Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/14036
Friday, July 30, 2010 – Daily News – 7A CITY Continued from page 1A cash box — recorded on video tape — a discrepan- cy of $3,500 between the receipts and cash in the box was discovered, Nichols said. Lampron was immediately put on administrative leave, and the city began its process of dismissal. Of the $18,000 that was lost, the city was able to recover about $13,000 through insurance. The city incurred additional auditing expenses of about $5,000 to perform a com- plete forensic audit in cooperation with the DA’s office, Nichols said. The city has since applied practices and put in place stricter checks and balances to ensure this does not happen again, he said. “We found it. We fixed it,” Nichols said. Customers whose accounts may have been FIRES Continued from page 1A Termo, it is expected to be contained by Aug. 2. The Modoc Lightning Complex in the Modoc National Forest about 20 miles southwest of Alturas grew by three acres to 67 acres burned, but was 100 percent contained Thursday. Tehama County had only one lightning-caused fire from a single snag lightning strike reported Sunday evening on Tamarack Road, near Tamarack Springs, in the Mill Creek area. The Tehama-Glenn CalFire unit sent six strike teams of engines, six strike teams of crews, one strike team of dozers, a helicopter and overhead to the Lassen-Modoc area to help with the lightning series. For more information on CalFire incidents visit http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_current. The Klamath National Forest in Siskiyou County has had eleven lightning-caused fires reported within its boundaries. The largest fire was the 17-acre Titus Fire located five miles south of the community of Happy Camp with the second largest being the Craggy Fire on China Peak about four miles west of the Tree of Heaven Camp- ground. Thursday the Cottonwood Fire in the Oak Knoll area of Klamath, which is in steep terrain making it difficult to access, and the Polly Gulch Fire, two miles north of the community of Klamath River, received special attention, a US Forest Service release said. With the exception of the Polly Gulch all known fires in the forest are contained, meaning crews have fire lines around them and the fires are not likely to increase in size, the release said. Fire crews continue to mop up and patrol the fires to extinguish any burning material near the fire line. Sev- eral non-local fire resources have been released due to the success of fire suppression actions. Due to hot and dry conditions fire restrictions will go into effect on Aug. 5, meaning campfires will be restricted to certain developed campgrounds. Those planning a camping trip should check with the closest forest service office or call 842-6131. Klamath National Forest had one human-caused fire earlier in the week located near the Happy Camp Com- munity. It was 1.2 acres. ——— Julie Zeeb can be reached at 527-2153, extension 115 or jzeeb@redbluffdailynews.com. POST Continued from page 1A said. On Thursday, the Los Angeles Times reported that residents of Bell, a city where 17 percent of the 40,000 residents live in poverty, have the sec- ond highest property tax bills among the 88 cities in Los Angeles County. With the addition of special municipal assess- ments, residents of Bell pay bigger bills than Mal- ibu and Beverly Hills. The owner of a $400,000 Bell home pays a property tax bill of about $6,200 a year. Tax records show the owner of a $400,000 home in The last of the wind turbine parts sitting in the railroad storage yard in Gerber are heading out. The final blade and tower sections will be delivered today and the last head unit will be sent Monday, ending a two- month undertaking of transporting parts to a wind farm near Burney. At the Hatchet Ridge Wind Farm, 38 of 44 wind turbines have already been assembled, and five are generating test energy. The wind farm should be fully con- structed and operating by Malibu pays about $4,400 a year. Before he resigned, Bell’s Chief Administra- tive Officer Robert Rizzo was the city’s highest paid employee at $787,637 a year, almost twice what President Barack Obama is paid. Four of the five mem- bers of the Bell City Council made about $100,000 before they cut their salaries earlier this week. Two of the four volunteered to serve with- out pay for the rest of their terms. The Los Angeles County district attorney and the state attorney general have opened investigations into the pay of the officials. October. Pattern Energy owns the Hatchet Ridge Wind Farm, and Siemens man- ufactured the compo- nents. affected have since been corrected, and no cus- tomers should feel the ill effects of what happened, Nichols said. In October 2009, Nichols confirmed Lam- pron was no longer an employee, though at the time he did not disclose the reason for her termina- tion. Lampron was employed by the city for 14 years, from March 21, 1995 to Sept. 25, 2009. In 2000, she was a sus- pect in an embezzling case also involving city money. Criminal charges were dismissed against her and other employees involved in that case, according to court records. Cohen said his office has not been asked to investigate any other employees in this more recent case. ——— Tang Lor can be reached at 527-2153, Ext. 110 or by e-mail at tlor@redbluffdai- lynews.com. RALLY Continued from page 1A aliens to solicit, apply for or per- form work. Section six would have autho- rized the warrantless arrest of a per- son believed to have committed a public offense that would make them removable from the United States. “We’re here to support Arizona and SB 1070,” said Patty Smith, Corning Tea Party Patriots rally organizer. “We’re all for legal immi- gration.” Bonnie Demo of Corning said she was at the rally because she stands with America and the Consti- tution. “I’m here because I think (SB 1070) is fair,” said Farrell Shatswell. “If a hose on your patio is running, you got to turn off the faucet, stop the flow and then clean up the mess.” Monty Carter, a Corning Tea Party Patriot who now lives in Wil- lows, said he showed up, as many people have said, because he is get- ting fed up. “Everybody’s had it,” Carter said. “They’re fed up with endless spend- ing and unhappy with a handpicked judge who made a ruling where it should have been many judges.” While many people honked in support of the rally there were a few rude gestures and shouts of “Viva SPLIT Continued from page 1A in the 2007 retail sales tax revenue to $1.6 million for this year. Savings from the con- tracts would have been about $93,000 for the city manager and $106,000 for the police chief. “This would have brought us closer to pro- tecting the reserve and allow us to get through this year,” said City Man- ager Steve Kimbrough. “The intent was to save as close to $200,000 as pos- sible.” Had the contracts been passed, the proposed bud- get would have still have eaten into the reserve beyond the council’s goal of leaving at least $500,000 of the operating reserve intact. “If adopted it would cut into the $500,000 by $58,000 leaving $440,000 still in the fund at the end of the fiscal year,” Kim- EXEC Continued from page 1A in the development of sea ice products that support safe navigation through ice-covered waters. Van Woert was awarded two Department of Com- merce bronze medals for his work at the ice center — the highest honor bestowed by the NOAA admin- istrator. Van Woert has held a management position at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Office of Naval Research from 1993 to 1997. While there he focused on developing a space- borne wind sensor that could support both NASA’s climate studies and the Navy’s requirements for Have a news tip? Call 527-2151 Ext. 112 Wind turbine transports ending Monday For information about the wind turbine moves, go to the Caltrans District 2 Web page at http://www.dot.ca.gov/di st2/turbines.htm. Daily News photo by Julie Zeeb Karen Huddleston of Corning waves her American flag and Stop Illegal Immigration sign Thursday on the corner of Solano Street at the Corning Tea Party Patriots Rally. Mexico” out opened van doors as people drove by. “We’re not your enemies,” said Brad Call of Los Molinos who was with the Corning group. “We’re try- ing to salvage our country and like our signs say the US government has refused to enforce their own laws.” The Corning Tea Party Patriots meet at 6 p.m. Thursdays at the brough said. “The good thing is we normally don’t spend the entire budget.” The two biggest sav- ings already voted into the budget include furloughs equal to a 10 percent salary cut across the board — about $280,000 in sav- ings — and the $175,000 in savings from cutting non-mandatory trainings, meetings, planning annex- ation fees and two council members taking 10 per- cent cuts in pay. The cutting of the recreation supervisor and much of the Recreation Department programs equalled a $79,300 sav- ings and almost $16,000 was transferred into the general fund from the Park Volunteers Fund. More than $30,000 was saved by having commu- nity service officers take over water meter reading duties. The Public Works Department cut $51,000 with the elimination of library painting and Corning Senior Center, 1015 Fourth St. The Tehama County Tea Party Patriots meet at 6 p.m. Tuesdays at 20920 Hampton Rhodes Drive in Red Bluff. For more information call Blankenship at 824-2332. ——— Julie Zeeb can be reached at 527-2153, extension 115 or jzeeb@redbluffdailynews.com. repairs, parks weed con- trol and fertilizer and equipment replacement funding. The city has cut the $400 a month car allowance for both the public works director and the police chief. With a 2-2 deadlock on Kimbrough’s contract, Mayor Gary Strack pulled the other contract and pro- posed budget from the agenda. “I don’t see the need to discuss the part-time con- tract for (Police Chief Tony Cardenas) if you don’t want the other (for Kimbrough),” Strack said. “I think, Steve, that throws the budget. Without the two contracts we’ll proba- bly be broke at the end of next year. Corning’s set- ting a bad example.” Councilman Ross Turn- er responded by making a motion, which was voted down 2-2, to accept last year’s budget until new councilmembers are elect- ed in November. “The city of Corning doesn’t have to have an adopted budget to move forward,” Turner said. “It’s legally not required.” Two council seats and the Mayor’s seat are up for grabs in the Nov. 2 elec- tion. Those elected will be sworn in Dec. 7 with their first meeting being Dec. 14, Kimbrough said. “You’re working right with the state,” Strack said. “The governor said he would leave the budget to the next governor and we are doing the same thing.” The council meets the second and fourth Tues- days of the month at City Hall, 794 Third St. Meet- ing minutes and agendas are available at www.corn- ing.org. ——— Julie Zeeb can be reached at 527-2153, extension 115 or jzeeb@redbluffdailynews. com. operational marine winds. In 2003, the WindSat/Coriolis mission was launched based upon research and conceptual stud- ies conducted under Van Woert’s leadership. Van Woert helped develop software to exploit newly emerging fleet of environmental satellites. It was during that time Van Woert founded PLOT- WORKS Inc., which is an engineering graphics company that allowed legacy scientific and engi- neering applications from mainframe computers to be migrated to personal computers that were just coming into the marketplace at the time. More information on the National Science Board and the National Science Foundation is available at www.nsf.gov. ——— Julie Zeeb can be reached at 527-2153, extension 115 or jzeeb@redbluffdailynews.com.