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Home My WebLink About2021.02.17 Wildfire Safety Commission Minutes MINUTES FOR A MEETING OF THE WILDFIRE SAFETY COMMISSION Wednesday,February 17th,2021 11:OOAM to 1:OOPM Zoom As the February 17th Wildfire Safety Commission(WSC)will be held electronically, any public forum testimony is to be submitted in writing by members of the public by 10AM the day before the scheduled meeting. Staff will compile all written testimony into one document and send the document to the Commission members and post the testimony on the agenda the day before the meeting after 1 OAM. The written testimony will also be included in the minutes. Members of the public are welcome to listen or view the Wildfire Safety Commission meeting live. Please contact katie. ig bblekashland.or.us if you would like to listen to this meeting live. Meeting protocol via Zoom: raise hand to chime in and Stephen or Katie will facilitate when you can begin speaking I. CALL TO ORDER II. INTRODUCTIONS A. Katie Gibble, Stephen Gagne, Doug Kay, Dan Dawson, Charisse Sydoriak, Steve Asher, Paul Behrhorst, Chris Chambers,Bruce Moats,Kent Romney, Cill Franco, Tonya Graham III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES A. All approve IV. PUBLIC AND GUEST FORUM A. John Scarborough& Greg Conway introduce themselves as guests both interested in joining the Commission V. ADJUSTMENTS TO AGENDA A. Stephen-EmberS afe Campaign B. Charisse—consider supporting the paper that Charisse wrote and revised VI. CITY COUNCIL CHECK-IN A. Stakeholder meeting and study session for building code adoption. Expected to begin implementing the code in June. B. Constricting financially throughout the City. Do not know if help is coming from the Federal Government, so working on meeting essential services first. C. Town Hall update—March loth, details still being worked on between staff and council D. Fire Chief update—Feb 16th, City formally approved staff proposal to restructure internally for Ralph Sartain to enter temporary fire chief. Fire fighter position will be added as many firefighters are being moved up. E. City was successful in receiving ODF grant for$173,000 to do work in the Forest and in the built environment VII. OLD BUSINESS A. Working Group List 1. FAC Expansion/integration(KG,KR, CS, DK) a) FEMA grant assistant will only be implementing the FEMA grant, and will not be available to do other FAC work 2. CWPP (CS, PB, KR) a) Nothing new to report MINUTES FOR A MEETING OF THE WILDFIRE SAFETY COMMISSION Wednesday,February 17th,2021 11:00AM to 1:00PM Zoom 3. Nuisance Ordinance Expansion(DD, CS, CC, KG) a) Dan: Chris reviewed draft that Charisse and Kent sent,Brian and Katie added final edits. Final version will be brought to the Commission next month. 4. Home Inspector Capacity-building(KR, CS, PB) a) Charisse: meeting one or two times per week. Currently working on Home Assessment task book,have worked on getting waiver approved by insurance folks, and have been working on getting description of job duties.Next we will turn our attention to building the class. Other similar classes are beginning in the nation-in Colorado Cill has agreed to be the volunteer coordinator,we are working on drafting the job duties for the volunteer coordinator. 5. Wildfire Risk Reduction Program(SA, SG,KG, KR) 6. Nursery/Landscaper Education(CS,KG) a) Nothing new to report 7. Fire-Safe Business License Program for Landscapers and Contractors(KG, SG) a) Nothing new to report 8. New Building Code Adoption advocacy(KG, SG) a) No problems anticipated to get this passed by council. 9. Electric Utility Risk Assessment(SA) a) Discussed doing utility work closer to evacuation routes first. B. Farmer's Market(Doug) 1. Starting in two weeks C. Homeland Security Grant for evacuation planning (Chris) 1. Contractor working on finalizing report. Should be back to City in next month or two D. DEQ Grant(Katie) 1. Working on implementing the action plan items in the Community Response Plan E. Real Estate Engagement Program(SG,KG) 1. Nothing new to report F. Intterra/WiRe Program rollout(DD,BM,KG,KR) 1. Katie working with GIS to resolve data issue G. Spring Wildfire Preparedness Campaign(KG,KR, CS,DK) 1. Campaign: EmberSafe campaign—shift focus of campaign to being optimistic,what you can do now to lower your risk. Shift fire culture in Ashland to being more proactive. This will take energy and will take budget. a) Climate working group: much overlap on meeting goals for wildfire Campaign. Wildfire preparedness is top climate adaptation action in the Climate working group's plan. So is it MINUTES FOR A MEETING OF THE WILDFIRE SAFETY COMMISSION Wednesday,February 17th,2021 11:OOAM to 1:OOPM Zoom possible to integrate these campaigns and make the campaign year round. Could leverage assistance between groups to make more happen. Pull together rather than competing. b) Budget: Tonya has requested study session for the budget ask,but we are not yet on the look ahead. c) Discussion: (1) Charisse is concerned that a new branding initiative will delay work needed to stand up a Wildfire Risk Reduction Assistance initiative/program whose purpose is to connect service providers (paid and voluntary)to persons in need of assistance. We need an organizing body to set this up . (2) Kent is concerned about emphasis and branding of the program; focusing only on what we need to do to eliminate embers is only one component of the fire triangle. Also need to focus on hardening structures. (3) Stephen emphasizes that the goal of the campaign focuses on the emotion component of preparing for wildfire. (4) Doug suggests that we pull all the ember information onto one page in the FAA webpage and spread the word that way. Boots on the ground is the most important thing we can do as a group. CERT group could be ones knocking on doors. Stephen suggests going around the room seeing where everyone is at with this—are we going a good direction? (5) Steve: see need to have low interest loans, other incentives to get it done. Steve hears a lot of words from people he is contracting for that the fear of losing the town is real. (6) Katie suggests that the structure of the campaign as it already exists can be leveraged, simply a shift in the language emphasized is needed to meet the needs of the ember emphasis. H. Illegal Camping Ignition Sources (KG, CC) 1. Expansion to Greenway VIII. NEW BUSINESS A. Budget: very constricted budget,but also very great need. For this budget process,we need to walk through what makes sense as an ask as a Commission. Tonya does not see path for$500,000 budget as is currently being asked. How are we going to revise this ask so that it is something that council does not simply ignore because of the lack of wiggle room. Urgency piece—timing,we have to get serious about these issues. B. Charisse: "We can do better"paper. Tonya and Charisse had a conversation that there is more info than City Councilors can absorb in that paper. City councilors need to be educated on wildfire. Can wildfire safety commission review and"adopt"this paper to be a guiding document to include our recommendations? MINUTES FOR A MEETING OF THE WILDFIRE SAFETY COMMISSION Wednesday,February 17th,2021 11:OOAM to 1:OOPM Zoom 1. Charisse will send the paper out to the group with a request C. How to move forward with recommendations to council. Trim the list down. Top four are the top four. Do we need to narrow it down, does a working group need to meet? D. Council does not have something to point to to say that these are the top priorities of the community. It is critically important that Council knows that the Commission knows what's important. E. Motion to leave recommendations document unchanged,with exception of adjusting the first few sentences to the recommendations. 1. Dan Motions to leave recommendations as it stands, Charisse seconds. IX. REPORTS AS TIME ALLOWS A. Forest Lands Commission B. Chamber Wildfire Task Force (Katie or Chris) X. NEXT MEETING A. Wednesday,February 17th,2021. 11 AM-1 PM, Zoom XI. ADJOURN