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TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 4, 2012 www.redbluffdailynews.com See Page 4A Breaking news at: Fast and Fatty Vitality RED BLUFF Week 1 Wrapup SPORTS 1B, 8A Sunny 99/61 Weather forecast 8B DAILYNEWS TEHAMACOUNTY DAILY 50¢ T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U N T Y S I N C E 1 8 8 5 Fire budget tool retired Man eludes cops in chase officers on a high-speed chase Sunday evening before escaping on foot near Sacred Heart Parish School on the north side of town. Officers spotted a silver, four-door Dodge pickup truck around 8 p.m. Sunday making an unsafe U turn at Walnut and Madison streets and pulling into a gas sta- tion parking lot. When officers approached the truck, the driver fled the parking lot, striking another vehicle in the process. A Hispanic man in his mid-20s led Red Bluff police Chasing the truck north on Monroe Street at 75-80 mph, officers saw the driver turn into a vacant field See CHASE, page 7A Sales tax revenue up 7.4 percent By RICH GREENE DN Staff Writer Daily News photo by Julie Zeeb Banners were hung at the Tehama District Fairground during the weeks it was used as a command center for firefighters battling the Ponderosa Fire. By DAVID OLINGER and ERIC GORSKI MediaNews Group In November 2005, architects of a federal program meant to better allo- cate money and manpower to fight wildfires met in rented office space in Boise, Idaho, to examine the results of a test run. What it showed wasn't surprising: Some areas of the country needed more resources and some deserved less. fire in New Mexico history to infernos in the sagebrush country of southern Idaho and along the California-Ore- gon border. The group prepared a briefing paper and color-coded chart to explain the findings to budget officers and decision-makers on Capitol Hill. Within short order, the model was dead — cast aside as flawed by agency officials and a scientific panel over the objections of its authors and an independent congressional investi- gator who say the U.S. Forest Service was unwilling to impose even modest budget changes. As a scaled-down version of the program nears fruition after 11 years and at least $46 million, regions that would have benefited from that test run have suffered fires of historic pro- portions this summer; from the largest wildfires in the West. Six Colorado homeowners have died in three wild- fires. Firefighters are battling or mon- itoring more than 50 large wildfires in 12 Western states, including the con- tained Waldo Canyon and High Park fires in Colorado. Chester Joy, a retired U.S. Govern- ment Accountability Office natural resources expert, expressed frustration in a series of reports that federal agen- cies have failed to develop the pro- gram, called Fire Program Analysis, as part of a coordinated, cost-effective strategy. This has been a disastrous year of people's lives were at stake — and now we're paying the price," Joy said in an interview. Forest Service officials deny sabo- taging a program that could have reshaped how billions of federal wild- fire program dollars are spent, saying valid concerns existed about the initial model. They say the revised program will become a valuable planning tool. However, two separate reviews of "Billions of dollars, homes and State to assist those impacted by Ponderosa Fire With the Ponderosa Fire reaching 100 percent containment Friday evening, the California Board of Equalization (BOE) will be one of sev- eral agencies set to meet with victims Thursday at an all-day event in Man- ton. The Local Assistance Center will be set up at the Manton Volunteer Fire Station, 31200 Manton Road from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Residents will be able to meet one-on-one with local service providers and county representa- tives. "BOE staff will do all it can if you lost your home, property or tax records in these crippling wildfires," said George Runner, Second District member of BOE. "If you're in need of exten- sions, copies of your records or relief from interest and penalties, please visit BOE staff at the LAC or if you are unable to attend, give us a call." Taxpayers in Tehama, Plumas and Shasta coun- ties may be eligible for extensions on tax filings, audits, billing notices and assessments, and relief from penalties and inter- est because of the Gover- nor's State of Emergency Proclamation on Aug. 22. BOE staff will have the necessary forms and answer taxpayers' ques- tions about completing and submitting them. Those unable to visit the LAC will find the BOE 468, Request for Extension of