Raymond A. (Ray) Watson (born 1936) is a former American television executive who was a member of the Board of Supervisors in Kern County, California, representing the western part of the county, between November 2002 and November 2012. He was chairman of the board in 2010. Watson was named Broadcaster of the Year by the California Broadcasters Association in 2002. He was on the advisory committee of the Carrizo Plain National Monument and was a director of the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District.
Watson was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1936 and moved to Kern County in 1978. He is married to Marlene Watson, and they have two grown children. [1] [2]
Watson graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in accounting. He served in the United States Army Finance Corps, when he was based at Fort Irwin, California. He is a member of St. Paul's Anglican Church. [1] [3]
Watson was a certified public accountant with the firm of Ernst and Ernst in Los Angeles and San Diego from 1962 to 1966. [1] He also worked in finance, administration, and personnel for Time-Life Broadcasting Company and McGraw-Hill Broadcasting Company in San Diego for nine years. [3]
He was vice president and general manager of television stations in Bakersfield, Fresno, Santa Maria and San Luis Obispo for a total of 27 years. Watson was named Broadcaster of the Year (2002) by the California Broadcasters Association.
He was head of KERO TV-10 in Bakersfield from 1975 to 1981, then went to KMGH TV-7 in Denver, Colorado. In 1983 Watson was back in Bakersfield as vice president and general manager of KGET TV-17. He was on the board of directors of the California Broadcasters Association and the Broadcasting Financial Management Association. [4]
KGET dedicated its downtown studio building in Watson's name upon his retirement from broadcasting in July 2002. [3]
Watson was awarded the John Brock Award by the School of Business and Public Administration at California State University, Bakersfield (CSUB), as Community Leader of the Year. Watson has been president of the Greater Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Business Association, and the Bakersfield Rotary Club. He has been on the Kern Medical Center Blue Ribbon Committee and the CSUB President's Advisory Committee. He has been a board member of both the Bakersfield College and Memorial Hospital foundations, as well as the board of the Bakersfield Convention and Visitors Bureau. [3] He is on the advisory committee of the Carrizo Plain National Monument. [5]
He was chairman of the Employers Training Resource Private Industry Council of Kern, Inyo, and Mono Counties, Future Bakersfield Foundation, United Way of Bakersfield, Kern Transportation Foundation, and Kern View Foundation. [3]
Watson was elected to the county Board of Supervisors in November 2002 to represent the 4th District after Supervisor Ken Peterson died in office. He was reelected in 2004. [1]
He was elected to a third term in June 2008. He was accused by his opponent, Cliff Thompson, of "playing dirty backroom games" during the campaign. The latter claimed that Watson had told Bakersfield Mayor Harvey Hall, owner of an ambulance service, to move Hall's public relations man off Thompson's campaign team. Watson denied the charge. Watson had 11,064 votes to Thompson's 8,005. Thompson was endorsed by State Senator Dean Florez and public employee unions. [6] [7] [8]
In 2010, Watson was named chairman of the board by his fellow supervisors for a one-year term. [9]
The 4th District covers the rural, western part of the county, and in 2010 it included the towns of Lost Hills, Wasco, Buttonwillow, McKittrick, Tupman, Taft, Maricopa, Pine Mountain Club, Lebec and Frazier Park. [10]
Watson strongly criticized State Senator Dean Florez for introducing a bill that would have banned all dairies within three miles of any school or urban area, to improve air quality. Watson said he wanted "customized buffers around cities that could be closer than three miles in some places and farther in others." He also stated that it was "a local planning issue and it should remain so. Kern County should not allow the state to usurp the authority of local governments to establish land use policies." [11]
Residents of Pine Mountain Club were "angered by Watson's opposition to the county paying for a permanent ambulance or firefighter paramedics in their small town in the mountains above Frazier Park." [12]
Watson declared his opposition to a bill in the State Assembly by Fremont Democrat Alberto Torrico to impose a 12.5 percent severance tax on oil production. "This tax is aimed right at the heart of our economy," he said. He predicted the tax would result in the loss of 7,000 oil industry-related jobs and millions of dollars in unrealized tax receipts. [13] Kern County produced 60 percent of the state's oil in 2010. [14]
