The Smart Growth planned by Yuba County apparently includes the eastern part of the county in future growth to the detriment of the west Yuba County area of Linda, but Smart Growth to one person is not necessarily Smart growth to another person, that is why we elect our neighbors who feel the same way we do and those from out of the area can either choose to live here or not. However, those who come here to change the peoples way of life to meet the Smart Growth that meets their plans, with out the vote or other approval of the people. Elected and appointed officials of Yuba County have a plan as one Engineer and State reclamation board member said,” to build housing in the flood plains come hell or high water.”

How did the people of Yuba county unknowingly permit the Smart growth of building environmentally equitable living communities ( See internet ) ? The County officials even changed the Motto on Our Squad cars from.” To protect and serve “  to ” To build safe Communities,” using our tax funds without a Vote. No person in Yuba County was told of this plan. a plan that could remove thousands of people from their homes in Linda through changing the levee system to protect the new Smart Growth developments east of the existing population center. In 2004 the County began negotiations with the Federal postal service to remove the name Linda from the town of Linda and place the name on Edgewater and east Linda, and placing the City of Linda in the Olivehurst 95961 zip code area.

I contacted the U.S. Postal service in Sacramento and inquired why the Appeal democrat newspaper in marysville was referring to my hometown of Linda as Olivehurst. The Postal service they had nothing to do with the names of towns, only zip codes that make delivering mail easier. I asked if I used my address in conjunction with zipcode 95901 which is Marysville zip code. I was told I could continue as I had since moving here in 1958.

Who started this boondoggle? Local officials bent on removing not only the name of Linda but the people of linda also in my opinion. I then located the Board of geographic place names, GNIS, the agency in charge of Listing towns and their borders. I found that both linda is an unincorporated town with no borders, and can use the Marysville zip code 95901 and the name of Linda.

The first thing County Supervisors did was take away our Name of Linda, then they said we were Olivehurst, but I convinced the Postal service in Sacramento to at least let us use the name West Linda but they said we had to use 95961 because Linda 95901 was going to get a post office. The next thing the County did was permit the broken window syndrome to grow in West Linda, closed down a decades old school called ,Alicia, because of a Gas pipe line that had been there forever, and perhaps the most despicable act was to fail to upgrade the Yuba River South bank levee, where the levee failed in 1986.

The County received State and developer funds to upgrade that levee but did not Touch the Levee at 0.79 Levee mile marker that had been filled with Giant Boulders and cobble Stones in 1986 to stop the flow of Flood water through the levee. apparently, the County supervisors were aware of the failure but insisted the Levee was safe as told to them by a local Engineer who worked for the Corps of Engineers in Sacramento. Subsequent investigation with the Home office of the Corps in Washington D.C. revealed the Local certification did not meet Federal levee safe requirements of 44 CFR 65.10 requiring the levee Foundation, Sides and Top to be analyzed as to stability, and the Evidence sent to the Corps for certification. However, the local Engineer certified it himself under Authority of the State Flood Control system, nothing to do with the Federal safe Levee requirements, as well as the Home office sent me rules showing that the Corps is permitted to certify only levees they own and operate such as the Mississippi River and its tributaries. However, the county still uses the local Corps engineers certification and now also uses the County’s project Engineers certification who failed to do all the upgrades himself. 

Smart growth, How far will County officials go to bring the plan to fruition? There was no accounting of State granted money earmarked for Levee upgrades, there was a great increase in salary and benefits for these officials through a salary adjustment in 2005, the source of which is highly suspicious because the County was not in a position to grant enormous increases and the lack of County official auditing of the income from State taxes and Developer fees, add to the Suspicion. How far? In 2008, the County Officials arrested the only person who spoke against the levee failures, non accounting, and failure to follow State Constitutional laws. As the trial progressed, it became apparent there was no evidence to prove the County’s allegations as the District Attorney, after a few minutes closed his closing statement with no evidence presented, which should have ended the case since he could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt his allegations.

The Court told the Jury Four times to follow CalCrim 220 which says a person is presumed innocent unless the Prosecution proves his case beyond a reasonable doubt or the person is to be found not guilty. The court read this to the Jury before they were sequestered and when the Jury came out asking for explanations as to presumed Innocent and Beyond a reasonable Doubt, and each of the three times, the Court repeated the answer. Still after Four days of deliberations, the jury did not understand the CalCrim rule of  presumed innocence, so they said they could not agree on a verdict. Under Penal code 1096 and CalCrim 220, the jury was instructed Four times, if the prosecution could not prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, they must acquit, still they were confused.

None the less, under the Judges instructions, my attorney should have reminded the jury to find not Guilty because the  Prosecution failed their duty. Even though the Court had no duty to read the instructions again, the Court in the interest of Justice, should have reminded the Jury of their duty under State Penal Code Jury Instructions 1096. That failure by my attorney and the Jury caused me to have to prepare for a second trial on the same charges. I felt that my attorney was not up to the trial by his failure to gain acquittal and I hired another from the bay area. That attorney after finally getting the trial transcripts filed 14 motions for failure to properly instruct the Jury, failure to Timely bring evidence to the Jury, false charging of alleged charges, and others, the day of the Hearing for Motions, the County District attorney dismissed all charges.

During this time, I attempted to gain public office through the election process. In 2005, an ex Yuba County Sergeant and I decided to run against the Current Sheriff to return Visible Street patrol to the Department which the Current Sheriff had removed in favor of having Deputies park out-of-the-way and commit reports to the portable Computer’s they were issued. The new way removed the Deputies from patrolling the Beats of the County, looking for crimes in progress and placed them out of sight, writing reports. The Ex Sergeant was offered a job somewhere for $100,000 dollars a year which was just a couple thousand more than the Sheriff received, $ 98,000 at that time, he took it and I tried to get other ex officers to run but time ran out and I decided to run myself.

I approached the County Clerk and asked for papers to run for the office and she said I needed to meet Statute law 18095.3, installed in 1989 and I said I am running under my constitutional Rights. She agreed and said if I would sign a paper saying I believed the Constitution was superior to the Statute, she would give me papers. I did so but when I took it to her,  she had changed her mind and said I would have to meet the statute or have a judge sign a paper showing the Statute was unconstitutional. The Clerk stuck with that. I asked for Papers to run for Supervisor Of Linda and she readily gave them to me. Logue won the race by 34 votes, a group of Linda citizens tried to recall him to no avail. elsewhere on this blog shows activities by the County Clerk that helped Logue stay in office and keep the Smart Growth plan going.

In checking the Smart growth beginnings, I found that some County supervisors had went to a College in Merced and were taught the Smart Growth way and recently Four more Supervisors of yuca County went to a meeting in Yosemite National Park, attending the building livable communities conference, March 18,2011 which was sponsored by the Local government  Commission ( LGC ) .

I have no problem with County Supervisors following General plans, but when a group of Supervisors decide to change the Face of Linda by leaving a Levee defect deliberately unfixed, by not accounting for Multi Hundreds of Millions of Dollars, by not doing the needed upgrades of the Linda levee and then writing letters signed by two separate County Administrators to FEMA and The Corps of Engineers, saying the Linda levee was completed and safe when they knew it was not, leaving Thousands of Citizens behind or before the levee, unsafe.  that borders more on Criminal activity rather than Malfeasance in my opinion.

Rex Archer

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