Time to File a Tax Return or BOE 735, Request for Relief from Penalty, Collection Cost Recovery Fee, and Inter- est on BOE's website. To 7 5 8 5 5 1 6 9 0 0 1 9 See STATE, page 7A the long-delayed newer version of FPA found several flaws — including that it allows federal agencies to tinker with data and come up with results to their liking. Forest Service and four Interior Department agencies — the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser- vice and Bureau of Indian Affairs — to develop a comprehensive plan for pooling their resources to use fire- fighting budgets as efficiently as pos- sible. In 2001, Congress instructed the The agencies provided relative val- ues for acres of wilderness, wildlife habitat, cultural resources and forest- ed acres near homes. At stake were budgets for firefighters, equipment, engines and managers. In the fall of 2005, the group did a The agencies turned to Douglas Rideout, a forest economics professor at Colorado State University, to create a computer model. Rideout said he took the agencies' instruction to "build a completely objective system that would get them the most for their budget." See FIRE, page 7A Fueled by fuel sales, sales in Red Bluff increased 7.4 percent from January to March 2012 compared to the same time period a year ago, according to a report to be presented to the City Council today. Across Tehama County sales increased 4.6 percent and statewide California saw an 8.5 percent increase. Most of the overall said. HdL Companies is predicted recovery will continue this year although at a slower pace due to a number of unresolved issues. California's $16 bil- revenue increase came from higher prices at the pump, although all major industry groups saw modest gains. Restaurants and hotels showed solid sales growth. The report, provided by HdL Companies, said after bottoming out in 2009-10, California made solid progress toward economic recov- ery last year. "Job gains, easier credit, pent-up demand for autos and goods, higher fuel prices, con- tinued investment in technology and increased tourism and business travel all con- tributed to rising sales tax revenues," the report lion budget deficit is one of those factors as traditionally govern- ment jobs have account- ed for 18 percent of the state's employment. On the federal level there is $400 billion in automatic spending cuts tied up in the Budget Control Act of 2011 as part of the agreement reached to raise the debt ceiling. Internationally the European financial cri- sis is a dilemma as exports account for about 25 percent of the state's economy. "There is general optimism that another recession can be avoid- ed because it is unlikely that all these issues will devolve to their worst possible case," the report concludes. Across the state HdL is forecasting between a 4.5 percent and 5 per- cent increase in local sales tax revenues for the 2012-13 fiscal year. Irish artist displaying in Red Bluff Special to the DN Michelle Bourke-Gir- gis is an artist from Dublin, Ireland now visit- ing as the Artist-in-Resi- dence at the Red Bluff Art Gallery through Sept. 24. The public is invited to meet with this talented young woman as she cre- ates new work daily at the gallery. Bourke-Girgis recently graduated from St. Mar- tin's College of Art in London. During her final year she was selected by the Tate Modern to repre- sent her school in a new Life Drawing Workshop sponsored by the Tate Gallery. "I saw her working in a Life Drawing class, and recognized the special tal- ent that Michelle has," says Phil Dynan, gallery co-director, who invited Bourke-Girgis to visit Red Bluff. Bourke-Girgis is work- ing in the Window Studio of the downtown gallery, creating an installation art piece titled "Bubblegum Paradise." She has been assisted in the creation by various gallery art stu- dents during the week- days. The students have Courtesy photo been helping to make papier mache forms that will become a part of the final installation. Bourke-Girgis' work will take up a space in the gallery about 10 feet square and will crawl up the wall on one side. It includes a sculpture of a Chupacabra and a large area of multi-colored round shapes punctuated with black and white con- ical shapes. "It is still evolving and will continue to change. But at this point, the piece presents dichotomies of positive and negative, masculine and feminine, subject and object, white and black, order and chaos, reality and fantasy, ultimately form presented against glorified space," Bourke-Girgis says. "The bulbous shapes texturize space, but do not define it, and their pure See ARTIST, page 7A