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The following written comments were left at the meeting:
Seek purchase of lots (by BTCSD) from property owners. Establish a plan to request donation of lots to BTCSD or seek to purchase same. Use these lots for area parking and park areas for children. The purpose of this task is Community Park Zones on a more local level.
Patricia Cornell
Road side abatement re Axt? Whose standards?
Re access to trails thru private property? Easements?
What to do with leaves, small branches removed in abatement of fire hazards? (Park the chipper in neighborhoods for a short while?)
How do you pay for "selective thinning"? How much premium do we need? Where is the money?
C. Harden
Subject re: 6/14 board meeting
Mike:
Please pass this along to the Directors for Tuesday's Board meeting...
Although I am out of town and cannot attend this evenings meeting, I noticed that agenda item 9 is to discuss the hiring of a photographer to help us visualize shaded fuel breaks. I'm also aware of the plan to do a demonstration fuel break in the par course area.
Isn't this a classic example of "putting the cart before the horse", to use a worn-out old cliché? A group of professional foresters has already reported to us that shaded fuel breaks will cost $6 million (I don't have the actual report in front of me, but it was ridiculously high) to create and maintain. We also know from the report that a commercial timber harvest will not significantly offset these costs ($150,000 in the first 15 years as I recall).
How can we possibly justify spending money demonstrating shaded fuel breaks or hiring photographers so we can visualize shaded fuel breaks, when the plan for shaded fuel breaks is utterly infeasible? Shouldn't we come up with some realistic, affordable strategies on how best to prevent catastrophic wild fire, and then focus our efforts on those proposals? The use of shaded fuel breaks for wildfire prevention is a mirage. The longer we are mired in this illusion of fire prevention, the longer we will be without some realistic ideas and true fire risk reduction.
CDF has publicly stated that our best strategy is to create a fire break along Ridge Road. They provided logical reasoning for this recommendation such as prevailing wind, ignition sources, and drying vegetation due to southern-facing slopes. It seems that our money should be spent working towards that solution, rather than perpetuating a fantasy.
-rich estabrook
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