West Sacramento Homeowners Seeking Legal Help To Stop City From Seizing Property
WEST SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Homeowners in the path of a proposed West Sacramento levee project are seeking legal help to stop the city from seizing their property.
The city wants to improve flood protection by widening existing levees, but that means nearly two-dozen homes will have to be demolished.
For 25 years, Kim McDonald's called a riverfront house her home, but she may be forced to leave.
"Because the house is being torn down you can put up christmas decorations and not have to worry about taking them down," she said.
Her home is one of 22 scheduled to be demolished in an effort to flood-proof a six-mile stretch of the Sacramento River bank.
"It's a setback levee, and the levee is coming directly through my house," she said.
Plans for the levee improvements surfaced nearly a decade ago, leaving many landowners in limbo.
"It's sort of like can't fix your house, can't sell your house, can't move on with your life," she said.
West Sacramento city leaders say they will offer owners fair market value for their homes, and have offered help with relocation, but they may have to use eminent domain if agreements can't be reached.
"If we didn't fix this levee we'd be putting at risk 52,000 people and a whole lot of economic activity in our community," said West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon.
"The city has treated us so poorly we all just want to get out, to get away from this," McDonald said.
It's a quarter-century of memories soon to be sunk underwater.
"It's turmoil for everybody," she said. "We are all retirement age and we thought we could live out our lives in our homes."
The city hopes to break ground on the levee improvements later this year.
