News Editor
Stimulated to improve the Bakersfield community, retired realtor and businessman Kyle Carter is one of the final two candidates running for mayor of Bakersfield.
Carter has been a businessman for 41 years and owns 20 businesses and continues his career today. From starting his first business as a carpenter in 1977, to a swimming pool company, to being a co-founder of the Bakersfield Music Hall of Fame, Carter continues to be successful as a businessman.
“Hiring for the mayor›s position is like hiring someone for a job. You want to get the best person to do the job,”said Carter. “You want to hire someone who [has] had success in their past.”
Not only is Carter a board member of the Bakersfield Homeless Center, he serves on multiple boards such as the Downtown Bakersfield Development Corp., Alliance Against Family Violence, the Fox Theater Foundation, Keep Bakersfield Beautiful and is co-founder to the Bakersfield Music Hall of Fame.
Carter graduated from North High School in 1975. He attended classes at Bakersfield College but never graduated.
“BC is the key to a bigger and better life. It’s a pathway out of poverty, that’s what BC is,” he said.
Carter hopes to make more jobs available for those who aren’t able to find one by giving them jobs in construction.
He wants people to have the opportunity to get an education and open a business.
“Anybody that knows Kyle knows he has the ability to excel in any industry he goes into and making every project the absolute best it can be,” said Bakersfield realtor and friend Jonathan Weinman. “The thing that stands out to me is his ability to operate an integrity, honesty and do everything he does the right way.”
Through his campaign, Carter has used his own money to fund his candidacy.
He said he hates to spend others’ money when he already has the money to do so.
In the past, he has supported and donated money to congress, assembly, and city council candidates who were campaigning.
Carter follows core values of his “faith in God, family, and others.”
He said that Ronald Reagan, Jesus, his dad and his uncle Curt are people who made a difference in his life.
Those people helped him shape the person he is today.
His faith, followings and teachings of God helped Carter embody the man he is today. People around him consider Carter to be a hard worker and driven for change.
He hopes that his competitors speak well of him.
“It is incredible the things that Kyle Carter thinks of to improve our community; he is definitely someone who thinks outside the box with a plan of action,” said John Enriquez, founding member of Keep Bakersfield Beautiful.
