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THURSDAY Gallery Features NCAA Tip Off Allison Hyde MARCH 21, 2013 Pastimes Breaking news at: www.redbluffdailynews.com See Page 6A SPORTS 1B DAILY NEWS RED BLUFF Mostly sunny 70/40 Weather forecast 6B TEHAMA COUNTY DAILY 50¢ T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U NTY S I N C E 1 8 8 5 Bank robber sentenced to 16 years in prison By JULIE ZEEB DN Staff Writer A 58-year-old Chico man connected to several robberies, two committed and one attempted in Tehama County, was sentenced Monday in Tehama County Superior Court. Gary Dean Belcher was sentenced to 16 years in state prison on the charges of second degree robbery with the special allegation of personal use of a firearm. Tehama County Superior Court records show 15 years of the sentence was for the first count of second degree robbery and the special allegation and one year for the second count, another special allegation involving use of firearm. Belcher initially pled not guilty at a Sept. 25, 2012, court appearance, but changed his plea to guilty at a Feb. 19 hearing. Belcher was charged with entering the Bank of America in Corning on Sept. 10, where he demanded money from the teller at gunpoint, fleeing the scene before officers from Corning police arrived. During the course of this investigation officers learned Belcher was also responsible for a previous robbery at the Subway restaurant in Corning and an attempted robbery at the Chevron gas station near Rolling Hills Casino. Belcher was arrested by Chico police along with Emily Clark, 36, of Willows, on Sept. 13 after a teller at the US Bank on The Teacher's welcome return Esplanade and Mission Ranch Boulevard in Chico noticed his red baseball cap and sunglasses, which a suspect was reportedly wearing in a Colusa bank robbery, according to Chico police. Belcher See BANK, page 5A Search team finds lost hikers The Tehama County Sheriff's Office received a cell phone call around 2:15 a.m. Tuesday from a juvenile hiker who advised he and four others were lost and needed rescue off of the Thomes Creek Trail, in the south west corner of Tehama County, in the Mendocino National Forrest. The juvenile said it was raining hard and they had limited time left on their flashlights batteries. Tehama County Sheriff's Search and Rescue Team was called out and immediately made cell phone contact with the lost hikers. The hikers were advised to stay on the trail and pitch their tents, because the Search and Rescue team was in route to their location. See HIKERS, page 5A City backs DV group for grant By RICH GREENE DN Staff Writer Courtesy photo Betsy Palubeski, center, poses for a picture with her sons, Davis, left, and Ross, right, in front of their house, which was filled with signs from the community to welcome her home. Red Bluff Union High School Tuesday welcomed home one of its own, Betsy Palubeski, who returned after several months' absence. Palubeski, who teaches French, has been at the City of Hope Hospital in Duarte, where she was being treated for leukemia. Her return was a special treat for her family, including husband Joe Palubeski, who also works at the school, and her two sons, Davis and Ross. Palubeski's return to her family was just in time for a very special day for her son Ross, who turned 16 Tuesday, something he said he was very excited about. Students and the community showed an outpouring of support for the family on Tuesday, flooding the entire front and side of her house, which is next to the high school, with more than 30 signs to welcome her home. — Julie Zeeb The Red Bluff City Council followed its consultant's recommendation Tuesday selecting the Alternative to Violence emergency shelter project as its potential applicant for state grant funding. The council chose the shelter project over a request to replace the State Theatre's neon sign and a city-developed project to upgrade restroom facilities at Dog Island Park. A final public hearing and decision will be held April 2, before the project is submitted to the state. The Department of Housing and Urban Development is making around $41 million in federal funds available as part of its Community Development Block Grant program. The city's consultant, Adams Ashby Group, wrote a report stating the Alternatives to Violence See GRANT, page 5A Controversial Suicide rate is focus in court fight over prisons rural fire fee bills will be delayed SACRAMENTO (AP) — Collection of a fee rural California homeowners pay for fire prevention service has been delayed this year after the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said it is sorting through thousands of complaints challenging its billing data. The $150 annual fee was approved by the Legislature in 2011 to offset the costs of providing fire protection to people who live far from services. It affects more than 825,000 homeowners who were billed for the first time between August and December of last year. After the bills went out, the state received 87,000 petitions for reconsideration from homeowners who said they were billed erroneously, said spokesman Daniel Berlant. More than 70 percent of the appeals came from people who argued the fee was an illegal tax, and those appeals were denied, he said. The remaining challenges were from homeowners arguing that their 7 5 8 5 5 1 6 9 0 0 1 9 property should not be in a state responsibility area, that they didn't receive the $35 discount for also being in a rural fire district, or that they were charged for more homes than exist. ''It's important for us to review all of the appeals and to settle them prior to starting the next billing cycle,'' Berlant said. The delay was championed by former Republican Sen. George Runner, now a member of the state Board of Equalization, who is filing an amicus brief in support of a lawsuit brought against the fee by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. ''Ever since the Legislature enacted this illegal tax, it's created one problem after another,'' Runner said in a written statement. A spokesman said Runner is concerned because some homeowners in his district in El Dorado Hills received bills erroneously because maps have not been updated to indicate they are now in a subdivision. Berlant said changes in the maps have to be approved by the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, and that the process is ongoing. SACRAMENTO, (MCT) — Shortly after 5 p.m. on May 2, 2011, an inmate at California State Prison, Solano, was found dead in his cell, hanging from the upper bunk, a torn bed sheet around his neck. The inmate, who was approaching his 65th birthday, had spent much of his life bouncing in and out of prison. Four hours earlier, he had an eight-minute phone conversation with his mother, and ended it by telling her he loved her. After his death, officials found a note to his mother atop his belongings. "Mom I am so very sorry that I am a selfish and inconsiderate piece of garbage," it read. " ... Thank you for loving me thru all these years. I been here much too long and I am so tired of my stoopidity." (sic) The dead man, who is identified in federal court papers as "Inmate HH," is one of 437 inmates since 1999 ruled to have committed suicide in a state prison. Together, those suicides are now a focal point in a fierce legal fight between state officials and inmate advocates over whether California is ready to once again control its own prisons. Eighteen years after a federal court found that the mental health care inside state prisons was grossly substandard and a major factor in inmate suicides, California will return to a Sacramento courtroom March 27 to argue that the problems have been solved. "Our suicide rate is less than the general population, less than federal prisons," Gov. Jerry Brown said in an interview with The Sacramento Bee this month. "In fact, few countries in the world can match our numbers. "The money we're spending to defend ourselves in court could be spent on rehabilitation programs for inmates, where it's really needed." Brown publicly proclaimed in January that years of effort by state prison officials finally had solved the mental health care and overcrowding problems plaguing the state's 33 adult prisons, and that he wanted control returned to the state and court oversight terminated. The state says it has spent millions of dollars building mental hospitals and attendant facilities, buying suicide-resistant beds, hiring psychiatrists and training staff. In the months since Brown's proclamation, the legal back and forth has devolved into all-out guerrilla warfare. Thousands of pages of pleadings, declarations and experts' depositions have been filed in recent weeks See PRISON, page 5A