Photos by Catherine Stachowiak
Some time between the late night hours of Thursday October 4, and the wee early morning hours of Friday Oct 5, the Kern River Valley Art Association (KRVAA) experienced a theft from their Art and Community Center facility, in Wofford Heights.
President and executive director of the association, Christopher Buffalo Folsom called the Kern Valley Sun over to the association’s big red building, to chat about the loss, and show the press the exact location the thieves took a compressor, worth thousands of dollars, from. When the thieves dragged it out of the back porch, they apparently left a trail, along with their shoe prints in the dirt. The trail of drag marks led into the closest parking lot, off the side of the facility, where the thieves kept their vehicle, which would have been able to tow the 300-pound compressor. Their vehicle left tire marks nearby.
Folsom thinks there had to be at least two perpetrators involved in the theft. “They weren’t pros. I think they do it just for fun. They don’t care who they hurt. I think that they will sell it. But what bothers me is it’s someone who probably has been in here and seen what we’re doing. They’re taking from the community. We’re all about the community. We lose money every single month,” Folsom said.
“We put the sign up at the Station that says to stop stealing from us. When you steal from us, you’re stealing from the kids across the street, from other families.”
Where the compressor was, it was bolted down and the thieves bent the bolts to get the compressor out. “The drag marks are still here from them trying to get it out of here,” he said.
The compressor is awkward to move because all the weight is on top. “It had to have been two people. It’s too big of a machine for one person (to move,)” said Folsom.
The thieves cut the electrical wire where it was hardwired in at the electricity box at the back of the building
The machine was worth maybe $2,000. Buffalo said he has had people contact him about donating money to get another compressor. But whenever they found out it was worth a couple grand they wouldn’t bother, because most donors can’t afford to do it. According to the California Penal Code grand theft includes theft of property with a value of more than $950. Grand theft is a wobbler and can be charged as a misdemeanor or felony. A misdemeanor sentence results in up to 364 days in jail. A felony sentence results in prison time of 16 months, two years, or three years.
The story began when initially Rat Rod Bob of Wofford Heights, maker of unique vehicles, generously donated an older compressor to the KRVAA. Instead of the compressor repair place fixing it, they gave the KRVAA a completely new compressor.
The association brought the new compressor up and poured a slab to place it at the back of the building. The KRVAA had their electrician hard wire it in. “We were just getting ready to plumb it into the building, which would have made it a little bit harder for them to take but we didn’t have time.”
Folsom said he has notified the police. “They (the thieves) took our hose. It didn’t make any sense. They were just here for anything they could get.”
Folsom believed the thieves were people that knew the KRVAA got the compressor. He said there was a number of people who saw what he was doing putting the compressor in.
This was not the first burglary the organization has experienced. Buffalo said, “There was a couple that broke into the Station, when we first actually set the alarms in there. And we had them on camera. It was an older woman and an older guy. And they got all the way in before the alarm went off. When the alarm went off then they tried to hurry out. According to what I’ve been told they do it just for fun. They got a guitar. They got some mic equipment. And then they also got a pressure washer. This feels like when they broke into that building.”
The compressor wasn’t that visible, and Buffalo had been checking often to see if the compressor was still in place because he had to wait for it to be permanently fixed, and then it would have become more difficult to steal.
The police told him they’d keep an eye out. Folsom said at least 8 to 10 people knew about and saw the compressor.
“They cut the wire. When they cut the wire there must have been sparks flying everywhere because it’s a 220 current and they had to have used insulated cutters. But they still would have gotten a lot of sparks and they popped the breaker obviously when they cut it.” When volunteers or staff came into the building, afterwards, the electricity was off. The cable the thieves cut was hardwired in, which means it goes from the electrical to the plug.
The theft also caused the contractor to lose money, who would have done the job, plumbing the compressor into the building. “The bottom line is it’s somebody who doesn’t care about the community because that’s what we’re all about.”
Update: Saturday October 12, Folsom announced that an artist, John Clark had kindly donated another compressor to the KRVAA to replace the stolen one. The KRVAA was very grateful for the generosity of all the donors involved in this series of events.
