For decades, the Central Valley Flood Protection Board played useful idiot to a handful of property owners in Pocket, Greenhaven and Little Pocket.
The flood board, a state agency mandated to stop levees from collapsing, agreed to serve as security consultant for a few levee-adjacent settlers about 50 years ago.
Ever since, those clever property owners came crying to the flood board whenever the city tried to finish the Sacramento River Parkway bike trail, a regional treasure conceived in 1975.
“We need fences to keep peasants off the levee,” the property owners shouted. The flood board responded, “Your wish is our command.”
If not for the flood board’s protectionism on behalf of a dozen landowners, the bike trail would have opened weeks before Jimmy Carter entered the White House.
This might sound like a tragicomedy involving a backwoods state agency and a few loud-mouthed property owners. And it is. But consider:
Thanks to the flood board’s bizarre, subservient allegiance to the Dirty Dozen, 525,000 Sacramento residents can’t enjoy a 6-mile stretch of their city’s waterfront.
I’ve been banging on about this injustice for 13 years. When state and federal authorities ripped out six private, cross-levee fences in 2021 for flood-control repairs, I figured momentum had shifted.
The flood board was finally putting public interests ahead of private grievances.
But not so fast. In May and June, the flood board’s misplaced loyalties came stumbling back.
Flood board staffers encouraged flood board members—governor appointees—to approve the first of several new private fences across the levee. The permanent fences would barricade the bike path with chainlink, gates and locks.
Thanks to either stupendous naivety or monumental stupidity, flood board staff missed the fact that the city objects to five or six new fences stretched across its levee bike trail.
Loudly, the city made its protest known. City officials told the flood board that cyclists and pedestrians don’t like running smack into fences and gates.
“The fence would create a physical barrier blocking public access at the location where the city will soon be constructing a multi-use trail,” city Public Works Director Mike Eierman wrote.
In May, when time arrived for the flood board to approve the first new fence, tragicomedy dissolved into farce.
Board Member Joe Countryman, an engineer who should know better, said the flood board had no responsibility for bike trails. Therefore, he reasoned, private fences should be blessed.
Countryman forgot the flood board likewise has no duty to serve as a fencing agent for homeowners.
When Countryman called for a vote to approve the new fence, fellow board members went silent. Motion died. Board Member Keely Bosler bailed out Countryman. She moved to delay the fence vote for 30 days.
Countryman aside, it seems flood board members aren’t eager to fight the city. They don’t want to complicate bike trail construction. They understand new fences would cost city taxpayers many thousands in wasted dollars to mitigate.
Bosler wisely identified how property owners manipulate the flood board. She said, “This feels like using our process to make the bike trail more difficult.”
At some point, even useful idiots realize they are being used.
R.E. Graswich can be reached at regraswich@icloud.com. Follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
