Scrappy Sacramento Delta Town Braces for Toughest Test : Cities: Isleton, population 900, has endured fires and floods. Now the Sacramento County grand jury wants it to shut down.

In its 72 years, the tiny community of Isleton has called itself “The Little Paris of the Delta,” “The Asparagus Capital of the World” and “Crawdad Town U.S.A.”

Now, a grand jury wants Isleton to call it a day.

The Sacramento County grand jury has determined that the town is unable to govern itself and has proposed that it cease to be--that it close down the government, disincorporate and allow the county to swallow it whole.

The Isleton City Council has until Saturday to respond to the grand jury’s allegations. Chances are, it will say no--this is a tough town, folks say, too resilient to commit civic suicide.

“They’d have to come up with something better than the feeble arguments they gave for disincorporation,” Mayor Leonard H. Maxey said.

This is, after all, a city that was rebuilt when half of it burned to the ground in 1926; that faced off floods when a San Joaquin River levee broke in 1972; that has lost jobs and industries but has refused to fold.

“I care about this town,” said LoRay Dref, 70. “I’ve lived here for too long.”

Isleton grew from the swamps of the Sacramento River during the California Gold Rush 150 years ago. Chinese laborers built a collection of islands and created a thriving Chinatown district.

Isleton’s population hit a high of about 3,000 around the turn of the century--years before it became an incorporated city. Since then, the city lost its prosperity and much of its population to floods, the Depression, the fall of the cannery industry and the decline of riverboat traffic.

There are now just 900 residents. The city employs three full-time staffers and has a budget of just over $430,000, much of which comes from fund-raisers such as the annual Crawdad Festival. Taxes have not been raised in more than 35 years.

It seems another fund-raiser has something to do with the city’s current predicament. Police Chief Eugene Byrd has made headlines by issuing hundreds of concealed-weapon permits to residents all over California.

Gun permits are big business in Isleton. The city expects to collect at least $141,000 in processing fees.

Critics say Byrd has issued about 500 of the $150 permits to residents of the crime-weary state, expects to issue about 700 more this fiscal year and has 5,000 people on a waiting list. Only about 30 permits went to Isleton residents. The California attorney general’s office has asked the city to stop charging $150, since the permits are supposed to cost just $3.

“With all the publicity on gun permits, logic tells me there’s a connection” with the grand jury investigation, said Bob Lake, who moved here less than a year ago.

Among other things, the grand jury said Isleton needs to improve its bookkeeping, draft new policies for the conduct of staffers, elected officials and volunteers, and establish an independent hearing panel to oversee the council’s review of the police chief.

The grand jury can’t force the city into extinction. The City Council or the county Board of Supervisors would have to vote for it, and there must be state approval. Then the issue would be put to voters.

“It’s kind of preposterous,” the mayor said. “If they were to look at Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Francisco and a lot of other cities and add up all the factors, they would surely find more problems than we have here. Would they recommend that they disincorporate?”

But the grand jury has concentrated on Isleton, one of the 10 smallest cities in the state. And everyone is pointing fingers of blame.

The police chief, Byrd, blames the mayor, with whom he has feuded over how to use the money generated by firearms permits: “When you’ve got a mayor handling things the way he is, no wonder they recommend we disincorporate,” Byrd said. “He runs this city like he’s God.”

The mayor speaks darkly of mysterious slander: “There are some bad people in town who fed the grand jury some very bad information.”

The grand jury would say only that its investigation was prompted by citizen complaints. There is speculation that newcomers are dissatisfied with the way things have been run, and want to bring new development to Isleton.

“These new people come in here; they get a little bug in their fanny and they want to change everything around,” Dref said. “That makes me mad. I say, ‘Why did you move to Isleton?’ They say, ‘Because it’s a cute little town.’ I say then, ‘Why do you want to make changes?’ ”

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Time will wash this hubbub down the river, said one of the city’s oldest residents, Mabel Rogers, 83, born here before the city was a city.

“Utter nonsense,” she calls the controversy.

“When I was born here, there were, I’d say, 50 families,” Rogers said, standing on her front porch and looking out toward a boarded-up pickle factory. “Then it grew and grew and grew. At one time, there were five canneries right here along the river.”

Rogers believes Isleton will survive.

“It seems like they have all kinds of fun looking into things in Isleton,” Rogers said. “I just hope it all clears up, and we just go back to what we were.”