire Fair. (mentioned by Bruen as a beneficiary of AI tracking information)

“Chip” Holloway is a Board Member on the Desert Valleys Federal Credit Union.

“Chip” Holloway is Former Mayor of Ridgecrest and Commercial Recycling Coordinator, Waste Management, Inc.

AGENDA: https://ridgecrest-ca.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_05032023-2454

1:04:39 Beginning of Placer.AI Discussion

Mayor Bruen: “I’m going to go a little off agenda just slightly which is, um, we were contacted up here that there was a member of the public that was trying to reach out to us and did not have the phone. I do see we have a caller on there. I’m going to allow for a moment for that caller to have the opportunity to make public comment. If it leads into more public comment we’ll take it from there but, um can I have Sco, uh the caller state your name and you’re on the clock for five minutes.

Scott Miller:  Thank you very much Mr. Mayor and City Council. Scott Miller here. Uh, I have to agree, we love all the roadwork that’s happening in town. It’s awesome. However, it would be awesome if we could have some sort of, I’m going to use the term ‘thermometer’ of where we’re at with said roadwork you were just talking about Ward I think, and you may have already addressed this I couldn’t hear I was on hold, but where we’re at is a high level of, of part a part b part c pard d going all the way up so the public has an idea of actually what’s happening as we know in the mornings is been really difficult in the morning driving down China Lake and wheel that in and if we had a way that we could see that, that would be phenomenal. Does that make sense?

Bruen: Yes it makes sense.

Miller: You can’t answer that never mind (laughs). Sorry, you guys can’t answer that. Anyway, I can’t see you right now. So uh, that’s all I really had to say, I think having something on the web and then promoting hey, let’s see where we’re at with this particular project, I think you talked briefly about paving and slurry, so having those action items on the site, in my world it seems easy to do but you know, my world is a little different anyway, but that’s just what I had to say. Thanks very much for your help and your time. Thanks guys, good job.    .

1:06:24

Bruen:  Thank you Mr. Miller. Um, we are working continuously towards making some better communications and one of things I can tell you that we’re working on behind the scenes, we don’t have anything in stone yet, but it’s been an active effort of both myself and Councilman Blades is that we would like to deliver a City of Ridgecrest application to our citizens here shortly that would allow for you have that kind of direct interaction with, with the City especially in terms of hey, if we have to close something you can have notification or something that we can, you can choose to be notified or not to be notified.

1:07:00

Blades:  So in that vein, I’ve been, uh, extremely remiss, I missed briefing you guys on something important that happened at Economic Development meeting. My apologies Mr. Mayor for going out of order.

Bruen:  Go for it

Blades: We on the Committee heard a demo from a company called Placer.AI. Placer.AI is a company that, they collect data through applications so if you have your cell phone turned, um, location services enabled in certain apps this company is grabbing ahold of that data and using it to provide information to various companies throughout the world.

Now if that gives you pause, I understand. I have asked the company to make sure they provide us with a statement of, legally, we are not, um, trampling on anybody’s freedoms, this is stuff that’s already there, we’re not usurping anybody’s rights, so, they understand that.

Now moving forward, how would we use it, we would use it, to be pointed, for economic development, see where we’re bleeding, where we’re losing money, where we’re losing business. To give an example, we asked as a demo to provide a report on what the last night on Balsam looked like. What was the traffic count, what was the demographics of the people who were there, what hours were they there, when did they leave, what restaurants did they go to after and before, where did they park to walk down. It was great. It was good data that you could see our department using, several departments within the City staff, you could see the RACVB using it, again, it’s a company called Placer.AI. We’re going to speak to them again when we go to ICSC and um, oh you’re probably waiting for the number. It was somewhere around 4,000 people.

Bruen: Wow

Blades: Somewhere around 4,000 people, which Ron guessed it, it was he was pretty close to the amount of people that were at that first night on Balsam we just had.  

Anyways it could be very useful for us, I was encouraging, I like the idea of using it. If that data, if you’re already giving that data up, we might as well use it to try and fix holes within the community. If you guys have any questions for me I’ve been through several of the, uh, several of the, uh demonstrations so ask away.

1:09:23

Bruen: Well it would be a contract to come back before the Council for a full discussion at some point right?

Blades: Well not necessarily we can discuss it all you want but it’s within Ron’s (City Manager) purview.

Bruen: It’s within Ron’s purview? Ok. Um.

Blades: Now if you, and it’s your prerogative, if you decide you want to bring it here just for, you know, discussion’s sake but we had a pretty active and lively discussion within the committee, we, I’ve talked to the City Manager about it, so really, it’s over to the City staff.

