RIDGECREST, Calif. (KERO) — Ridgecrest, California is one of two cities in Kern County that will be electing a mayor in November. Voters in Ridgecrest will be choosing between two candidates, previous Ridgecrest City Council member Thomas Wiknich, and the city's incumbent mayor, Eric Bruen.
Ridgecrest is a city 100 miles away from Bakersfield, but the two cities have similar issues, from drought to staffing, for which the two candidates for mayor both want to provide solutions.
“I want to see Ridgecrest be a bigger and better community in the future, and I want it not only for myself, but more importantly, for my kids,” Bruen said about his motivation to continue serving the city as mayor.
Challenger Thomas Wiknich has similar sentiments about the future he wants to see for Ridgecrest.
“I care about this town. I want it to be a nice, functioning town,” said Wiknich. “I love it here and I want to try and make it a good place for everyone to live here.”
Bruen, who was originally elected in 2020, has served the city throughout the covid-19 pandemic, and credits his office’s successes to his administrative team.
“Probably the biggest thing I’ve learned over the past two years is the best asset that any city has is its staff and its people that work dedicated for the community,” said Bruen.
One of the successes of Bruen’s administration is the city’s growing social media reach to residents.
“We just started this communication campaign, and we’re getting now thousands of responses from our citizens, and that’s giving us so much more insight into what they want versus what sometimes just bubble of influence or bubbles of small groups of people want,” said Bruen.
Bruen does, however, recognize that there are still many issues his office must be prepared to address if he is elected to stay, especially when it comes to the drought.
“We certainly hope and want to see a continued effort on our water issue,” Bruen said. “We know we have a long-term water issue that, honestly, was 30 years in the making, and it’s going to take 30 years in the fixing.”
Thomas Wiknich agrees that water conservation and infrastructure is a big problem facing the city, and he believes he could bring a fresh perspective to the discussion about solutions.
“the main thing is I want to bring in some new ideas, especially for the water district,” said Wiknich. “Not for the water district, but for the water problem we have here. There’s so much work that needs to be done and the groundwater authority we have here needs some more guidance.”
Wiknich served on the Ridgecrest City Council twice, once in the 1980s and again in the 2000s. He says he feels like it is his time to be mayor.
“Because of the experience I’ve had, like I said, I’ve been a councilman and a vice mayor before, i just haven’t been the mayor,” said Wiknich. “Figure I’d just go for that and bring my experience and new ideas, as an outside person, bring them in.”
Wiknich says his goal as mayor will be to move Ridgecrest forward.
“I choose to be deciding what we can do with what we have today, and move on with what we have today,” said Wiknich. “And we can move on. We can do a lot of good things for the city.”
Another city issue the candidates agree about is that Ridgecrest residents need a fun and safe place to cool off. The solution is the same from both candidates: A community pool
“When you have kids and you suddenly look around and you don’t see things like a community pool or playgrounds or accessibility, you suddenly have a different consciousness about what you want out of your community,” said Bruen. “And if you want something, then you better be prepared to get off your butt and work for it.”
“We definitely have our own issues over here, and one of them is we don’t have a community pool,” agrees Wiknich. “I’d like to see the Penny Pool here get rebuilt, and I believe the city has funds to do that right now if they wanted to. They just haven’t done it yet, and I believe that should be a first priority; to rebuild the community pool that we have currently in mothballs.”
California ballots for state and local races started being sent out as of Monday. Voters can find more information about these candidates and many others around Kern County in their Voter Information Guides.
