Levee assessment ballots delayed
Sutter and Butte counties will wait several more days to decide the fate of a new assessment to pay for levee upgrades along the flood-prone Feather River.
Ballots for the assessment vote will not reach voters' addresses on the original target date of Saturday, according to Kim Floyd, spokeswoman for the Sutter Butte Flood Control Agency. Mailings will begin next week at the earliest, with an announcement on the starting date set for Monday.
The delay allows the flood agency more time to gather information from property owners in calculating assessments they would pay, Floyd said Tuesday.
Voters will have 45 days from the start of mailings to decide whether to help provide $72.5 million of the estimated $250 million needed to re-inforce 44 miles of flood walls on the Feather's western bank, from the Sutter Bypass north to the Thermalito Afterbay. Voting will culminate in a public meeting where hand-delivered ballots will be accepted; that meeting currently is set for June 16 but likely will be pushed back.
Construction is planned to last from 2012 to 2014.
Officials have called the upgrades the best hope of holding down flood insurance premiums and heading off a threatened state curb on issuing building permits in flood-risk zones, set to take effect in 2015. The reinforced flood walls are expected to guard areas north of Yuba City against the peak high-water level expected every 200 years, while providing 100-year protection to the south. Votes are weighted according to each property's size, location and usage. A simple majority vote from all returned ballots is sufficient to pass the assessment, with state bonds covering the project's remaining costs.
Annual payments would be based on the expected benefit improved levees would provide each parcel. Landowners in Butte County generally would pay less than those in the Yuba City area, which lies downstream on the Feather.
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Calculate your annual assessment. Click here.
CONTACT Howard Yune at 749-4708 or hyune@appealdemocrat.com
