Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/175473
Friday, September 20, 2013 – Daily News 7A Stock market slips after FIRE (Continued from page 1A) record-setting day Some areas of the StanisNEW YORK (AP) — The stock market paused Thursday as investors tried to figure out what to do next following the Federal Reserve's decision to hold steady on its stimulus for the economy. The Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor's 500 index pulled back from their record highs the day before. Gold, historically a haven for nervous investors, had its biggest one-day jump since the onset of the financial crisis in September 2008. Many investors had expected the central bank scale back its $85 billion in monthly bond purchases, but the Fed said it first needed to see more evidence that the economy was improving. The question now is whether stocks can continue their strong run-up given the Fed's dimmer outlook on the economy. The stock market is up 21 percent for the year, and 155 percent since a recession low in March 2009. And, after a tough August, the S&P 500 has risen 11 of the last 13 days. Wednesday's rally extended that surge, but raised a deeper concern for Julius Ridgeway, an investment adviser at Medley Brown, a financial-advisory firm in Jackson, Miss. Ridgeway said the rally showed that investors believe the economy still needs Fed's help, even after more than two years of modest economic growth. ''The market wants the economy to be healthy and on life support, and it can't have both over the long term,'' he said. The Fed's bond buying is designed to keep interest rates low, with the goal of stimulating the economy by encouraging borrowing and lending. Chairman Ben Bernanke and other voting members of the Fed telegraphed throughout the summer that the central bank was considering pulling back on the program, if the economy was healthy enough. Now, with the Fed delaying its pullback, the market could enter a new period of uncertainty, rarely good for sustaining a stock rally. The market is back to its mentality in May, when investors were trying to parse every data point from the Fed to figure out what it was planning to do, said Wayne Wilbanks, chief investment officer at Wilbanks, Smith, Thomas in Norfolk, Va., who manages about $2.4 billion in assets. ''The Fed buttered the market up. It was a done deal,'' he said. ''It was a huge policy mistake.'' Jawbone of missing NorCal teen identified EUREKA (AP) — Officials have identified a jawbone found at the mouth of the Klamath River as that of a teenage boy who disappeared in 2011 after fleeing a stolen vehicle. The Eureka Times-Standard (http://bit.ly/16IrTR0 ) says the Del Norte County Sheriff's Office identified the bone as belonging to 15-year-old Cody Conoboy. In January 2011, in what police said was a stolen car, Conoboy and three other juveniles led authorities on a chase on State Route 96. The boys fled the vehicle after it overturned several times, and Conoboy was never found. Investigators later found footprints and determined he had jumped from a bridge overlooking the Trinity River. Conoboy was presumed dead after one of his shoes was found 6 miles away from the accident site. JURY (Continued from page 1A) that California Health and Safety Code allowed for fines up to $1,000 for air pollution violations, but also required air pollution control directors to take into account such information as the extent of harm, frequency of violations and financial burden to the defendant. Abbs said he contacted other air districts in the Sacramento Valley Air Basin and found a range of practices being used from established mandatory minimum fines to a system more aligned with Tehama. Abbs said the practice of discretion often allowed the air district to use education for minor violations and demonstrate contrition without the threat of a civil penalty. Abbs said minimum fines could also raise the district's costs as there would be the potential for more small claims court litigation. The Grand Jury also recommended that the air pollution control director sign all correspondence addressing alleged violations. Abbs wrote there are no rules requiring it and compared it to other county agencies such as Environmental Health and the Agriculture Department, which allow individual inspectors to issue and sign initial enforcement correspondence without notifying their department head. Abbs said he still maintains the power to review all enforcement activities. Abbs said the Air Pollution Control District Board of Directors will provide further direction regarding the Grand Jury's recommendations. Child Support Services The Grand Jury had recommended Tehama County continue the recruitment and hiring process for a Tehama county Director of the Department of Child Support Services. Since that time Tehama County has hired someone to take the position. Previously Tehama County had shared Butte County's director Sharon Stone. Stone wrote the county's response back to the Grand Jury. The Grand Jury had recommended a local direct telephone line for clients and the public in need of assistance in the management of a child support case. Reid said she already agreed in