Amador County – The Amador County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday directed Amador Fire Safe Council to more closely consider comments from the county’s consultant on a draft Community Conservation Wildfire Protection Plan for Volcano and Pine Grove, saying the consultant is the signatory of, and speaks for the Board of Supervisors.
Fire Safe Council consultant Jim Simmons said he “dropped the ball” on not including in the draft document the comments and grammatical corrections from Amador County environmental consultant John Hofmann.
Fire Safe Council Executive Director Cathy Koos-Breazeal said the Amador County Association of Fire Chiefs, Cal-Fire and AFPD Chief Jim McCart had all signed off on the plan, and they held 11 stakeholder meetings with Upcountry civic groups.
Simmons said he followed the Sierra Nevada Conservancy’s template but “dumbed it down a lot,” taking out entire sections because of its lever of technical forestry, to make it more readable to the average lot owner. He said landscaping could be used in the plan to prevent large losses. He said John Hofmann “submitted some edits that didn’t get included,” and “I dropped the ball on that,” but the grammatical errors could “easily be corrected with simple errata.” And he said the document does not need to be that complicated, and should be more reader friendly.
Supervisor Chairman John Plasse said “we are the decision makers,” and the decision makers have not been convened to decide on what is included in the plan. Supervisor Brian Oneto said, per law creating the Wildfire Protection Plan, “the three members must mutually agree” on the plan, those members being the Board of Supervisors, CDF, and local fire agency chiefs. Oneto said Hofmann represents one of the three teams.
Plasse showed a draft document with tabs, including red ones showing Hofmann’s comments, purple showing typos. Plasse said “I don’t feel compelled to put Amador County’s signature on these documents” when the county’s “comments have been ignored.”
Simmons said he thought making some of the “finite distinctions” was not worth the trouble. Oneto said: “I would like to see more credence given to Mr. Hofmann’s comments because he’s representing us,” and he believed many in the county felt the same way.
Supervisors Ted Novelli said: “I don’t think it should be our job, as a Fire Safe Council, to say this is too difficult for” someone to read. He said there are a lot of forestry professionals in the county. Novelli said: “I’m not trying to badmouth your knowledge” and he suggested it include a letter explaining the approach.
Supervisor Richard Forster said it was worth noting why catastrophic wildfires occur, due to logging practice changes, as noted by Hofmann. Oneto suggested they sit down with Hofmann “and address some of our concerns.” He said: “There’s three entities that have to mutually agree on it.”
Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
