Meeting Summary - La Plata County Council for Homeowner Emergency Awareness and Preparedness - July 17th, 2003
Note: About 25 people attended this meeting.
A sign up sheet was not passed around.

 

 

1) Introductions were made.

2) The meeting summary from the last meeting was reviewed. New attendees were given a brief history of how and why this group was formed, and what it is doing.

3) Dan Ochocki, District Forester with the Colorado State Forest Service, gave handouts on defensible space published by CSU and the Colorado State Forest Service. He announced that in the Fall, another round of CSFS grant cost share monies will be available for homeowners and associations to apply for through a competitive process. I awarded, these funds can help accomplish defensible space projects.

4) Lisa Hutton, an intern from the CU Masters in Public Administration program and member of the Council is doing research on other fire councils; what they do; how they are governed and set up; and, how they deal with policy. Decisions on how this Council will be governed (e.g. by-laws, chair person, President, structure, membership, etc.) can be finalized after Lisa reports back on her research findings. When the Teams met, they developed additional questions for Lisa to find out in her research.

5) The attendees broke into Teams around: education; “on the ground projects” and policy. Each group reported back the action steps they want to work on from the lists generated at the last meetings. The action steps generated by each Team are:

Policy:
a) get research back from Lisa on how other Councils deal with policy
b) develop a list of potential policy solutions that range from “bare minimum” to “strong with teeth” and present these to the full Council and La Plata County Chiefs – first – and get input before moving forward
c) make sure policies “tag team” with what education group is doing
d) look at model from Clear Creek County to see what might apply (Nancy Lauro had brought copies for everyone)
e) possibly look at having people get points in the building permit phase of development for doing more defensible space

On the Ground
a) reach out to those not in a HOA
b) work with County to get equipment that can travel to areas around the County.
c) Explore markets for the slash and disposal
d) someone had contacted the ag folks and they can’t use a lot of chips/slash due to the fact they don’t know if weeds are in it
e) explore “green” uses of slash.
f) set up a clearinghouse to help those in need such as seniors and t hose with some type of disability -- use the Web and other means to advertise these services

Education
a) reach out to realtors (there was an action step here….)
b) make sure that all education is done with a forest health message – begin to add this message to all education
c) need to get list of all subdivisions in the county (there was an action step here….) so we can know the target audience and how to reach them.

6) Everyone agreed that a speaker from the Ponderosa Pine Partnership was a good idea for the next meeting. This project melds forest health stewardship with science with markets for small diameter trees. Marsha will set it up. (over)