Happy Holidays from Modoc Independent Advertisers

JaSco Construction wishes all their Modoc clients a very Merry Christmas and thanks them for the privilege of their business during the past year.

Treat yourself to a visit to Lakeview Lockers, an old-fashioned meat market just up the road in Lakeview. In addition to custom meats you’ll find local products, gourmet cheeses, artisan breads and gift baskets. Say Hi! to the McGarvas while you’re there.

Personally Yours on Main St. in Alturas is Modoc’s “One-Stop Party Shop.” Flowers, balloons, cards, candles, they have it all - and more.

BOS Salaries and Benefits

As the Modoc County Board of Supervisors looks at its financial crisis and where cuts can be made, their salaries and benefits, in turn, have come under public scrutiny.

The following salaries and benefit information was made available through public records at the clerk of the board’s office at the courthouse in Alturas.

Each board member receives a monthly salary of $1,242.11.

Board members also receive a monthly stipend of $200 for county-related travel.


Each board member is entitled to health and dental insurance paid monthly by the county. This figure can vary, but for a single person the amount is $501.59 for health and $70 for dental. It is not known if any supervisor has waived this benefit.


Supervisors are also eligible for a pension fund through the Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA) and retirement benefits through the Public Employees Retirement System (PERS).


There are supervisors who have opted not to participate in LIUNA or PERS, but for reasons of confidentiality their identities cannot be revealed, according to the clerk of the board.

Spend Your Christmas Dollars in Modoc

The second printing of the popular “Bill Kitt” book is out and available at the Wagon Wheel in Alturas, the Country Hearth, Floating Island Books and the Sunrise Motel in Cedarville.

Christmas Shopping for Your Favorite Welder? Modoc Steel has welding supplies, gloves, hats, fencing, you know, practical presents.

Think Red - Carstens’ Red Tag Event means good deals on all 2009 Chevs.

CAO Offices Remain Vacant

Now that the Modoc County Board of Supervisors has effectively purged the administrative offices across the street from the courthouse, the question remains, “What are its plans for the vacant building?”

The building, owned by the county, was used by chief administrative officers and their staff, including most recently Mark Charlton and previously by Mike Maxwell.

The answer is, apparently the county is considering its options.

“At present the Department Revenue and Savings group (part of the Incident Command Team) is researching what the best option is for the county,” said a spokesperson. “For example, what savings can be found by moving a department into this county-owned building, do we have any programs that can pay rent to the county and generate revenue for the county. This all is being considered to assure that we do not miss any revenue opportunities or lose funding.”

Which leaves the question of where will the supervisors put a new and permanent chief administrative officer if and when one is appointed?

“This question would be addressed by the board of supervisors when that day comes,” the county official explained.

Vacating the office space was an “agreed upon” joint action by the supervisors and their newly-appointed interim CAO Rick Rudometkin, according to the county’s spokesperson. Rudometkin also serves as incident commander, and director of transportation and public works where his dual office is located.

Warnerview’s Ranking Lowest

Warnerview Convalescent Hospital has the lowest ranking of any long-term care facility within 100 miles of Alturas.

That statistic is according to www.medicare.gov, the federal government’s Internet web site for comparing nursing homes throughout the nation.

Listed under “Compare Nursing Homes in Your Area,” Warnerview has an overall ranking of one out of five stars, with five stars the highest obtainable ranking and one star the lowest.

Other long-term care facilities within a 100-mile radius and their overall rankings are:
Surprise Valley (Cedarville)-- three stars.
Lake District (Lakeview) -- five stars
Mayers Memorial Hospital (Fall River Mills) -- three stars
Country Villa Riverview (Susanville) -- two stars

Warnerview, part of the Modoc Medical Center, is the only facility of its kind in this comparison that is county-operated. Country Villa is a for-profit facility and Surprise Valley and Lake District are both hospital districts.

In addition to the overall ranking, each nursing home is ranked in three additional categories: health inspection, staffing and quality measures.

Warnerview’s highest ranking, three stars, came in the staffing category, according to the web site. Its other rankings were two stars for health inspection and one star for quality measures.

By comparison, Lake District in Lakeview, Oregon was given five stars in all categories except quality measures where it ranked four stars.

One star out of five is considered “much below average, which is three stars. Five stars out of five is considered “much above average.”

Details of the rankings, and an explanation of the categories nursing home are judged in, can be found on the web site.

Bulletin Board

Holiday Festivities

Friday, Dec. 4 is the official kick-off to Christmas in downtown Alturas. The Alturas Chamber presents a Parade of Lights, the official Christmas Tree Lighting at the New Main St. Park, followed by the annual Plumas Bank and Alturas Chamber Holiday Mixer. The 2010 issue of Modoc & More Magazine featuring Katye Christensen will make its debut.

The same night, the Christmas Tree on Main St. in Cedarville will be officially lit at 6 p.m. during an evening featuring muscians, carolling, and holiday treats, sponsored by the Surprise Valley Chamber of Commerce.

Modoc County Fiscal Restoration

Editor's Note: The following report from the Modoc County Incident Command Team is published verbatim.



ICS Update

Operational Period Accomplishments 11/23/09-11/30/09

Dedicated Department Heads and Board of Supervisor members continue to work diligently and cooperatively together as working groups are fully functioning within the incident management team. The three different working groups have developed specific objectives within their groups. Since the inception of the incident management team, departments have made cost cutting decisions to save County Treasury dollars.

Restoration of the Treasury is currently working on:
Research and documenting options to restore the treasury
Determining necessary amounts to be restored to the treasury as of 11/30/09
Analyzing the impact/effect hospital operations have on the County Treasury

Cash Flow Management Group:
Developing procedures for prioritizing payables within and across County departments

Department and Revenue Savings Group:
Reviewing department head cost cutting and revenue savings ideas that have been presented earlier
Develop methodology and begin effort to collect and document from each department the following:
o Services provided
o Sources of revenue
o Restricted revenue sources
o Expenditures required to receive budgeted revenue sources

Next Update will be after December 7, 2009

Riding for the Iron

Dave Crenshaw

“I’m originally from Chico. My grandparents had a riding stable there and a friend of our family, Sam Waddell took it over and hired my brother and I to run it. Sam got out of the stable business because of the high cost of insurance. He went to hay contracting, and when he went to Denio to the Ivory Ranch, I went with him.

“I befriended Ross Knox there; he took me under his wing. I was a green kid. Jim Reid was the ranch manager.

“In those days buckaroos were gypsies and they’d leave a place just because they wanted to see new country. Ross thought we should do something different, and I was a just kid bounding along, so we loaded up and headed for the MC Ranch.

“When we got there the cow boss, I can’t remember his name; he’d been fired, which made the buckaroos mad so they quit. Ross and I were given an outside job gathering instead of working in the feed, lot like Ross thought we would. It was 1979.

“I worked there most of the winter, then went back to Chico for Christmas, to get a regular job. Chico wasn’t a big city, but it wasn’t what I wanted anymore.

“Sam Waddell had moved to Canby and when he wasn’t hay contracting he worked for a rancher named Lewis Van Vleck. I came up to Canby to work with Sam and Van Vleck in April during branding and when it was time for haying Sam and I went to the Spanish Ranch in Nevada.

“After that I stayed in Canby and worked for Van Vleck. In 1983 I was at Peggy Brown’s Black’s Canyon Ranch. Mickey Allen was the ranch manager. From there I went to Davis Creek, and worked for Chedco. Joe Colt was the manager. I worked there about a year, then worked for John Foster at Joseph Creek, southwest of Davis Creek, from there I went to the Diamond C near Cal Pines. It‘s now owned by Chico Pedotte.

“My wife passed away in car accident, and I went to work for the Alturas sale yard, for Hans and Ray Van Ness, for about a year full time. But I got tired of sale yard work. I had always shod horses on the side for different people until another ranch job came around.

“David McBride was the local shoer; but he moved away from Modoc and left a void. So I started shoeing for different ranches. The phone kept ringing, and I kept shoeing horses plus doing day work for Pierce Flournoy, John and Betty Derner, Jack Estil. Heck I can’t remember them all.

"Since 1992 I’ve earned enough to pay off a house and a pickup or two, shoeing horses. I also worked for Jerry and Carmen Kresge at the Alturas sale yard for ten years. I worked every sale, and did outside work for them too. They paid me more than I was worth.

"It’s a good country, I’ve been fortunate to never be without work, It’s been a good place to raise my girls. I call Modoc County my home."

Quotes to Remember

"The Board of Supervisors are a wealth of knowledge about what's going on in the County...(people) should contact the supervisors for information. That's what we're here for."

-- Supervisor Dan Macsay, at Dec. 1 Board of Supervisor's meeting.

State Ordered Audit to Take Several Months

Editor’s Note: Kevin Pulliam, a partner in Vavrinek, Trine, Day & Co., LLP has arrived in Alturas to begin the state ordered audit of Modoc County’s books. Pulliam, in a recent interview with the Modoc Independent News, explained the process.



MIN - Which office of VTD are the auditors coming out of?

Pulliam - We’re out of the Rancho Cucamonga office. I‘ll be working with a team of five to six people from our office.

MIN - What is the time frame?

Pulliam - The first two-week phase will begin in early December. We‘ll finish the first phase in January. Then we‘ll come back for the second phase. I can’t say what that will entail, which is typical for an audit. Our plan will change over time.

MIN - How long will it take to do the entire audit?

Pulliam - Between six and eight months.

MIN - Which years will be you be auditing?

Pulliam - The Board of Supervisors has approved and hired us to audit fiscal years July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008, and July 2008 to June 30, 2009 for both the county and Modoc Medical Center.

MIN - Would you consider this a forensic audit?

Pulliam - No, the audit that the board has hired us to do falls under three standards, 1) generally accepted auditing standards, 2) generally accepted government auditing standards, 3) single audit standards, which are more specific since the county receives federal dollars. Single audit standards follow specific guidelines laid out in OMB Circular A-133, which gives independent CPA's the standards for this type of audit.

MIN - How much are you being paid?

Pulliam - We are giving Modoc our government rate, instead of our commercial rate. We know this is a tough economic environment for all the government agencies we deal with.

MIN - Who will you be working with in the county?

Pulliam - We will be working closely with the Modoc County treasurer and auditor and also with all the department heads. We'll be talking to a lot of people. The way the audit is structured everyone's cooperation is really necessary.