part, because since moving to a single statewide toll-free number call wait times and call abandonment had been significantly reduced. Stone also requested the Grand Jury wait another year for a management restructuring to take place before undertaking a second review it was recommending for the 2013-14 Grand Jury. Department of Social Services Social Services Director Charlene Reid wrote she agreed with all of the Grand Jury's recommendations and findings, although she only partially agreed her department did not have enough Spanish speaking employees to handle the county's population. Reid said Child Welfare Services currently has 13 cases that list Spanish as the primary language and two bilingual social workers and one bilingual social service aide handle the case load. Rich Greene can be reached at 527-2151, ext. 109 or rgreene@redbluffdailyne ws.com. laus National Forest ravaged by the Rim Fire had not burned in 100 years. Most of the land that now resembles a moonscape burned on Aug. 21 and Aug. 22, when the fire jumped to canopies and was spreading the fastest. In Yosemite National Park, where lightning fires mostly are allowed to burn out naturally and prescribed burns mimic natural conditions, the destruction was much less. The Rim Fire has burned 77,000 acres in wilderness areas in the northeast corner of Yosemite, but only 7 percent of that area was considered high intensity that would result in tree mortality, said Chris Holbeck, a resource biologist for the National Park Service. ''It really burned here much like a prescribed fire would to a large degree because of land management practices,'' Holbeck said. ''Fire plays a natural part of that system. It can't all be old growth forests, though Yosemite holds some of the oldest trees in the Sierra.'' Short-term impacts in the park could include the displacement of a unique and threatened subspecies of great gray owls that makes home in treetops in the fire's range. The Rim Fire started Aug. 17, when a hunter's fire spread, and continues to burn. It is named for a ridge near the location where the fire started — The Rim of the World, an overlook above a gorge carved by the Tuolumne River. The area that burned in 1987 and again in 1996 was filled with chaparral. By the time the Rim Fire AP photo provided by U.S. Forest Service A soils scientist from the Burned Area Emergency Response team assesses a burn area in the Rim Fire near Yosemite National Park. Of the more than 250,000 acres that burned within the Rim Fire perimeter, the Burned Area Emergency Response team estimated Monday that 7 percent burned at high severity, 37 percent at moderate severity and the other 56 percent either didn't burn or burned at low severity. ripped through the canyon, it developed its own weather system that pushed it to consume up to 50,000 acres in a day. The satellite was able to map only the parts of the fire where the canopy of trees was destroyed. Other areas burned closer to the ground, so it could take a year to determine whether root systems of trees outside the worst areas of destruction will die as well. Researchers used satellites to measure the amount of chlorophyll left in canopies to determine which areas will now resemble a charred moonscape. ''We look at where the photosynthetic vegetation is killed,'' Miller said. ''It's not a measure of the intensity of the fire but a measure of a change in the chlorophyll that is there by and large.'' While the landscape has been ravaged, the soil that determines the amount of post-fire erosion that might occur when winter storms hit didn't suffer as badly as scientists feared. Severe soil damage occurred on just 7 percent of the land inside the fire's foot- print, said officials with the federal Burned Area Environmental Response team. Fire can destroy soil and make it susceptible to erosion by either burning the fine roots and other organic matter that holds it together, or by burning chaparral that releases oils that create an impervious barrier preventing rainwater from being absorbed. ''Before we can start talking about erosion, we have to figure out where the soil is damaged,'' said forest service soil scientist Randy Westmoreland. Anti-terror program tracks innocents, ACLU says SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Two men of Middle Eastern descent were reported buying pallets of water at a grocery store. A police sergeant reported concern about a doctor ''who is very unfriendly.'' And photographers of all races and nationalities have been reported taking snapshots of post offices, bridges, dams and other structures. The American Civil Liberties Union and several other groups released 1,800 ''suspicious activity reports'' Thursday, saying they show the inner-workings of a domestic surveillance program that is sweeping up POT (Continued from page 1A) tions from car accidents to one man who said he had a bullet logged in his stomach. The board held firm, denying appeals that dealt with being within 1,000 feet of a school bus stop or grows that contained too many plants. Garton said the 1,000foot minimum from sites where children may congregate was just that and he didn't care if a site was 999 feet away. The