David Thomas: “This has been a long, twisted road that really should have been a relatively short driveway in achieving today's…”

“This has been a long, twisted road that really should have been a relatively short driveway in achieving today's presentation on the floor of the House. As was indicated, this was an attempt to resolve land use conflicts that developed over half a century. On the Valley floor near the Kern River, which is pretty much barren and rock strewn land, although above 4,000 feet in elevation, about half a century ago the county began developing a youth detention camp along the model with which most of us would be familiar. If one takes youths who really are not bad, but who have an over-abundance of energy, and direct it toward positive and useful activity in a rather hardy environment, then a number of them become very useful and model citizens. This has been successful for more than half a century. As one might expect, the uses of the camp, which were fairly rustic initially, have developed more into activities that would be meaningful to youth today: the building of a large garage facility in which they can rehabilitate cars; the development of a fish hatchery in which they can involve themselves in useful experiences that actually become quite useful when they are out looking for a job, all of this developed on land that was Forest Service land.”