70 years ago   

Over on Mill Street, a Susanville man turned down an offer to make $95,000 “clear cash” made to him by another man from Mexico City.   

The local man said he was conversant in the swindling scheme, which is older than the hills and which in the past cost many worthy but money mad their worldly goods.

Enrollment at Lassen College for the 1965-66 year set a new record as 500 students registered for fall classes. The previous year 318 students were on hand for the first day of school. Lassen High School saw 764 students come through the door on the first day of classes, about the same number as before.

30 years ago   

Lassen County Planning Commission heard scores of neighbors levy criticism on the proposed Jura River Estates subdivision. Planned access to the development was to run through the Emerson Lake subdivision.   

Numerous area residents voiced opposition to the traffic corridor, citing the safety of children, noise, pollution, destruction of the environment and the existing 55 miles-per-hour speed limit through the Emerson Lakes subdivision as significant factors against the access route.

20 years ago   

An inmate crew from the Antelope Conservation Camp was hard at work putting a new safety railroad trestle on the Bizz Johnson Trail. The bridge crosses the Susan River just west of the Devil’s Corral trailhead.

15 years ago   

Lassen Community College’s cogeneration plant turned out to be one of the biggest white elephants in county history. From October 1994 through May 1995, the Steam Powered Operations Technology Program used garbage for fuel to produce steam, hot water and about 1.5 megawatts of electricity. The cogeneration plant closed and the college and its contractor became embroiled in a $5.4 million lawsuit.

10 years ago   

Daily air quality alerts became routine last week as the Storie Fire grew to 32,000 acres and spread into the Lassen National Forest.   

However, the U.S. Forest Service reports Aug. 26, that firefighters were beginning to gain around on the huge blaze that broke Aug. 17, in the Feather River Canyon in Plumas County.

Five years ago   

During the first of several budget workshops, the City Council saw in black and white that the city has no cash to operate.   

Explaining that a positive fund balance is not the same as cash flow, Robert Porfiri, financial director, said he concentrates on cash flow rather than fund balance because that is how bills are paid.   

In a PowerPoint presentation, Porfiri told the council and audience members, “Capital improvements have been approved without additional revenue. It will take three to four years for the natural gas plant to be at full capacity and self-sufficient.   

“The bond issuance for the natural gas should have had enough money to support natural gas (for three to four years) instead it was all spent on capital improvements.”

Last year   

John Ketelsen, the county administrative officer, said county staff had put many hours into preparing the 2009-2010 budget.   

Most of the board’s discussion focused on budget cuts affecting the county’s Health and Social Services Department. One of the county’s largest departments, it is experiencing some of the deepest budgets cuts, especially after California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s recently announced “blue pencil” reductions.   

According to a report from Kevin Mannel, deputy county administrative officer for the health and social service department, the most recent round of cuts is a “hard pill to swallow.”   

Mannel’s report to the supervisors included an additional $535,140 in cuts to the budget the department previously submitted to the county.