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WEDNESDAY Oregon's Wine Reid To Start Vies For Best AUGUST 28, 2013 County Fare Breaking news at: www.redbluffdailynews.com See Page 5A SPORTS 1B DAILY NEWS RED BLUFF Sunny 92/64 Weather forecast 8B 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 County able to avoid dipping into reserve By RICH GREENE DN Staff Writer The Tehama County Board of Supervisors gave their consent Tuesday to accept a final 2013-14 fiscal year budget. The budget will come back for formal adoption on Sept. 17. For just the second time since the 2008-09 fiscal year the previous year's balance carryover and projected revenues are sufficient to meet the county's expenditure appropriations in the General Fund without tapping into reserves. The budget contains net total appropriations in the amount of $132 million and what amounts to a 4.5 percent spending decrease from the prior year. Most of that decrease can be attributed to road projects being completed in the previous fiscal year. The budget is based on an assumption that property taxes in Tehama County will increase by 2 percent. Chief Administrator Bill Goodwin said upcoming capital projects in the next five years will exceed the county's available cash, which will require the county to seek a new bond issuance. That bond issuance will look to refinance the 1998 and 2002 Certificates of Participation at a lower interest rate. The county could then use those savings for capital projects. One of those projects is a proposal for a jail expansion project. The county has budgeted $500,000 to match a grant, should it win one for the project, which would add a pair of 32-bed dormitory facilities and relocate the Probation Department's Day Reporting Center to the site of the library. See COUNTY, page 7A Deer Fire held in check Fire fee bills on their way By RICH GREENE DN Staff Writer Daily News photo by Andre Byik Hand crews carry containment equipment such as chain saws Tuesday at they prepare to fly out to a 10,378-acre wildfire burning about 12 miles east of Los Molinos. Officials say the blaze is 75 percent contained and expect full containment about 8 a.m. Thursday. Fire Prevention Fee bills will be mailed out to those who own habitable structures within State Responsibility Areas inside Tehama County Oct. 24-25. The much-debated program was the topic of an informational presentation at Tuesday's Tehama County Board of Supervisors meeting. Fire Chief Jeff Schori spoke about the history of the fee, its current status and future lawsuits. The fees result from Assembly Bill X1 29 that was signed into law in July 2011 to raise funds for fire prevention services within State Responsibility Areas. Schori said 8,229 structures fell into State Responsibility Areas last fiscal year, with property owners receiving a $150 bill from the state's Board of Equalization. However every Tehama County property owner received a $35 credit because their structures are served by a local fire protection service. Across the state more than 90,000 petitions were filed against the BOE for the 776,000 fees billed last year. In Tehama County 1,167 fees were protested. Protests ranged from those who claimed it was a tax or paid under protest to mistakes in SRA mapping or property records. Those fees were rejected at an 83 percent rate across the state level. In Tehama County 280 petitions for redetermination were approved and eight partially approved. Those that were granted full or partial reprieves received them from being billed more than once, such was the case with many mobile homes, or for the proper property records and mapping being found. Schori said those maps, which mark which sections of land fall into local, state or federal responsibility are likely to be updated every five years in the future. He antici- By ANDRE BYIK See BILLS, page 7A DN Staff Writer Channel 7 to return this weekend LOS MOLINOS — The Deer Fire burning in the foothills east of Los Molinos and in a section of the Ishi Wilderness held at 10,378 acres burned, officials said Tuesday morning. Officials said the wildfire is 75 percent contained and 100 percent containment, meaning fire lines completely surround the blaze, is expected about 8 a.m. Thursday. The wildfire, which is burning in rugged terrain with limited ground Television viewers who rely on an antenna to bring them their local programming will continue to have to do without KRCR Channel 7 for the remainder of the week. The station has a translator in the Redding area that is down and has disrupted the over the air signal since sometime last week. See DEER, page 7A Carla Lyon, a receptionist at the television station, said KRCR hoped to have the problem fixed by the weekend. The problem does not affect cable or satellite viewers. "Our engineers are diligently working to fix the problem. We apologize for any inconvenience," a message on KRCR's webpage reads. California governor proposes $315M prison fix SACRAMENTO (AP) — Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday responded to a federal court order to significantly reduce California's prison population by proposing a $315 million plan to send thousands of inmates to private prisons and vacant county jail cells, hoping to avoid what he said would be a mass release of dangerous felons. The cost could reach $700 million over two years, with much of the money likely to come from a $1.1 billion reserve fund in the state budget. During a news confer- 7 5 8 5 5 1 6 9 0 0 1 9 ence at the Capitol, Brown bristled at the court's suggestion that the state could continue its early release of certain inmates to meet the federal judges' population cap. He noted that California has already released some 46,000 inmates to comply with the court's orders and said only the most dangerous convicts remain in state prison. The judges have ordered the state to release an additional 9,600 inmates by the end of the year. Brown, however, said sending them to available cells in privately run prisons within California and in other states, as well as to empty jail cells, is the best way to meet the court's mandate without endangering public safety. ''Public safety is the priority, and we'll take care of it,'' the governor said. ''The money is there.'' The plan will now head to an uncertain fate in the Legislature, where the two Democratic leaders are at odds. Assembly Speaker John Perez was joined by the Republican leaders of both houses at the governor's news conference. Perez, a Democrat, said he expected lawmakers to approve the governor's plan — or something close to it — before this year's session ends in mid-September. But approval is far from certain because of opposition from state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, DSacramento. He was noticeably absent from Brown's news conference but issued a statement saying the plan had ''no promise and no hope.'' He said continuing to pour money into additional space for prison inmates was not a longterm solution. ''As the population of California grows, it's only a short matter of time until new prison cells overflow and the court demands mass releases again,'' Steinberg said in his statement. He was not immediately available to elaborate but will offer his own proposal on Wednesday to comply with the court order. One of Steinberg's chief lieutenants, Democratic state Sen. Mark Leno of San Francisco, said THE DAILY NEWS OFFICE WILL BE CLOSED Monday, September 2 in honor of Labor Day California should create a sentencing commission that would consider reducing prison sentences for some crimes as a way to ease prison crowding in the long run. Temporarily renting more cells ''doesn't solve the problem,'' Leno said. ''What's the long-range solution here? Otherwise, See FIX, page 7A Smog Inspection $ 2595 +$825 certificate (MOST CARS & PICK-UPS) DAILY NEWS RED BLUFF TEHAMA COUNTY 527-2151 • FAX 527-3719 545 DIAMOND AVE., RED BLUFF • Members Welcome 530 527-9841 195 S. Main St., Red Bluff