I keep hoping flood protection agencies will wise up to tricks pulled by people who want to torpedo the Sacramento River Parkway levee bike trail.
The tricks are tiresome. But flood agencies are easy marks. They love to play the fool.
The latest embarrassment happened last year. The game involved five temporary levee fences in Pocket and Little Pocket authorized by Central Valley Flood Protection Board Executive Officer Chris Lief in 2023.
Lief had no business authorizing those private fences. They block public access to the levee. State law says levee fence permits must be discussed in public and voted on by the flood board, a group appointed by the governor.
After pressure from a few property owners, Lief authorized the fences on his own. He didn’t bother with board approval or public discussion.
He told me the temporary fences were “minor alterations,” which don’t require board action. State law says otherwise. But let’s put that aside.
With that first mistake, Lief blundered into an unholy alliance with a handful of property owners determined to keep the public off the levee. The homesteaders have caused trouble for decades. Perhaps unfamiliar with levee fence history, Lief ended up helping the obstructionists.
The property owners want to gum up the city’s plans to finish paving the levee bike trail from Miller Park to South Pocket. Lief tells me he’s ready to work with city planners.
That’s terrific. But his willingness to authorize private fences sends a message. The bike trail can’t co-exist with fences stretched across the pavement.
As chief of a state agency, Lief’s job is to serve the public, not a tiny collection of property owners. Yet special-interest support is what happened.
If Lief thought the property owners would play by the rules, he soon learned otherwise. Obstructionists near the levee dance to their own music.
When Lief signed the fence authorizations, he included a list of conditions, including maintenance and design requirements. He told the property owners to follow a lengthy bureaucratic path if they wished to turn their temporary fences into permanent fences.
And permanent fences are the homesteaders’ goal. They want the levee maintained at public expense but privatized for their own pleasure.
What Lief maybe didn’t realize is people with fence permits often ignore rules and conditions attached to those permits. They know the state rarely acts against illegal levee encroachments.
In past years, permit holders moved fences without permission. They added illegal barbed wire. Erected taller and wider fences than allowed. Jeopardized levee integrity by digging holes, carving stairways and not removing fences that caused erosion.
It was only a matter of time before they ignored conditions on their temporary fences. Sure enough, last summer, Lief’s staff realized the five temporary fences were out of compliance.
The property owners were supposed to keep the Department of Water Resources updated on their plans for permanent fences. The homesteaders didn’t bother with the updates.
Lief took action. He sent letters to five levee parkway fence permit holders saying, “You are required to remove the temporary cross levee fence within 30 days.” The letters also said the requests for permanent fences were “administratively closed.”
Of course, there was no way the permit holders were going to remove their levee fences. And they will never stop pushing for permanent fences.
They called their lawyers and created a new narrative. It wasn’t our fault, they told Lief and his staff. An anonymous engineer we hired to design our fences dropped the ball.
Having come this far with the property owners, Lief swallowed the excuse. He told me, “Currently all are compliant with their authorizations.”
Which means the game by a few homesteaders to build permanent fences and wreck the city’s levee bike trail continues.
As for thousands of residents eager to use the bike trail, your hopes and prayers rest with Chris Lief and the Central Valley Flood Protection Board. You’re in great hands.
R.E. Graswich can be reached at regraswich@icloud.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
