Off Beat: Flood forums flow by region

The Department of Water Resources wants to know what you think about the Central Valley Flood Management Planning Program.

By you, DWR apparently means people in select parts of California.

By select, it's areas DWR selects.

As you might expect, Yuba-Sutter wasn't one of those areas. Surprised?

DWR scheduled five regional forums last month to hear from the public about flood management issues.

Where were these forums? Chico, Modesto, Los Banos and West Sacramento.

Notice any flood-prone area where DWR didn't go? Yup, you know it. It's that area where it really, really floods.

"The Central Valley Flood Management Planning Program is a state-led program to help improve understanding about our mutual flood risk and to inventory and assess the current flood protection system," DWR said in announcing the forums. "This program will also develop the Central Valley Flood Protection Plan, which will include recommendations for action to improve integrated flood management in the Central Valley."And, it continued: "DWR invites partners and interested parties to fully engage in developing content for the Central Valley Flood Protection Plan.Through the regional forums, DWR will lay the foundation for ongoing public engagement in, and broad support for, the Central Valley Flood Protection Plan."

Well, maybe there will be more regional forums in the future. Maybe they'll have one of these forums here — where it really, really floods.

But don't count on it.

Oh, the cemetery

The latest dust-up over Marysville's historic cemetery makes one wonder where the priorities in this burg really are.

When you have big buildings — big, prominent buildings — that have been vacant for years — no, decades — you'd think the city fathers would spend more time trying to come up with ways to fill them, rather than agonizing over whether the headstones are shiny enough to keep certain people happy.

All eight public cemetery districts — and one community services district that runs a cemetery — in Yuba County have issues. The Marysville Cemetery District is defunct. That's why the city is on the hook.

According to a recent report prepared for Yuba County's Local Agency Formation Commission, the Brownsville Cemetery District needs a new sprinkler system to replace that one installed in the 1950s. Up at the Camptonville Cemetery, there were broken and cracked headstones, the LAFCO report said.

"All cemetery service providers face significant financing constraints and report having infrastructure needs that have not been addressed due to a lack of available financing," the LAFCO report noted.

So try to keep that in mind the next time you hear somebody howl about the Marysville cemetery, how bad it is and how lousy a job the city is doing.

Howl about empty buildings.