Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/149295
Friday, August 9, 2013 – Daily News Obituaries Agents bust $3 million pot grow in Mendocino Forest ELK CREEK — Agents arrested four men and located thousands of marijuana plants after several months of investigating large-scale marijuana cultivation in the area of Bowman Ridge in the Mendocino National Forest west of Elk Creek. Glenn County's Marijuana Enforcement Team and the Glenn LaVONNE OLIVE SCHAUL Interagency Narcotics Task Force March 21, 1921 - July 6, 2013 moved in on the operation Sunday Born on March 21, 1921 in Los Angeles, CA, passed after confirming that the area was away July 6, 2013 in Davis, CA. LaVonne passed away once again being used to illegally peacefully from Complications from pneumonia with most of her family by her side at Sutter Davis Hospital. cultivate marijuana, according to a She is survived by two sons, Chris and Brian, their spous- GLINTF press release. Agents located approximately es and grand and great grand children. LaVonne was a pioneer for women! A member of Beta 3,114 marijuana plants as well as Sigma Phi starting in the 1940's and a proud member of some processed marijuana, accordthe Business and Professional Womens Club in Northern California! One of the first Licensed Administrators for a ing to authorities. The garden Convalescent Hospital in California. She had a passion, reportedly has a street value of $3 million. knowledge and foresight for Real Estate like no other! A family graveside service is scheduled on August 16th, Agents arrested Antonio Villeat 10:30 a.m., friends and family are invited to honor this gas, 34, of Livingston, after observbeautiful Lady at a celebration of life at the Red Lion Hotel in Redding, CA, August 17th at 11:30 a.m. Death Notices Death notices must be provided by mortuaries to the news department, are published at no charge, and feature only specific basic information about the deceased. Paid obituaries are placed through the Classified advertising department. Paid obituaries may be placed by mortuaries or by families of the deceased and include online publication linked to the newspaper's website. Paid obituaries may be of any length, may run multiple days and offer wide latitude of content, including photos. William A. Freeny William A. Freeny of Red Bluff died Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2013 at St. Elizabeth Community Hospital. He was 84. Arrangements are under the direction of Hoyt-Cole Chapel of the Flowers. Published Friday, Aug. 9, 2013 in the Daily News, Red Bluff, Calif. Lee Lewis Lee Lewis died Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2013 at his home in Corning. He was 91. Arrangements are under the direction of Hall Brothers Corning Mortuary. Published Friday, Aug. 9, 2013 in the Daily News, Red Bluff, Calif. ing him drop off bags and an unknown person near a trail being reportedly used to access the marijuana garden, according to GLINTF. Villegas had an outstanding warrant out of Merced County. He is also facing additional charges relating to the marijuana garden. Two days later, the agencies arrested three other individuals with help from the U.S. Forest Service and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. According to authorities, two of the three men were located in the garden site and were detained after attempting to run from agents. Jesus Guadalupe Mascorro, 31, of Livingston, and Genaro Campos Santacruz, 31, of Modesto were arrested on suspicion of possession of marijuana for sale, cultivation of different room from the gram for alcohol-related boy and was ultimately offenses. arrested at the scene of the Officials in May child's death. Continued from page 1A declined to say whether munity Hospital where he Branscombe was in Branscombe was under was pronounced dead. Branscombe was Tehama County Jail's GPS the influence of drugs or Officials said the boy's reportedly sleeping in a Alternative Custody Pro- alcohol May 12. WATER Continued from page 1A tens of thousands of salmon dead before they could spawn — the fish died from gill rotting diseases because there was not enough water for them to swim upstream. The Bush administration that year restored irrigation to farms in Oregon and California, one year after those farms were denied water during a drought to help threatened salmon and other fish survive in the Klamath basin. Following that fish kill and prompted by predictions of large salmon runs and drier than normal conditions, the Bureau of Reclamation in 2003, 2004 and 2012 released water from the Trinity for salmon in the lower Klamath. This year, authorities say the Klamath River is expecting a very large fall run of Chinook salmon, yet the river is extremely low. The bureau has said it plans to ''There appears to be a lack of clarity for the counties buying voting systems, the manufacturers who make them, and the general public as to what California's expectations are for its voting systems and what standards are being applied,'' she wrote. The state began moving toward optical scan voting systems, but in 2003, then-Secretary of State Kevin Shelley revoked approval of a system after learning that the vendor installed unapproved software. Kern, San Diego, San Joaquin and Solano counties had already bought the machines. Secretary of State Debra Bowen said the auditor failed to note that outlawed voting machines purchased with federal money are a nationwide problem after many states banned the use of direct recording electronic voting systems because they were found to be vulnerable to tampering and inaccurate vote tallying. ''It is truly unfortunate that the U.S. Congress foisted poorly constructed DRE voting systems onto governments and the voting public without first establishing high security, accuracy and reliability stan- dards for these systems to meet,'' Bowen wrote. The audit also said the state spent $4.6 million on a failed contract to update the statewide voter database that ''resulted in no longterm benefit to the state's voters.'' Bowen's office says the existing CalVoter system runs on outdated, proprietary software. The audit recommends Bowen certify the existing system as compliant with federal law, thereby freeing up $131 million in remaining federal funds, some of which could go to counties for new technology. The audit also found: — California is not fully complying with the so-called ''motor voter'' federal law in which applications for drivers' licenses are supposed to simultaneously serve as voter registration applications. — The secretary of state's office does not provide the most up-todate accounting of its spending plan to the state Legislature. The audit said the secretary of state's office considers the document only a planning tool and said the Legislature has ''not complained about the spending information previously provided.'' Governor changes tactics to avoid freeing inmates SACRAMENTO (AP) — Eight months after Gov. Jerry Brown tried to end California's reliance on private prisons to handle an overflow of inmates, his administration has changed tactics. It now is seeking to expand their use as a less-harmful alternative to releasing thousands of prisoners early. The administration plans to soon ask federal judges to let the state move at least 4,000 inmates to private cells in California and other states as one way of reducing crowding in the state's major prisons by nearly 10,000 inmates by year's end. The Democratic governor also proposes to keep an additional 9,000 inmates in private prisons in other states for an extra three years. It's a sea change from January, when he declared the state's prison crowding crisis was over and private prisons no longer needed. The administration's reluctance to pay corporations to house inmates in distant locations hasn't changed, but circumstances have, Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard said. He said the change was forced when the U.S. Supreme Court last week refused to delay a lower court order requiring the state to reduce the prison population to about 110,000 inmates by the end of the year. ''Out-of-state isn't something that any of us like to do, because you keep inmates further away from home,'' Beard said. ''You're spending your money to house them not in California but in some other state.'' California has paid Corrections Corp. of America more than $1 billion to house inmates in its private prisons in Arizona, Mississippi and Oklahoma since the emergency relief program was begun by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Brown had proposed to phase out the program to save the state about $300 million annually. But the alternative now is to release serious and violent offenders, Beard said. The state is running out of lower risk offenders who could safely be released early, he said, because most are already being sentenced to county jails instead of state prisons under a 2-year-old state law designed to reduce prison crowding in response to earlier court marijuana, criminal conspiracy, resisting arrest and illegal entry. The third suspect was able to escape, but was located at about 1 p.m. by the Glenn County Sheriff's Office after receiving a call from a citizen about a suspicious person near the Cal Fire station in Elk Creek, according to the press release. Jorge Luis Sanchez, 43, of Merced, was also arrested on suspicion of possession of marijuana for sale, cultivation of marijuana, criminal conspiracy, resisting arrest and illegal entry. Large amounts of trash, supplies and black plastic tubing were cleaned from the area. Fertilizer and chemicals will also be removed to avoid the substances making their way into waterways. USFS personnel rehabilitated the area. death was caused by multiple blunt force trauma to the head, and that two items were used to strike the baby. BABY Auditor: Calif. wasted $26M for updated voting SACRAMENTO (AP) — California has wasted more than $26 million in federal money intended to help the state update voting and elections systems, as counties spent millions on optical scan voting systems that the state has since outlawed because of security flaws, the state auditor reported Thursday. Auditor Elaine Howle examined the state's use of more than $380 million in federal funding provided under the 2002 Help America Vote Act, passed in the wake of the disputed 2000 presidential election amid concerns about the old punchcard voting systems. More than $22 million was spent