Nevada County Board of Supervisors - April 8, 2008 Meeting
Public Comment
Subject: Nevada County Fire Plan March 27, 2008 Update
The California Association of Business, Property and Resource Owners (CABPRO) is pleased to hear the Supervisors wish to bring clarity to the Nevada County Fire Plan based on what we have heard from staff here today. We wish to go on record that the Nevada County Planning Department staff efforts to make revisions to the December 21, 2007 Fire Plan document , as per the March 27 Update, raises more questions and concerns. Overall, the revisions seem cosmetic, insubstantial, even more confusing in sections, do not specifically address CABPRO’s stated concerns, and appear to treat environmental recommendations and advisory concerns versus mandated regulations, as budget problems. The Nevada County Fire Plan still leaves too much for interpretation that over time can be redefined into regulations, ordinances and laws without due process. So-called “recommendations” are interwoven and blended with regulations and existing laws to make property owners comply with them. For example, the last sentence of Paragraph 2 on Page 2 of the March 27 Update states: “The Environmental Protection Measures identified existing regulations and recommendations with which property owners would need to comply when conducting fuel treatment activities.” That statement, in black and white, says property owners must comply with the recommendations too. Such deceptive statements must be struck from the Fire Plan document, along with any others like it.
After careful review of the public records provided by the Office of the Fire Marshall following the Public Hearing in February it is clear that the use of and setbacks from wetlands, watercourses, etc. in Appendix C should not be in the Fire Plan. Nevada County’s Land Use Code Section L-11 4.3.17 defines, for example, a 100-foot setback for natural perennial watercourses and a 50-foot setback for intermittent watercourses for a “Project.” Since no definition accompanies the word “Project” one can assume it is some form of construction requiring County approval and not fuels reduction for fire safety. The California Forest Practices Rules 895.1 Definitions defines watercourses more strictly and includes manmade courses but doesn’t distinguish between perennial and intermittent courses. This raises a question as to where the 100-foot setback from all watercourses comes from as required by the County. Appendix C’s environmental laundry list does nothing for fire safety and must be removed from the Fire Plan.
In our culture the use of words are essential for effective communication. Words and wording are the very tools, liabilities, or weapons of every cause. Words are what attorneys argue from. When causes/forces are potentially destructive to constitutional property rights and freedoms, there are no such things as inconsequential words. The proposed revisions to the Nevada County Fire Plan are inadequate to guarantee what should be the inalienable rights of all property owners.
CABPRO's very clear and reasonable requests for critical changes needing to be made to the draft Nevada County Fire Plan, as expressed at the February 12, 2008 Supervisor’s meeting, appear to have been ignored. Our primary concerns about separating out the statements of law from environmentalist recommendations were decisively echoed by Sue Horne and other Supervisors, and still they appear to have been ignored. Is this acceptable to you, our Supervisors?
We appreciate that you have directed County staff to now produce a document of integrity and clarity, clearly demarcating the law - and accurately so, and clearly and totally separating out extreme environmental recommendations.
Please note that many of our members expressed difficulty in being able to access or download attachments of this most recent Fire Plan document from the Nevada County website.
I will make sure that a hard copy of this statement is given to the Clerk of the Board along with copies of an article published in the February 2008 CABPRO News expressing earlier concerns about the Fire Plan.
Thank you.
Martin Light
Executive Director
April 8, 2008