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DECEMBER 14-15 2013 WEEKEND Breaking news at: www.redbluffdailynews.com Sports Page 1B DAILY NEWS RED BLUFF Sunny 64/40 Weather forecast 10A 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 County may get third of needed jail funds By RICH GREENE DN Staff Writer A California Board of State and Community Corrections executive steering committee will recommend that Tehama County get less than a third of the $20 million it had asked for to fund a jail expansion and build a new Probation Department Day Reporting Center. The committee announced its recommendations Thursday on how $500 million in jail upgrade funds should be spent across the state to meet Gov. Jerry Brown's prison and public safety realignment goals. The board received requests from 36 counties and recommended full or partial funding for just 15 of those projects. Under the recommendation Tehama County's project was the sixth and last to qualify under the small county designation and would receive a partial award of $6,526,000. Tuolumne, Napa, Kings, Shasta and Lake are being recommended to receive full awards. All except Napa were for the $20 million cap. Napa asked for $13,474,000 the remainder of which fell to Tehama. The full Board of State and Community Corrections will consider the recommendations for final approval Jan. 16 in Los Angeles. According to a board press release the projects were ranked according to how closely they met the requirements of AB-109. Board to probe rift By RICH GREENE DN Staff Writer The Red Bluff Joint Union High School Board of Trustees is turning to a pair of outside agencies to investigate the now public disagreements between its teachers union and superintendent. Trustee Barbara McIver said at the Wednesday meeting the board took action to utilize two services the board is already contracted with to investigate complaints provided by the Red Bluff Joint Union High School Teachers Association that led to a vote of no confidence in Superintendent Lisa Escobar. Escobar's response to those complaints has also been turned over to the outside agencies — the California School Board Association and Solution Tree. The board has membership in the CSBA and has a consultant contract with Solution Tree. McIver said the investigations will come at an Projects deemed most ready to begin were more heavily weighted. The funding is available as a result of SB-1022, which provided for the issuance of lease revenue bonds to help finance jail modifications needed to accommodate offenders who otherwise would have been sent to state prison. Elephants to top supes agenda By RICH GREENE DN Staff Writer Daily News photo by Andre Byik additional cost to the district, which will be determined next week when she meets with the CSBA. As for the time table, McIver said although time for a full response would be needed, she was hopeful it would be on an agenda for a January meeting. McIver characterized the investigation as not a fact finding situation, but rather settling a grievance complaint. McIver said while there is a negative tone in the district right now, there is also a spectrum of opinion. "That is exactly why we want the situation evaluated," she said. At the beginning of See RIFT, page 9A The public will have its chance to weigh in on a proposed African elephant sanctuary in northern Tehama County when the Board of Supervisors meets 10 a.m. Tuesday at 727 Oak St. The board is scheduled to hear an informational presentation by the Oakland Zoo and Ndovo Foundation as well as hold a public hearing to receive input about the potential reserve. On Dec. 5 the Planning Commission heard the proposal from a group of philanthropists and animal researchers, who are proposing a 4,900-acre facility at Diamond Ranch, located northwest of Bowman Road and about 1,400 feet north of State Route 36 W. At peak capacity the reserve would house around 50 elephants, but more immediate plans call for a just a couple of elephants to be housed after a 3year planning and building phase. The facility's organizers say it would bring worldwide attention to Tehama County, educational opportunities and economic stimulus. The public hearing is scheduled to begin no earlier than 11 a.m. Rich Greene can be reached at 527-2151, ext. 109 or rgreene@redbluffdailynews.com. Gerber man Student gunman wounds 2 in Colo. arrested with drugs, gun after chase A 25-year-old Gerber man was taken into custody Thursday night after he tried to flee Red Bluff police officers following a traffic stop. An officer conducted a traffic stop on a white Lexus for a registration violation shortly before 10 p.m., according to a department press release. The driver of the vehicle, later identified as Manuel Jesus Ortega, yielded as officers approached the vehicle before quickly driving off. The officer and assisting officer followed the vehicle for about a halfmile at speeds between 10 mph and 25 mph to the intersection of Crittenden and Jackson streets. There, Ortega exited the vehicle and began run- ning. As other officers arrived at the scene, two officers chased after Ortega, while two stayed with the vehicle, which was occupied by another man. Ortega failed to comply with officer commands to stop and was taken into custody as he attempted to climb over a residential fence in the 1100 block of Jefferson Street. A search of Ortega yielded methamphetamine and smoking paraphernalia. During a search of the vehicle, officers located hypodermic syringes, 433.5 grams of marijuana and a loaded .25 caliber handgun. Ortega's passenger was detained, but later released. Ortega was booked at Tehama County Jail for felony counts of felon in possession of a firearm, See GERBER, page 9A CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) — A teenager who may have had a grudge against a teacher opened fire Friday with a shotgun at a suburban Denver high school, wounding two fellow students before killing himself. Quick-thinking students alerted the targeted teacher, who quickly left the building, and police immediately locked down the scene on the eve of the Newtown massacre anniversary, a somber reminder of how commonplace school violence has become. One of the wounded students, a girl, was hospitalized in serious condition. The other student suffered minor gunshotrelated injuries and was expected to be released from the hospital Friday evening, authorities said. A third person was being treated for unspecified injuries but had not been shot, a hospital spokeswoman said. Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson initially reported that the most seriously hurt student was wounded after confronting the gunman, but he later said that did not appear to be the case. The gunman made no attempt to hide the weapon when he entered the school from a parking lot and started asking for the teacher by name, Robinson said. When the teacher learned that he was being targeted, he left ''in an effort to try to encourage the shooter to also leave the school,'' the sheriff said. ''That was a very wise tactical decision.'' Jessica Girard was in math class when she heard three shots. ''Then there was a bunch of yelling, and then I think one of the people who had been shot was yelling in the hallway 'Make it stop,''' she said. A suspected Molotov cocktail was also found inside the high school, the sheriff said. The bomb squad was investigating the device. Within 20 minutes of the first report of a gunman, officers found the suspect's body inside the school, Robinson said. Several other Denverarea school districts went into lockdown as reports of the shooting spread. Police as far away as Fort Collins, about a two-hour drive north, stepped up school security. Arapahoe High students were seen walking toward the school's running track with their hands in the air, and television footage showed students being patted down. Robinson said deputies wanted to make sure there were no other conspirators. Authorities later concluded that the gunman had acted alone. Nearby neighborhoods were jammed with cars as parents sought out their children. Some parents stood in long lines at a church. One young girl who was barefoot embraced her parents, and the family began to cry. The shooting came a day before the anniversary of the Newtown, Conn., attack in which a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Arapahoe High stands just 8 miles east of Columbine High School in Littleton, where two teenage shooters killed 12 classmates and a teacher before killing themselves in 1999. The practice of sending law enforcement directly into an active shooting, as was done Friday, was a tactic that developed in response to the Columbine shooting. Since Columbine, Colorado has endured other mass shootings, including the killing of 12 people in a movie theater in nearby Aurora in 2012. But it was not until after the Newtown massacre that state lawmakers moved to enact stricter gun-control laws. Two Democratic See COLO, page 9A