June 25, 2023

Ridgecrest California

On Wednesday night, the Ridgecrest City Council agenda included the approval of a 6% increase in the City’s contract with Waste Managment to be effective on July 1st. Problem is they didn’t approve it. Now what? Will WM be collecting your trash after the 1st, or what?

The Council decided to delay the vote while Mayor Eric Bruen and City Manager Ron Strand squirmed in their seats and defended the contract with Waste Management despite numerous issues with the implementation of SB1383, California’s new mandatory recycling program. At one point in the meeting, Strand compared the residents of Ridgecrest that hadn’t properly changed their trash and recycling habit patterns to trashy smokers whining about smoking bans in bars and road-raged drivers refusing to wear seatbelts.

Before we proceed any further, let’s remind you of the some of the many, many ways Californians are getting screwed as a result of the Covid-19 Plandemic, the biowarfare assault on the world, the deadly and injurious mRNA jab, while food processing facilities are blowing up all over the country, entire herds of cows are being destroyed, and finally, farmers are still being forced to fallow hundreds of thousands acres of farmland to save a smelt.

Now let’s talk trash. The pictures below were taken on Sunday June 25th, 2023. Not much has changed since our May 2020 photo-tour of Ridgecrest during the Covid-19 lockdown (see end of post). In many ways, it’s even worse than during the lockdowns. Trash cans line many streets, lids are blown open without rocks holding them down, and because Ravens don’t take Sundays off, they were all out in full force.

Where is Benz, er, Waste Management? Sorry, that’s a flashback to 2012. This time it was Waste Management who was at the City Council meeting on Wednesday and they were also in full force with six employees ready to listen to complaints. They patiently waited for the council to approve the rate increase while numerous residents voiced their complaints about the service or lack thereof. If they aren’t shitting on Mayor Bruen’s clown show and parade we don’t know who is.

Councilman Skip Gorman added to the trash talk, saying he wasn’t at all pleased with the terms of the WM Contract, and we assume he wished he could have been on the Council when Bruen and Strand negotiated the damn thing. He will vote “no” on any increase.

Bruen and City Manager Ron Strand scolded the residents of the City who can’t seem to get their act together with the every-other week collection schedule implemented under SB1383. What’s SB1383 you ask? You must not be playing with the kids on Facebook enough. They know.

Bruen took it a step further, saying he wouldn’t allow the residents of Ridgecrest to be fined $10,000 per day for their failures to recycle, and worried that it would threaten all the “progress” he’s made to tax your trash and spend more of your money. In other words, we’ll take away your pool if you don’t get your trash act together.

Pictured below is a sample of what the Mayor has been selling: Price Tag: $9.000,000 (Pre Measure “P” whisper number), today it’s $14,000,000 plus annual maintenance. We’ll have to wait to see how much the City charges to use the pool and who they charge, e.g. SSUSD, CCCC, or Kern County Residents. You didn’t hear that during the Measure P sales tax scampaign but you can guess it’s coming even though county residents pay the sales tax too.

Wherry (La Mirage) is still a mess, and they even have their very own garbage dump in the back of the complex over by Pierce school. We’ve mentioned Wherry a few times before, it remains and will forever be a festering sore in the center of Ridgecrest.

It appears that some of the residents in La Mirage are exempt from trash collection by Waste Management and La Mirage is collecting it themselves. They’re even using some old trash bins left-over from the Benz days and have their own 2+ acre dump! We found the old trash bins in the “streets” with trash and lids open. The “Wherry dump” is full.

The insurance companies State Farm and Allstate are leaving California figuratively speaking, and you should take their hint. Isn’t it ironic that the one person in town who truly worked his ass-off to clean up the City of Ridgecrest was Gary Charlon, the mover behind the Ridge Project. He was doing it all by himself, and he received virtually no support from the City.

State Farm is turning off their independent agent relationships by not writing any new homeowners policies. We want to thank Gary Charlon of State Farm for all his hard work. Without his efforts on the “Ridge Project”, Ridgecrest would look even worse.

Gary can’t help you with a new homeowner’s policy even if he wants to, and we don’t doubt the City could’ve done more to promote and support The Ridge Project. State Farm is done with the State of California as a direct result of the U.S. Forestry Service’s atrocious mis-management of the many destructive wildfires in California over the last 8 years. We will guess that Gary isn’t too happy about what’s become of Ridgecrest and his native State of California.

We can hardly wait for the City of Ridgecrest to build that new sign to the entrance of Ridgecrest on South China Lake Boulevard. Has anyone ever explained to the City that a “Boulevard” is defined as a tree-lined roadway and a gateway corridor? We have trash instead of trees.

If there’s anything to say about “Speed Checked By Radar”, we’ll make the point by suggesting that two new signs are needed as visitors come into town, “Whereabouts Checked By Placer.ai” and “License Plates Checked By Ron Strand”.

In the future (now) your speed will be checked by “The Eye in The Sky”. Radar is so old-school.

And, you need to understand one thing about trash – either you comply with CalRecycle’s tyrannical trash edicts or you will be villified, your trash will be photographed and you will recieve a trash violation and deduction from your digital wallet if you don’t comply. Future violations will result in a reduction of your social credit score and possibly a restriction on your lab cultured meat allotment. Got it Ridgecrest trashters?

Bowman Road is without doubt, the trashyist of the trashy streets in Ridgecrest. From Walmart to the Kern County Dump, it’s the gateway corridor for Walmart shoppers coming from the Kern River Valley. Three years later, it’s uglier and trashier with no bike lanes or regular maintenance. One “community cleanup” day on Bowman per year is not enough.

Mahan Street is marred, incomplete and has been neglected for many years. The good news is that the City has applied for a CEQA grant to finish the street between Springer and Bowman Roads. Construction might begin in 2025. It’s about time! Still, the “mansion on Mahan” had a U-haul truck parked in front and it looks like the “special events” idea didn’t work out. The trash cans remained on the street as of Sunday. Across the street, Pro-Tax has a mess on its hands courtesy of the Ravens and the wind. Did Waste Management forget about them?

Quite a few small businesses and various civic organizations and schools have resorted to using the chain-link fence at the Drive-thru dairy on Ridgecrest Boulevard to advertise. Approximately 10 banners in various condition are a compliment to the trash lined streets. Secret City Tattoo, Cerro Coso Community College and St. Ann’s Catholic Church are among the “advertisers”. This isn’t something we can officially call trash, but banners on chain link fences is a form of trash zip-tied on chain link fencing. Trash by another name is still trash.

Why do we bother taking a photo tour of Ridgecrest? We don’t know and at this point, and we don’t care. Why should we? Mayor Bruen is happy to welcome tourists to Ridgecrest but he has nothing to sell except trash, RV’s and the Maturango Museum. Locals aren’t buying any of it unless they’re atheists, climate change fascists or members of a Satanic secret society: