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TAX Continued from page 1A according to the report. The Kimball Crossing housing complex owned by the Central Valley Coalition for Affordable Housing was granted an exemption. The assessed value of Durango RV Resort was reduced to cur- rent market value. A decline in taxable property can be affected by the housing market, which remained weak dur- ing the first half of 2011 but is bouncing back. The median sale price of a single family home in Red Bluff from January through August was $75,000 a drop of about 16.7 percent from 2010, according to the HdL report. There are cash buyers out there that are scooping up homes around the $150,000 range, but homes around $125,000 and below are what are especially hot on the mar- ket right now, said Eliza- beth Soder, branch man- ager at Coldwell Banker. While other factors, such as the neighborhood or the condition of the house, will affect how long a property stays on the market, most homes that are priced right don't stay on the market long. People may be reluc- tant to buy thinking home prices will continue to drop but there is a demand for homes that are priced right. "We're starting to see the pendulum swing," Soder said. CAR Continued from page 1A turning northbound onto Highway 99W from Liberal Avenue. Officer conducted a felony traffic stop and confirmed the identity of the car. The driver and sole occupant of the car, Danielle Corina Nunez, of Corning, was arrested for possession of stolen property. Upon arrival at Tehama County Jail, Nunez told offi- cers she had a hypodermic syringe hidden in her boot and was booked on the additional charge of possession of a smoking or injection device, the release said. Bail was set at $18,000. Staff report Disgraced ex- journalist fights for CAlaw license SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A former journalist who became the subject of a Hollywood movie after he was caught fabricating articles in the late 1990s is fighting to become a lawyer in California over the objections of a state bar committee. Stephen Glass, whose ethical missteps at The New Republic and other magazines were recounted in the film ''Shattered Glass'' and an autobiograph- ical novel, has challenged the bar committee's deci- sion to deny him a license to practice law, the San Francisco Chronicle (http://bit.ly/sfh2je ) reported Monday. Glass attended law school at Georgetown Univer- sity and passed California's bar exam in 2007. His application for an attorney's license was turned down by the state's Committee of Bar Examiners, which judged him morally unfit for his new profes- sion. But an independent state bar court ruled in Glass's favor in July and the California Supreme Court has since agreed to hear the committee's appeal. No date for oral arguments has been set. The bar association's lawyers said in written fil- ings that even though Glass' transgressions occurred when he was in his 20s, his attempts at atonement were inadequate and in some cases coincided with the publication of his novel. They faulted him for never compensating anyone who was hurt by his falsehoods. Law and journalism ''share common core values — trust, candor, veracity, honor, respect for others,'' Rachel Grunberg, a lawyer for the State Bar of California, told the Chronicle. ''He violated every one of them.'' The bar court that overruled the committee in July was persuaded, however, that Glass was genuinely repentant and had been rehabilitated. His appeal included character references from 22 witnesses, including two judges who had employed him, two psychiatrists, and Martin Peretz, who owned The New Republic when Glass' deception occurred. In his own statement to the bar, Glass said he was ''greatly ashamed and remorseful about my lying'' but ''forthright and candid about my years of mis- conduct.'' Glass tried to become a lawyer in New York after he passed that state's bar exam in 2003, but with- drew his application when his request for moral character approval from the New York bar lan- guished. Now 39, Glass works as a law clerk at a Beverly Hills firm. His lawyers did not immediately respond to telephone and email messages for comment Mon- day. An average of about 39 homes are being sold each month in Tehama County. While lower-end prop- erties are popular, most of the middle-end homes are still just sitting there, she said. "There is a demand to move up the market but it's not there yet," Soder said. Housing inventory is super low with only 207 single family homes avail- able throughout the coun- ty right now, she said. In 2005, there were about four times as many homes available. Banks are not really releasing foreclosures, so conventional sales are actually going up. "Now is a great time to buy," Soder said. "If there's anyone on the fence, now is the time." Prices range from $19,900 to $989,000 on the 207 available homes in the county. "For sellers, we just have to price the home right and it will sell," Soder said. A real estate turnaround would help increase prop- erty tax revenues for the county and city. With this most recent HdL report, the city will budget for an estimated property tax revenue