He declared himself open to the county's taking over the city of Maricopa in the event it would be disincorporated. "It's sad," he said. "When you drive down the street almost all the businesses are boarded up. It could be a quaint little place, but investors would want to know that the city was going to be liquid and provide necessary services." [15]
Watson said he was encouraged by a plan to retain state prisoners in county jails beginning October 1, 2011. He said he especially liked Kern County's plan to confine the prisoners to their homes with electronic monitoring and the creation of fire camps to train them as firefighters. [16]
He was one of two supervisors who voted against a successful supervisorial resolution opposing a proposed high-speed rail project through the Central Valley ""in its current form." He said he had been "involved with California's high-speed rail plan for 20 years" and believed it was needed for the "long-term health of the state." [17]
Watson was accused by The Californian newspaper in 2008 of having an "ivory tower style, which leaves many constituents, especially those living in outlying communities, feeling abandoned." To charges like these, of being a "drive-by supervisor," Watson responded that it was more efficient to schedule meetings back-to-back in his office than to spend time driving. [18]
As a member of the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, Watson voted in favor of a $12-per-vehicle annual fee to fight air pollution, but only on those vehicles registered in the Valley. Activists complained that Valley vehicles contributed only 9 percent of the ozone problem, but Watson said that "I think $1 a month from vehicle owners is not too much to ask, especially if it prevents businesses from shutting down because they can't afford to pay the penalty." [19]
Watson commented adversely on an agreement between the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District and the developers of a power plant in Alameda County, near Livermore, by which the developer would pay $200,000 to the district in mitigation of pollution that would be blown into the San Joaquin Valley by the predominantly easterly winds over the Altamont Pass. The funds would be used to upgrade farmers' diesel pumps or replace their trucks or tractors, among other possibilities. "Those engines will be purchased and we will get no gain out of it," he said. [20]
Kern County is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 909,235. Its county seat is Bakersfield.
Arvin is a city in Kern County, California. Arvin is located 15 miles (24 km) southeast of Bakersfield, at an elevation of 449 feet (137 m). As of the 2010 census, the population was 19,304, up from 12,956 at the 2000 census.
Bakersfield is a city in Kern County, California, United States. Bakersfield is the largest city and county seat of Kern County. The city covers about 151 sq mi (390 km2) near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley, which is located in the Central Valley region.
Frazier Park is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Kern County, California. It is 5 miles (8 km) west of Lebec, at an elevation of 4,639 feet (1,414 m). It is one of the Mountain Communities of the Tejon Pass. The population was 2,592 in the 2020 census, down from 2,691 in 2010.
The San Joaquin Valley is the southern half of California's Central Valley, an area drained by the San Joaquin River. Praised as a breadbasket, the San Joaquin Valley is a major source of food, producing a significant part of California's agricultural output.
Gorman is an unincorporated community in northwestern Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is located in Peace Valley south of the Tejon Pass, which links Southern California with the San Joaquin Valley and Northern California. Due to this location, the area has served as a historic travel stop dating back to the indigenous peoples of California. Tens of thousands of motorists travel through Gorman daily on the Golden State Freeway since the highway's completion in the mid-20th Century.
The Carrizo Plain is a large enclosed grassland plain, approximately 50 miles (80 km) long and up to 15 miles (24 km) across, in southeastern San Luis Obispo County, California, United States, about 100 miles (160 km) northwest of Los Angeles. The southern portion of the Carrizo Plain is within the 246,812-acre (99,881 ha) Carrizo Plain National Monument, which also includes most of the Caliente Range. The Carrizo Plain is the largest single native grassland remaining in California. It includes Painted Rock in the Carrizo Plain Rock Art Discontiguous District, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2012 it was further designated a National Historic Landmark due to its archeological value. The San Andreas Fault occurs along the eastern edge of the Carrizo Plain at the western base of the Temblor Range.
