Off Beat: An island is an honor
One of Maryville's greatest men has died. Chances are you never heard of him, or don't remember him.
His passing was noted in a small death notice Sept. 30.
But William Oren Sink was one of the few residents of Marysville who cared about issues and cared about other people.
Way back in March 1994, Sink sent letters to the Yuba County Board of Supervisors, and city councils in Marysville and Wheatland.
He had a simple request: Establish a rent control board.
Sink proposed that the county, Marysville and Wheatland establish a Landlord and Tenant Rights Board
The board would control rents, monitor discrimination complaints and have an anonymous tip line for landlord or tenant complaints.
RENT CONTROL?
IN YUBA COUNTY?
The Board of Supervisors immediately referred Sink's proposal to committee, where it was never heard from again. The city councils, if they had committees, probably sent them there, too, or just ignored the proposal.
And so it went in Yuba County.
A few months earlier, Sink had better luck with a state agency when he launched a letter-writing campaign.
Sink, who used a walker, prodded Caltrans to improve pedestrian safety on E Street at Sixth and Seventh streets.
Caltrans agreed to install pedestrian safety islands at those intersections after Sink suggested that the agency alter traffic signals on E Street to allow the disabled to cross.
Caltrans officials said they didn't want to add to congestion, but settled on the pedestrian safety islands at the intersections.
They may be the lone monuments to Sink's time in Marysville.
It's on now
If you thought relicensing the Yuba River Project would be easy, think again. The Yuba County Water Agency better be ready for a big battle between now and 2016.
The blog for American Rivers carried this item a few days ago from California Field Office Director Steve Rothert:
The fight to restore the Yuba River and restore salmon and steelhead runs to the upper Yuba has entered a new phase. The Yuba County Water Agency recently started the process to obtain a new operating license from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for its New Bullards Bar Dam. The relicensing efforts are a great opportunity to also get salmon past the first dam on the Yuba, Englebright Dam, and we are working closely with local partners like the South Yuba River Citizens League in that goal.
American Rivers' hydropower program has used the FERC relicensing opportunity to leverage important restoration actions across the country, including removing dams on the Penobscot River in Maine and, most recently, on the Klamath where we just reached an agreement with PacifiCorp to remove their four dams.
The Yuba River has one of the last wild populations of spring run Chinook salmon in California, and getting them back up into their home waters will be critical to help them adapt to climate change.