of $1,322,794, Finance Director Sandy Ryan said. "It seems like the decrease is slowing," Ryan said. "Hopefully it will turn around." ——— Tang Lor can be reached at 527-2153, Ext. 110 or by e-mail at tlor@redbluffdai- lynews.com. PLANS Continued from page 1A month. The result was a 59- page rough draft plan compiled from the sub- committee reports devel- oped at those meetings. Nowhere near the final draft, the document identi- fies the priorities of each subcommitte, said Chief Probation Officer Richard Muench. This is some- thing to build upon but not necessarily what will be done because funding is limited. "We've all said and rec- ognized there's not enough money here," he said. Having already been approved for additional staff to handle the initial work related to AB109, Muench and Sheriff Dave Hencratt had no further requests for the jail and probation departments. "We can absorb the shock in enforcement with what we have," Hencratt said. The Board of Supervi- sors authorized hiring SEARCH Continued from page 1A lies need closure.'' In 2001, Shermantine received the death penalty for the killings of Wheeler, Paul Cavanaugh, 31, and Howard King, 35, in 1984 and 25- year-old Cyndi Vanderheiden in 1998. Wheeler was last seen in Stock- ton, where she told friends that Shermantine, then age 19, was tak- ing her up to the mountains. Since his conviction, he has tried to impli- cate his childhood friend and co- BANK Continued from page 1A dogs off of the cold, and sometimes wet, concrete floor, Russell said. "It's fantastic ," Rus- sell said. "This $500 buy BLM Continued from page 1A who is the executive director of the Colorado-based Cloud Foundation, a nonprofit horse advocacy group. Kathrens said she was about the length of two football fields away when, zooming in with her profes- sional lenses, she captured the footage. The video showed the end points on the prods producing a shock when a wrangler lifted it into the air. Most disturbing to Kathrens was that officials for the U.S. Agricul- ture Department and BLM were standing near the wranglers and wit- nessed the shocks but did nothing to interfere. Kathrens said BLM officials told her privately they shared her con- cerns in that regard. That's where Lueders said agency workers have to do a better job. Lueders delivered that message to several dozen employees in a video teleconference involving all of Nevada's BLM offices last week, saying there's no excuse for turning the other way if they get wind of any inhumane treatment of animals. Lueders said, however, that it may be easier said than done when it eight new employees to answer immediate needs in the probation depart- ment and jail Nov. 8, a month into the state's pub- lic safety realignment pro- gram. The new positions - four corrections officers, a sheriff's sergeant, two deputy probation officers and an office assistant - were recommended by the Community Corrections Partnership. Muench followed up, Nov. 22, by asking the board to authorize buying an office trailer to give the new employees space to work at the probation office on Walnut Street. Bids came in and Design Space Modular Buildings of Dixon was assigned a $35,962 con- tract to supply the office trailer Tuesday, Dec. 20, during the board meeting. Muench told the board he was skeptical at first with getting an office modular, but after seeing the trailer in person, he was impressed. "It's a nice structure," he said. "I think it's going to serve us well." Tuesday, December 27, 2011 – Daily News 7A deputies on patrol. Although there was speculation during the Community Corrections Partnership meeting as to whether the sheriff's department should plan on more funding for deputies to patrol, Hencratt was reluctant to do so. "We have to be fiscally responsible with what money we get now," Hen- cratt said. Hencratt has also been working to develop more inmate work crews and an electronic monitoring sys- tem to supervise released inmates on house arrest. Muench concurred with Hencratt that there is a dilemma about what's best. "This is the rub," Muench said. "They've moved the revolving door to prisons and moved it into the county. Do you continue on the path of law enforcement and jail or try to affect change overall?" Muench responded to comments from some members at the Communi- ty Corrections Partnership meeting who thought there needed to be more defendant in the three other slay- ings, Loren Herzog, in Wheeler's death. Herzog was paroled this year after much of his original 78-year sentence was overturned on appeal. San Joaquin County Deputy Dis- trict Attorney Thomas Testa, who sent both Shermantine and Herzog to prison, noted that Shermantine had provided false leads as a negoti- ating tool before. During his trial, for instance, he said he would be willing to say where the Wheeler and Vanderheiden's remains were in exchange for a $20,000 reward, deals the victims' families refused. Earlier this year, he wrote The Record offering to return Herzog to us almost 10 beds. We have 10 already and we need between 40 and 50 beds. That pushes us up to almost half of our need." For those who wish more information on the PETS group, which is There are