to replace voting systems with new machines that ''counties and voters cannot fully use,'' she said. Howier also noted that nearly two decades have passed since state law required the secretary of state's office to develop regulations outlining the requirements for acceptable voting systems. However, the office has yet to write the regulations into law and continues to offer ''conflicting guidance'' to counties on what machines meet state and federal voting laws, Howle said. 7A orders. Federal courts including the Supreme Court have consistently ruled that reducing the population is necessary to improve conditions for the inmates who remain. The administration is mainly relying on other increases in prison capacity to comply with the crowding reduction order. They include sending an additional 1,250 inmates to firefighting camps; transferring 1,820 inmates to a recently completed medical facility in Stockton; and slowing the return of nearly 3,600 inmates from private prisons in other states. Another 1,100 inmates will be transferred next year to a mental health facility currently under construction in Stockton, 50 miles south of the state capital. If federal judges agree, the additional rented beds would replace a courtordered increase in good time credits leading to early release for about 4,000 additional inmates to meet the population cap. ''Now they're doing what we said all along, which is that they had alternatives to a mass release,'' said Don Specter, director of the nonprofit Prison Law Office that is among law firms representing inmates' welfare in the ongoing court battle. But he and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said contract beds are an expensive temporary solution that does nothing to solve the long-term imbalance that results when tough sentencing laws send more inmates to prison than the penitentiaries are designed to hold. The staff at Red Bluff Simple Cremations would like to thank all of the families who trust us with their loved ones needs. Red Bluff Simple Cremations & Burial Service 527-1732 722 Oak Street, Red Bluff, FD Lic. 1931 release up to 62,000 acre feet of Trinity water, plus an additional 39,000 acre feet of emergency water if fish show signs of disease, to the Klamath from Aug. 13 until the end of September. Environmental groups and Indian tribes applauded the releases, but some said they might not provide enough water to save the salmon. ''We need more water, and we need it sooner,'' said Hoopa Fisheries Director Michael Orcutt. Bill allows background checks for youth coaches SACRAMENTO (AP) — Youth sports programs would be allowed to run criminal background checks on potential volunteer coaches under legislation heading to Gov. Jerry Brown. Democratic Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla of Concord and Republican Brian Maienschein (MAINSH'eyn) of San Diego, say their bill, AB465, will help ensure that children who participate in community sports leagues are protected from abusive or violent individuals. The bill unanimously passed the Assembly on Thursday. An analysis of the bill says such background checks are already required for sports coaches in public schools. The Child Abuse Prevention Center and the California State Sheriffs' Association are among those backing the legislation. Opponents such as the California Public Defenders Association say requiring background checks could discourage parents from volunteering out of fear that minor offenses would be disclosed to neighbors. Gun-rights advocate drops Redondo Beach suit REDONDO BEACH (AP) — A gun-rights advocate who was prosecuted after walking into a Redondo Beach park with a shotgun has dropped his lawsuit against the Southern California community. Charles Nichols tells the Torrance Daily Breeze that he dropped all of his claims against the city this week but reserves the right to refile the case. Nichols advocates the right to openly carry firearms. In May of last year, he protested state gun regulations by slinging a shotgun over his shoulder and walking into a park and onto the pier, authorities said. He pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor of carrying a firearm in the park. Nichols had named Redondo Beach in a federal lawsuit challenging the state's open-carry ban. Although Redondo Beach was dropped as a defendant, that suit continues. Calif. bill would let noncitizens help voters SACRAMENTO (AP) — Certain immigrants who are not U.S. citizens could serve as poll workers in California under legislation heading to Gov. Jerry Brown. As many as five noncitizens could volunteer in a precinct under AB817 by Democratic Assemblyman Rob Bonta of Alameda. Those poll workers must be permanent U.S. residents who entered the country legally and meet all voting requirements except citizenship. Bonta says allowing immigrants to serve as poll workers would increase the number of bilingual volunteers who could help voters. A staff analysis of the bill says more than 2.6 million eligible California voters are not fully proficient in English. The Assembly passed the bill Thursday, 48-22. Republican Assemblyman Tim Donnelly of Twin Peaks opposed it, saying noncitizen poll workers would undermine confidence in state elections.