Cleaning up cars your daily Group organizing to rid riverbottoms of vehicles briefing Marysville appoints interim city manager
The Marysville City Council hired Eugene Palazzo to be the city’s interim city manager, according to a Wednesday news release. The council held several special meetings to discuss filling the position, the latest taking place Tuesday night.
Palazzo has 31 years experience in government, working for the last eight years as the city manager of Galt. He retired in April 2019. Palazzo began working in Nevada County and has worked in several agencies in California including Folsom, Riverbank, Yuba City, South Lake Tahoe, Crescent City and
Galt, according to the release.
“I am excited to assist the City Council over the next few months during the recruitment of a permanent City Manager,” Palazzo said via the release. “I have a passion to assist local government and a particular fondness for the city since my family moved here in 1981.”
He holds a master’s degree in public administration and a bachelor of arts in geography with a minor in business administration. Palazzo has focused on city administration, redevelopment, economic development and planning.
“He brings a wealth of knowledge and experience,” Mayor Ricky Samayoa said in the release. “His focus will include maintaining the day-to-day activities, supporting department heads, updating the public and council regularly and leading the process of hiring a permanent city manager.”
On July 24, the council fired former city manager Marti Brown in a 3-2 vote. Brown had been city manager since Jan. 1, 2018.
Several community groups, as well as law enforcement, are coming together later this month to remove abandoned vehicles from the riverbottoms area along the Yuba and Feather rivers.
One event organizer, Dustin Daundivier, founder of the Facebook group 530 Recovery & Everything Off Road, went out last weekend to survey the riverbottoms, which some speculate to have hundreds of abandoned vehicles littered throughout. His group held a similar clean-up event last year.
“Over the years I’ve noticed trash and cars building up in the riverbottoms, which takes away the fun of off-roading in my own community, so I ran the idea
in my own community, so I ran the idea past the group to take back our river and that’s how it started,” he said. “I didn’t realize how many people share the same passion. To me, it feels like a big family, with so many people on board to help.”
Daundivier said members of his group, as well as other local off-roading groups, have gone out in recent weeks to pull abandoned vehicles into piles to make it easier for law enforcement to come out during the event and tag for removal.
“We went to the Shad Pad area and Grays Beach area where there are homeless camps and trash tucked into bushes. Every so many feet you would see a car, and it gets way worse the closer you get to the Shad Pad area,” Daundivier said.
Some of the vehicles appear to be stolen, with parts stripped, he said. Others have been destroyed and left for trash.
“It’s pretty plain to see that there are a lot of vehicles that are being taken into the riverbottoms area,” said Jeremy Strang, code enforcement manager
for Yuba County, whose department will play an assistance role in this month’s clean up. “We don’t know where exactly they are coming from. It appears some of them have been burned. Many of them are upside down, and there has been some speculation that catalytic converters were being removed and sold.”
Strang said there are pockets around the riverbottoms where his team have discovered problem areas. One area in particular is off Simpson Lane near the race track, where his team counted more than 50 vehicles.
“If there is identifiable identification on the vehicle, sometimes they are removed. We run them through the sheriff ’s office and if it comes back stolen, we forward it to CHP for recovery,” Strang said. “If it comes back as expired or no longer registered, we will send a notice to the last owner and property owner where the vehicle sits.”
The county receives some money for the abatement of abandoned vehicles, but not enough to completely address the issue. Strang said his team’s priority is with abandoned vehicles in right-of-way areas.
County residents who encounter abandoned vehicles can report them to Strang’s office by calling 749-5455.
As part of the clean up effort, the abandoned vehicles not deemed to be stolen will be taken to Empire Steel in Yuba City.
“It’s all free,” Daundivier said. “Whoever takes the vehicles over to Empire Steel will get $20-$80 a car as an incentive.”
The clean-up event is planned for Aug. 29 and will see the offroad Facebook groups, SAYLOVE and law enforcement working together in the hard to reach areas of the riverbottoms.
Jeff Stephens, founder of SAYLOVE, said his team plans to bring equipment out to the various sites to help haul off as many abandoned vehicles as possible, in addition to sending volunteers out around the community to help with their normal monthly clean-up efforts.
This month’s event is sponsored by Sunsweet, the Yuba-sutter Chamber of Commerce and the Happy Viking.
“We meet on the last
Saturday of the month at Hope Point Nazarene Church at 600 North George Washington, Yuba City, between 7:30 a.m. and 8 a.m.,” he said. “We provide everything, including gloves and masks. Those that show up get a free T-shirt and lunch provided by the
Happy Viking.”
Daundivier said those interested in helping can find more information on his group’s Facebook page. He said the event will be conducted with COVID-19 safety guidelines implemented.
“It’s hard to say but I think this could be
the biggest abandoned car removal in history. People have been cooped up for so long, we’ve gotten a good response from people wanting to get out and clean up the river,” he said. “The passion shown from the off-roading community has been huge.”