many people in the community that feel that way, and it is hard to choose whether to strictly enforce the law through incarceration or to work on programs to stop recidivism, he said. "Being a fairly conser- vative guy, I'm in favor of both," Muench said. "We just have to find the fund- ing." Muench is the director of the Community Correc- tions Partnership and a member of the executive committee which will ulti- mately decide with a vote on the final plan to present to the Board of Supervi- sors. The next meeting of the Community Corrections Partnership will be at 2 p.m., Jan. 11, at the Tus- can Room of the county administration building, 727 Oak St. ——— Andrea Wagner can be reached at 527-2153, extension 114 or awagner@redbluffdailyne ws.com. prison by providing the information. In return, he wanted prosecutors to agree to let him out of San Quentin in 10 years. Reacting to his latest proposal and the failed search, Wheeler's mother, Paula Wheeler, said she thinks Shermantine only cares about notoriety, not her family's ordeal. ''Do I believe what he says? I don't,'' Paula Wheeler said. ''The day I believe him is the day we find her. Until then, it's a bunch of words.'' ——— Information from: The Record, http://www.recordnet.com/ dedicated to helping the care center get what it needs, visit the group's Facebook page for or petstehama.org. The group meets at 6 p.m. on the third Tues- day of each month at Cozy Diner in Red comes to persuading workers to step up in what is often a controversial, and emotionally charged, situation. But she said she believes her message got through. ''I made it very clear that is my expectation,'' she said. ''We have a lot of committed, passionate people here who care very much about the resource and the animals them- selves. You can tell by that passion and professionalism that everyone takes it very seriously.'' Lisa Ross, a public affairs spe- cialist for the BLM in Winnemucca, said Lueders' words have been well received and will be taken seriously. ''It's a very important message to hear,'' Ross said. ''It doesn't mean that everything was wrong and now we are making it right. It's just that it is important and everybody needs to be on the same page on this.'' About 33,000 wild horses freely roam 10 Western states — about half in Nevada. Another 41,000 are kept in government-funded facili- ties, including one in Herriman, Utah, that came under fire as a result of more video footage taken by horse protection advocates last spring. A BLM task force asked to inves- tigate issued a report in September confirming ''unacceptable'' condi- tions at the overcrowded facility where horses were forced to stand in FRESNO (AP) — A Central California humane society is work- ing to find foster stables for 27 starving horses that were found at two Fresno County farms last week. The county Sheriff's Office seized 14 horses Friday from a farm near Riverdale where deputies and workers from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals also discovered four horse Have a news tip? Call 527-2151, Ext. 112 carcasses, the Fresno Bee reported. Two of the animals had to be euthanized, one because it had a broken ankle that had gone untreated and the other because it was so severely malnourished. Fresno County Sher- iff's Lt. Phil Caporale Bluff. Information is available by calling 527- 8702. ——— Julie Zeeb can be reached at 527-2153, extension 115 or jzeeb@redbluffdailynew s.com. a 4- to 8-inch deep mixture of mud and manure. BLM has since moved those animals elsewhere. It was videotape of a helicopter either nudging or getting extremely close to a mustang in August during a roundup in northeast Nevada near the Utah line that prompted U.S. District Judge Howard McKibben to give BLM a stern lecture. McKibben granted a temporary restraining order requiring heli- copters to keep their distance from the galloping mustangs. Lueders said it is important to remain open to criticism. ''I think we all learn more from each gather,'' she said. ''Each gather gives us another opportunity to improve what we do.'' Kathrens is among those who believe BLM officials are sincere and is optimistic real reform may soon follow on the range. But Anne Novak, executive director of Protect Mustangs, based in Berkeley, Calif., isn't so sure. She said there should be a moratorium on roundups until the agency proves they have mechanisms in place to guarantee safe and humane treat- ment of the horses. ''The BLM must take responsi- bility to train their contractors before turning wranglers loose with whips and cattle prods,'' she said. Starving horses tax Fresno. Co. animal shelter says the farm's owner is out of the country but could face animal cruelty charges. A Fresno man was arrested last Tuesday after authorities discovered 19 starving horses on his leased ranch, one of which had to be put down. ——— Located in Chico, CA Red Bluff Simple Cremations & Burial Service You DO have a choice in the Red Bluff area. Caring & Compassionate Service Full traditional burial service or cremation 722 Oak Street, Red Bluff, FD Lic. 1931 527-1732 529-3655 www.affordablemortuary.net Information from: The Fresno Bee, http://www.fresnobee.co m