Hamilton City residents turn out in effort to help levee
Chico Enterprise Record- 6/24/02
By Danny Bernardini, staff writer

HAMILTON CITY - Although the city was celebrating, the prompt for the party wasn't all smiles.
The people of Hamilton City hold community get-togethers to raise money to repair a levee separating them and the Sacramento River.

The alcohol-free event, which is held two times a year, has raised more than $73,000, but the city needs between $125,000 and $150,000 to completely fix the problems of the fading levee, said Jose Puente, general manager of the Hamilton City Community Services.

Volunteers sold authentic Mexican food, snow cones and beverages; locals showed off custom cars, and a live band and disc jockey provided the sounds.

Ron Baptista, a volunteer engineer for the Hamilton City Fire Department, spent the midday preparing chicken, which he said sells out every year. He said the event shows the unity of the city.

"It's a real tight community. We all work together," Baptista said. "It seems like every weekend there is something going on."

Matt Cannizzaro, also a volunteer engineer, said he was happy to give his time to the event.
"We were asked, now we're here dishing out chicken," Cannizzaro said. "Everyone has a good time and it raises money to keep this town going."

The event has been going since 1998, when the Army Corps of Engineers recognized the problem, which would cost $500,000 to solve. The federal government would pay half, and the state government would pay a quarter, but the city was forced to come up with the rest, Puente said.

"They said to us, 'You have a problem - you need to help yourselves,' " he said.

Puente and other community services members decided the festival would be the best way to raise money because the government wasn't going to tackle the problem until they had the money. Finding help wasn't hard, he said.

"A lot of people have expectations that the government should fix it. We've been waiting 25 years for that," he said. "I have known people for 30 years who never got involved in something, but this became their pride and joy."

While members of the city were enjoying their day, Doug Ehrk watched the Sacramento River flow where his well used to be, which is now 20 feet across the river.

Ehrk said eight years ago the river was a quarter of a mile away. Now there is only 60 feet between him and the water.

"It's a mess. It's not going to get any better," Ehrk said. "This levee is going to blow out and Hamilton City is going to be in deep doo-doo."

Ehrk said in the dry months there isn't a large threat of more erosion of the levee, but extreme winters like the predicted El Nino storms this year do damage.

"When it rains, truckloads of dirt fall in," he said.

Ehrk said the only time anyone is going to fix the problems are when it is an emergency during floods or high water.

"It is so asinine to risk a person's life to work on a levee when it's flooding," he said.

Puente said the problem might be addressed more if Hamilton City was a more important town.
"Sometimes we put things on the back burner. It's to the point we might not be lucky. If it breaks, they will fix that part, and that's it," Puente said.

"If these 500 houses were in Sacramento, how much attention would they get?"

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