At a regular meeting Monday evening the Tehachapi City Council heard a presentation on the city’s Shop Local and Staycation initiatives.
City Community Engagement Director Key Budge said the Shop Local program, which started that day, is something the city has done in the past. But it has been expanded to include businesses of all sizes.
The program allows anyone who spends more than $250 in businesses within city limits to bring their receipts to Tehachapi City Hall, or the weekly Farmers Market, to receive a gift card to a local business.
He said he hopes the gift cards the city purchased, as well as those many businesses donated, will last through Labor Day.
Budge said the program is in part a response to the rising price of fuel, which the city suspects will keep Tehachapi residents from doing as much traveling over the summer. He said that suspicion has been confirmed through significant community feedback to the program’s announcement.
This program is part of a larger effort by the city to focus on providing more local events aimed at local people, Budge said.
He said this year’s Farmers Markets, to be held every Thursday through Aug. 13 on Green Street, have been organized with that goal in mind. The city has also introduced a new series of free concerts in town, the first of which was Saturday in Railroad Park.
Kern Council of Governments presents transportation project plan for coming years
Also at the meeting the council held a public hearing on a draft plan for transportation projects coming in the years ahead. These projects are being handled by the Kern Council of Governments.
Kern COG Executive Director Jay Schlosser, who was the city’s development services director for many years, said the hearing is part of an outreach effort by COG, a joint powers authority agency that was created in the 1970s to manage state and federal money for transportation projects in the county.
The plan presented to the council covers the next four years of regional projects, most notably the Keene Pavement Project, which aims to rehabilitate 12.25 miles of Highway 58 near Tehachapi and construct a 3.5-mile eastbound truck-climbing lane.
This project has been highly anticipated by the city, with many council members saying the truck climbing lane will substantially improve safety on the road, which can be treacherous at the best of times.
Tehachapi Mayor Joan Pogon-Cord said she’s not looking forward to the construction itself, which will affect traffic, but it is a project that is badly needed.
Schlosser said he still lives in Tehachapi and commutes to Bakersfield, so he can be counted on to make sure the project goes as well as possible.
The plan also contains $54 million worth of improvements to Highway 202, though much of that is four or five years away.
Likewise, $25 million for pavement projects in the area is also five to six years out.
No members of the public spoke at the hearing and Schlosser said the deadline for submitting comment on the plan is July 2.