U.S. Route 399 was a U.S. Highway in the state of California that ran from Ventura to Bakersfield. It was established in 1934 and decommissioned in 1964, as it was only 124 miles (200 km) long, less than the 300-mile (480 km) minimum that the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) set as the threshold for U.S. Highways. It has been replaced with a segment of State Route 33 (SR 33), all of SR 119, and a segment of SR 99.
The Temblor Range is a mountain range within the California Coast Ranges, at the southwestern extremity of the San Joaquin Valley in California in the United States. It runs in a northwest-southeasterly direction along the borders of Kern County and San Luis Obispo County. The name of the range is from Spanish temblor meaning "tremor", referring to earthquakes. The San Andreas Fault Zone runs parallel to the range at the base of its western slope, on the eastern side of the Carrizo Plain, while the Antelope Plain, location of the enormous Midway Sunset, South Belridge, and Cymric oil fields, lies to the northeast.
Nicole M. Parra is an American attorney and politician who served as a member of the California State Assembly from 2002 to 2008. A Democrat, she represented the 30th Assembly district, which includes a portion of California's Central Valley.
The Midway-Sunset Oil Field is a large oil field in Kern County, San Joaquin Valley, California in the United States. It is the largest known oilfield in California and the third largest in the United States.
Michael J. Rubio is a former California State Senator representing the 16th Senate District before resigning on February 22, 2013. He previously served as Fifth District Kern County Supervisor representing the communities of Arvin, Lamont, and East Bakersfield.
The Cuyama Valley is a valley along the Cuyama River in central California, in northern Santa Barbara, southern San Luis Obispo, southwestern Kern, and northwestern Ventura counties. It is about two hours driving time from both Los Angeles and the Santa Barbara area.
The Mountain Communities of the Tejon Pass, or the Frazier Mountain Communities, in the San Emigdio Mountains is a region of California that includes Lebec, Frazier Park, Lake of the Woods, Pinon Pines, and Pine Mountain Club, in Kern County, Gorman in Los Angeles County and Lockwood Valley within Kern and Ventura counties. They are all within or near the Tejon Pass, which links Southern California with the San Joaquin Valley. Also sometimes included within the communities are Cuddy Valley, Grapevine, Neenach and New Cuyama.
Tejon Mountain Village is a proposed residential, commercial, and recreational development of pristine, rugged property in the Tehachapi Mountains owned by the Tejon Ranch Company in Lebec, southern Kern County, California. The development includes the largest conservation and land-use agreement in California history. It was approved by the county's Board of Supervisors in October 2009. Opponents launched a legal challenge that was denied in state district court in April 2012.
Kern County’s transportation system was quoted as the “unseen industry.” Located at the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley, the county is at a prime location to ship goods west to the central coast, south to ports in Los Angeles, and east to corridors that connect to the rest of the country. It is also on major corridors that link to all northern points.
The Kern County Library is a public library system serving the residents of Kern County, California. The library system is headquartered at the Beale Memorial Library in Downtown Bakersfield. There are additional branches located throughout Kern County. The library is also a part of the San Joaquin Valley Library System (SLVLS), which is a corporative network of library systems located throughout the San Joaquin Valley.
The Mountain View Oil Field is a large, mature, but still-productive oil field in Kern County, California, in the United States, in the extreme southern part of the San Joaquin Valley southeast of Bakersfield. It underlies the town of Arvin, as well as some smaller agricultural communities. The field is spread out across a large area, covering just under 8 square miles (21 km2), with wells and storage facilities widely dispersed throughout the area, scattered among working agricultural fields of broccoli and carrots as well as citrus orchards. Discovered in 1933, it has produced over 90 million barrels (14,000,000 m3) of oil in its lifetime, and although declining in production is one of the few inland California fields in which new oil is still being discovered.
Shannon Lee Grove is an American politician, who represents California's 12th State Senatorial district, encompassing the southern Central Valley and parts of the High Desert. A Republican, she served as the minority leader of the California State Senate from 2019 to 2021.
Bakersfield station is a former Southern Pacific Railroad station and hotel in Bakersfield, California. The station opened June 27, 1889, in the town of Sumner. The station was a mixture of Richardsonian Romanesque, Spanish Colonial Revival, and Moderne styles. It was closed in 1971, after the formation of Amtrak.