By Laura Casey Correspondent
Posted: 02/13/15, 12:08 AM PST |
# Comments
OAKLAND -- Sue Piper, a longtime Oakland hills wildfire prevention activist who lost her home in the 1991 Oakland hills firestorm, summed up the city's programs to reduce fire danger in one word: dysfunctional.
An expensive environmental impact report (EIR) needs to be completed before any major fuel reduction can be done, but no one knows who is going to pay for it, the City of Oakland or the Wildfire Prevention Assessment District. The Wildfire Prevention Assessment District narrowly lost a November 2013 ballot bid to raise property taxes to fund the fire prevention efforts. The district parcel tax expired in 2014, and voters chose not to pay for it again through a ballot measure that would have increased the tax to $78 a year, up from $65, for 10 years.
If an EIR isn't drafted, only regular maintenance like goat grazing and grass cutting can be done on the most overgrown areas in the hills, community leaders told a crowd of hills residents who attended a Wildfire Prevention Assessment District retreat on Feb. 7. On top of a missing EIR, many homeowners' properties aren't being inspected in a timely manner, and hiring staff for the district has been a headache. Threats of litigation have slowed some eucalyptus tree removal efforts.
"People are just frustrated," Piper, a supporter of the tax, said. She said she believes voters thought, "If (the Wildfire Prevention and Assessment District) is not working, why should we pay more?"
But Diane Hill, an Oakland hills resident since 1968, has a bottom line, she said, and that is that Oakland hills residents and the City of Oakland are responsible for controlling vegetation on the 10,590 acres of land that make up the hills fire district.
"We want to be in a safe place where there's no threat of fire," she said. "Once the fire comes, it's too late."
Piper, who worked for former Oakland Mayor Jean Quan in the beginning of her term, told the attendees that the lack of clarity about fire prevention being the number-one priority in the hills leads to conflict in terms of reducing fire risk. When the Wildfire Prevention Assessment District sunsets, the city still has some responsibility for limiting the risk of fire, particularly on the city's own property, Piper said.
Many people in the room were disappointed that the assessment district's ballot measure failed and by only 66 votes.
Some blame this on lack of clarity, others believe the younger people moving into the hills have no idea how terrible the 1991 firestorm was. It killed 25 people and burned more than 3,000 homes.
"It was a very scary time, and so many people lost their homes and lives," hills resident Elaine Geffen said. "We have to get people more aware. There are some people who have no knowledge of the danger they live in."
Piper said the vast majority of people in the hills don't comply with a requirement for "defensible space" around their homes, areas that are free from vegetation that can protect homes during a fire. Ten percent of residents have to be told a second and third time to remove vegetation and many face fines.
To fix some of these problems, Piper said there needs to be a public awareness campaign as well as a push on city leaders to recognize that if another fire devastates the Oakland hills, the whole city will be devastated.
"I think it has to be explicit for these departments to do something about it," she said.
The Wildfire Prevention Assessment District still has $2.8 million to spend and district board members are getting input on how to best spend that money to protect the hills.
Source: http://www.dailydemocrat.com/general-news/20150213/oakland-wildfire-program-solutions-assailed--
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