El Dorado County's "El Jefe" Takes Over Troubled Isleton

"This is a mess on steroids," Hinrichs said simply as he surveyed the job he has been handed as Isleton's interim city manager.

Isleton, a town of about 840 residents on the Sacramento River, has no website, no computer system set up to track finances and a decided lack of city services.

"You can't even read our own damn street signs, they're so faded," Hinrichs said last week.

Perhaps we can stipulate that Isleton is a pleasant little town filled with fascinating historic buildings, and that this weekend tens of thousands of people will enjoy a visit to its second annual Cajun Festival.

But even the most die-hard defender of this Delta hamlet at the southern tip of Sacramento County will concede that Isleton has a problem or two.

Such as:

• The police force no longer exists, again, and one of its five patrol cars is covered in spider webs behind City Hall because someone put sugar in the gas tank.

• The town is running a $300,000 budget deficit with no solution in sight.

• Municipal revenue is $425,000 in a town facing bills of about $1 million over the next year.

• Isleton has no permanent city manager, city attorney, police chief, or money to pay for them.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/06/14/4561019/new-manager-tries-to-tidy-up-isleton.html