only type of appeals that were granted some leniency was on the 100-foot setback from neighboring property lines. The ordinance does allow for the supervisors to grant an "unusual hardship" exemption in such cases. Supervisor Burt Bundy said he was not usually thrilled with variance from ordinances unless there was some validity. However from the board's actions Wednesday, hardships were not given out lightly and never for the sole reason of a property being too small to comply with the rule. "I don't want to entertain these kind of requests next RUNNINGS ROOFING Sheet Metal Roofing Residential Commercial • Composition • Shingle • Single Ply Membrane "No Job Too Steep" " No Job Too Flat" Serving Tehama County No Money 530-527-5789 530-209-5367 CA. LIC#829089 Down! FREE ESTIMATES Owner is on site on every job innocent Americans and forever placing their names in a counterterrorism database. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, the federal government created a multibillion-dollar information-sharing program meant to put local, state and federal officials together to analyze intelligence at sites called fusion centers. Instead, according to a Senate report the Government Accountability Office and now the ACLU, the program has duplicated the work of other agencies, has appeared rudderless and hasn't directly been responsible for any terrorrelated prosecutions. According to the year," Supervisor Steve Chamblin said, adding that some properties within the county simply will not be suitable for grows under the ordinance. One hardship that was granted came from a cerebral palsy patient, who had moved his grow within the 100-foot boundary at his neighbor's request so the neighbor still had access to a shared driveway. He supplied a letter from his neighbor stating the neighbor did not have a problem with the grow. The second hardship was granted for a woman who said she suffered from degenerative disc and joint disease, osteoarthritis, nerve damage and sleep apnea. Her husband said traveling to the nearest dispensary in Oakland was too costly, a hardship voiced by many who appealed. The couple received a hardship variance, but were told they needed to drop from a 24-plant to 12-plant grow. The appeals came at an important time for marijuana grows with harvesting set to occur within the next month. For some the 14 days would be just enough time to harvest their year's supply of marijuana. The Over 25 years of experience STOVE JUNCTION BBQ PELLETS The North State's premier supplier of stoves Now in Stock! Popular customer request Serving Butte, Glenn & Tehama Counties Tues-Sat 9am-5pm • Closed Sun & Mon 22825 Antelope Blvd., Red Bluff 530-528-2221 • Fax 530-528-2229 www.thestovejunction.com GAO, the government maintains 77 fusion centers throughout the country and their operations are funded by federal and local sources. The ACLU obtained about 1,700 suspicious activity reports filed with the Sacramento office through a California Public Record Acts request. Another 100 were submitted as part of a court case in Los Angeles filed by the ACLU on behalf of photographers who say they are being harassed by Southern California law officials. The documents do not appear to show valuable counterterrorism intelligence. A few others had choice words for the supervisors and law enforcement as they stormed out of the board chambers. "I'll see you at the recall of all of you," one man said as he left. He had earlier in his appeal said he didn't really care what the board did with him. Supervisor Bob Williams responded that since the man didn't care, he would offer the motion to find the man out of compliance. Another man sarcastically thanked law enforcement in attendance for taking away his wife's medication. On more than one occasion deputies were accused of illegally storming onto properties or outright lying. The Sheriff's Department was represented by Deputy County Counsel Alan Cox throughout the appeals. There were three instances where mistakes in citation paperwork were admitted. One woman said she would be in compliance with the 12-plant limit soon as she was going to share her grow with a family member. "You may not want to discuss supply and furnishing in front of the sheriff," Garton said. The one citation that was withdrawn from the Sheriff's Department was the first hearing of the day. The man had been found not to be registered with the Health Department nor have an enclosed fence surrounding his grow. Since the citation, he had gotten the proper paperwork and put up fencing. However, the fencing he chose would warrant another citation next year, when the county's new, stricter ordinance is to take effect. Besides requiring sturdier fencing it limits all grow sites to 12 plants regardless of maturity and offers stricter penalties for violations, including fines of up to $1,000 per day for sites not in compliance. Garton warned residents that they needed to study the ordinance and spend the next few months coming up with a different plan if they wanted to continue to grow. "Next year follow the rules and you won't be here," he said. Rich Greene can be reached at 527-2151, ext. 109 or rgreene@redbluffdailynews. com.