Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/118732
WEEKEND MARCH 30-31 2013 71/49 Weather forecast 10A Jobless rate dips DN Staff Report After an increase from December to January, Tehama County���s unemployment rate followed state and federal trends and dropped a half-point to 13.3 percent in February. That rate includes drops in both the total civilian employment and unemployment work forces, from the Employment Development Department. A year ago Tehama County unemployment stood at 15.7 percent in February. The state average dipped to 9.7 percent and the federal unemployment rate was at 8.1 percent for the month. Preliminary numbers for the month indicated Tehama County had a labor force of 25,210 people in February, with 21,850 employed and 3,360 unemployed. State government and other services accounted for the highest job growth from January to February. Construction, Durable Goods and Leisure & Hospitality have all posted double-digit rate growths over the past year. Farm jobs fell by 19.1 percent from January to February, but are up 5.8 percent for the year. Construction saw a 7 percent decrease from January to February, but remained up 11.1 percent from a year ago. Tehama County���s unemployment ranked was the 38th lowest of California���s 58 counties for February. www.redbluffdailynews.com DAILY NEWS RED BLUFF Scattered thunderstorm Breaking news at: TEHAMA COUNTY $1.00 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 Local benefits Tracks make crime easy to track The Tehama County Sheriff���s Department couldn���t have had an easier trail to follow to solve a case involving the theft of three quad runners. The department received a call Thursday from a 33year-old Cottonwood resident who said he had been the victim of a theft. He reported two quad runners and a motorcycle were stolen from his parent���s barn on Evergreen Road. However the man said he followed the tire tracks from the quads to a nearby neighbor���s residence and believed the stolen property was See TRACK, page 9A CARB reps get earful By LAURA URSENY MediaNews Group Daily News photo by Julie Zeeb Erin Tinney, who manages the Hope Chest Thrift Store on the corner of Grant and Breckenridge streets, straightens up the store. By JULIE ZEEB DN Staff Writer The Hope Chest Thrift Store, 1359 Grant Street, has welcomed Bob Martin as the newest Director on its Board of Trustees. ���When I came on board I was very pleased to see that it wasn���t bound by administrative costs,��� Martin said. ���I wanted to be on the board because there are a lot (of nonprofits) whose proceeds are used for administration cost only, but Hope Chest has one full-time paid position and the rest are 55 volunteers, including the board.��� That one position is shared between two people, he said. What really impressed him was the majority of the proceeds going towards the Family Counseling Services, former the Family Service Agency, which means they stay local, he said. Martin, the first man on the board since it was established in 1965, has lived in Red Bluff for 21 years and is the owner and broker of Summit Mortgage, a federally and state licensed real estate broker and appraiser, he said. He serves on the Red Bluff Parks and Recreation Commission. While a few people know the Hope Chest is around, even fewer knew what it does for the community, he said. ���I���m not just saying only shop here,��� Martin said. ���I���m just saying when you shop here it goes to a good thing.��� Even better is that the money stays local, he said. ���People always ask me if the money stays local,��� Erin Tinney, who manages the store, said. ���I always tell them it���s so local it goes next door.��� See LOCAL, page 9A CHICO ��� Truckers and growers frustrated by California air emission laws got a chance to vent Thursday to representatives of the California Air Resources Board. In an event organized by Assemblyman Dan Logue, R-Loma Rica, more than a dozen speakers begged for changes to the state's laws, pointing out flaws with the regulations and how the heavy-handed guidelines are making it impossible for small firms to stay in business, especially in the north state. Nearly every hand raised when Logue asked for a See CARB, page 9A Fair offers insight into fraud protection By JULIE ZEEB DN Staff Writer The annual Fraud Prevention and Public Safety Fair, sponsored by the Tehama County District Attorney���s Office held at the Red Bluff Community Center on Thursday was much smaller in its third year. While there were close to 25 booths from federal, state and local agencies for the first year, the numbers have dwindled with about a dozen canceling in the weeks leading up to the event, Tehama County District Attorney���s Office Investigator Eric Clay said. The event was held in cooperation with the California Department of Insurance and federal, state, local public agencies and private enterprises. ���We���re hoping to bring more awareness to the community about different types of fraud and resources for fighting it,��� District Attorney Gregg Cohen said. Some of the more common fraud cases his office has been looking into are workers compensation, insurance fraud and unlicensed contractors, Cohen said. Clay said that the agency has investigators who work on workman���s compensation, although it���s not just people who fake injuries, which is what most people think of when someone says workman���s comp fraud. ���We know that times are tough for employers, however, the law requires workers compensation and one of the ways people try to avoid that is to under-report the number of employees they have and pay them off the books,��� Cohen said. The agency has also been looking into auto insurance fraud, which has typically involved someone who isn���t able to pay their car payments ditching the vehicle and then reporting it as having been stolen before filing a false claim with their insurance, he said. District Attorney Investigators also work with law enforcement and Adult Protective Services to look into suspected incidents of financial abuse of elders. Cohen said his office is working on a case now where someone suspected of misuse of a credit card allegedly took an elder���s credit card and used it at the casino. ���One of the biggest concerns I have for seniors is that they are often preyed upon with the ���you won the lottery��� scam,��� Cohen said. ���For years, the same scam has been going yet people continue to fall for it.��� People receive telephone calls, letters and now emails saying they have won a lottery that they didn���t enter, which should raise a red flag. One of the more unusual cases the Tehama County District Attorney���s Office has handled within the past year is an identity theft case where a couple was basically hitting the entire North State, Clay said. The couple, who was arrested in September 2012, were staying at the Super 8 Motel in Corning when they were located by law enforcement. ���They were operating up Interstate 5 to the coast and down to Butte County,��� Clay said. ���Basically they were saturated all of northern California.��� Investigators learned that the couple would hang out in banks, most likely pretending to be a customer filling out a deposit slip or something similar, and take pictures with their cell phones of someone else���s paperwork, he said. From there, the couple had all kinds of personal information including addresses and account numbers, he said. In the hotel room, law enforcement found everything from a card reader to a printer for the graphics and the machine used to emboss the raised numbers on the card, Clay said. They even had a machine to replicate the foil holographic on the back of the credit card, he said. See FAIR, page 9A Daily News photo by Julie Zeeb Sisters Havanna, 7, and Brooklyn, 5, Schuster stop to pet Red Ranger, a Tehama County Search and Rescue dog, and talk with her handler, Sonny Fereira at the Fraud Prevention and Public Safety Fair Thursday at the Red Bluff Community-Senior Center.