Bruen: I think that’s the power of the committees, the committees the committees give directions and

Blades: And I like the idea of giving the power to the committees and not having to drag everything up to the council.

Ron Strand: Mr. Mayor, we are looking at bringing that to the Council during the budget process to let you know what our intent is so, you’ll get it, we’ll brief you of why we want it, what the purpose is and then that’ll be part of the budget process.

1:10:12 Bruen: Thank you. Thanks for, thanks for continuing to look for news ways. I gotta personally tell you I think this is just another, another example of, you know, this thing (holds up his cell phone), I was, I was, I was, sorry I’m going to go on a story, I’m going to go on a Skip story, is I was saying, at the Follies, one of the things I thought was so funny is last time I had done it, this wasn’t in everybody’s pocket in the same way, nowhere even close to it, and how many different pictures and videos and everything else I got, that I have a record of all these, I don’t have any record of 2004 to 2011, because this wasn’t as predominately in your pocket in the same way. And it leads back to my point is that, if this is going to be a predominate instrument in everyone’s pocket and we don’t utilize the technology to the best advantage of our community, then we’re foolishly leaving technology on the sidelines that can help us run and create a better community and that’s knowing what is happening with, with events like that. I would love to know how many people went to restaurants after a night on Balsam. I’d love to know, just even if I, even if I just had the statistic for each of our individual big events like that, to be able to say hey Desert Empire fairgrounds did you know that 4,000 people came to your event from a hundred mile radius around.  And things like that, incredible.

Blades: The software will show that to you. If you have people coming from different areas, like basically you cast a geofence, you can zoom out as much as you’d like, I mean you can see that people travel from the east coast to do work here and then go to Starbucks, I mean this is all data that you can grab and collect. And most people, there’s some apps on your phone you have to have the location services on. So that’s just the way it works, um, people are giving that data away. We might as well figure out a way to use it to the benefit of the community. It is not for uh, there’s nothing negative about it and I can’t imagine that the City staff would ever use it in any, any, any negative way not that there is even a way to do that.  The company’s a pretty stand-up company.

Tehachapi uses them. They’ve been using em for a while and we’ve asked them a lot of questions and they’re very pleased with their implementation of how they use it.

Bruen: And all the data is not, we’re not getting that Jim Smith was there it’s all anonymous data it’s all generalized demographics and participation data.    

Blades: No No. You can see certain age ranges were here. You can see all kinds of demographic information so.

Bruen: It doesn’t say Bob Smith was here (Blades: nope no) nothing, nothing specific to individuals

Blades: No, I mean people’s privacy is still protected in that way. Do you guys have any questions.

John “Skip” Gorman: If we were sitting over a glass of red wine on Balsam someday chatting about this I would ask, this outfit you just mentioned has “AI” in its title.  

Blades: Yeah sure

Gorman: I’m getting suspicious of AI.

Blades: Well, you’re welcome company

Gorman: It may be this company will offer clever data manipulation and, and um, make it comprehensive. But I think we’d have to opt-in by allowing our phones to tell that company where we are. I hope that’s the way. We don’t have to opt-out to avoid it.

Blades: Yeah, the only way that it works right now, because I asked a pointed question, how do get your data that we are using ‘we get our data through a third party, we go to companies that already are gathering and scraping that data, off of, off of your phone and there’s some apps that everybody has on their phone that location service is already there, so that service will tell, gives them a lot of what they need to know. So it’s a

1:14:29 Ron Strand, City Manager. Hand to neck cut sign given to media room operator

Gorman: That technology is, it is exciting. I love chatting about it. But next time you talk to them ask them, after all the data is collected and cross-checked and whether or not their machine, um, whether or not their machine would offer a joke about it or the extent to which they’ll find irony in what they’re seeing, and suggest an efficiency of next time around, that way they’d be earning the “AI” in their title.

Blades: Roger that.

Bruen: So I wanna, uh, thank you this was all in committee reports. I do want to address there was another caller that called in I apologize I’m not going to take the call because I don’t want to get into trouble with my attorney. I gave the opportunity because we were contacted in the middle, and I gave plenty of pause I apologize. If the caller would like contact, the City Council will be happy to speak with you about whatever your concern is.

Blades: Or whoever it is, contact me personally.

Bruen: Contact us, we’ll be happy to speak with you about apologizies, I’m not gonna run off Agenda further um, that that get’s me into Brown Act trouble that is just not what I’m going to open that door with. Um, next would be other committees, boards or commissions.

Blades: I have the east kern pollution board tomorrow.

Bruen: I don’t have any. Anybody else? Any other reports? Nope? City Manager report.

1:15:45 Strand: City Manager Report