Off Beat: Yuba County gets TANC'd

Government can indeed work in mysterious ways.

That was quite evident recently as the Transmission Agency of Northern California went about the democratic process of obtaining public comments on its plan to run miles and miles of power transmission lines, or what it calls the TTP, or TANC Transmission Project, through the local area.

"TANC is committed to an open, transparent public process for the development of the TTP that provides a variety of opportunities for community involvement during the environmental process," it said in a February press release.

Indeed, it was a very open process. TANC scheduled 12 public scoping meetings in March and April.

Big problem, however. Even though alternative routes for the transmission line go through Yuba and Sutter counties, nobody bothered to have any public meetings here.

Amazing.

The closest meetings were in Chico, Williams and Sacramento.

Have a nice trip.

TANC had announced all of this in a Federal Register notice in February, so if you happen to read the Federal Register (doesn't everybody?) or peruse the TANC Web site, you were fully aware of what was going on.

The route alternatives were described in great detail, although you would have been hard pressed to realize that one of the proposed routes sliced through Yuba County. You needed a map for that.

Well, the folks in Yuba County were all over this. On April 28, the item came before the Board of Supervisors. That was two days before the initial public comment period was to close.

There is supposed to be more time public comment in the next two years as environmental documents are released.

But for now, it was so late in the process that county staff didn't have time to bring the matter before the board's Land Use and Public Works Committee.

Luckily for Yuba County, the good people at TANC decided to extend the comment period through the end of this month and actually have a meeting in Marysville! Wow, thanks! The deadline has been extended yet again, to July 30.

As the staff memo to supervisors noted, the proposed routes, which are 1,000 feet wide, are supposed to have "the least significant impact."

But in Yuba County, the line would affect "agricultural lands, areas planned for residential, commercial and industrial growth and existing residential, agricultural and commercial areas."

So finally Yuba County is on board with TANC, and there was a public meeting here to talk about this project.

Feeling old?

With so much darn bad news about the economy, it's time to look at the bright side.

What is the bright side? If you need to go to a nursing home, Yuba City is the place to be.

According to Genworth Financial, which studies these things, the cheapest nursing home rate in California is in Yuba City.

Genworth's 2009 Cost of Care Survey noted that the median annual cost for a private nursing home room in California ranges from $70,993 in Yuba City to $147,825 in Santa Barbara.