Reducing the potential for catastrophic wildfire in our 17,900 acres of open space must be a top priority in the June 2022 Marin County Parks’ Measure A quarter-cent sales tax renewal measure.
The accumulation of flammable vegetation poses an ever-growing threat to Marin’s public safety, air and water. The Coalition of Sensible Taxpayers, together with former members of the Civil Grand Jury who formed Citizens for Wildfire Preparedness, urge supervisors to approve ballot-measure provisions that address this urgent problem.
A one-third allocation of Measure A’s overall funds should be dedicated to wildfire prevention, with the following specific guardrails:
• Maximize funds available for fuels work by spending on projects not overhead
• Establish an open space fire-fuel reduction crew
• Plan additional fire-prone area treatment tied to a detailed project list
• Give species preservation work its own funding, separate from fire fuel work
• Commit to the 33% allocation for fuel reduction and state that it cannot be reduced during the nine-year tax’s term.
These provisions are based on clear public survey results and a December letter from the Marin County Fire Chiefs Association to the supervisors. After decades of neglect, our wildlands are similar to what fueled destruction for the town of Paradise.
Proponents of the status quo argue that the parks department fuel reduction projects will be adequately funded by the new Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority’s Measure C tax.This ignores the sheer magnitude of the problem in our open space. While the Wildfire Authority can and will do work on public land, its funds are limited and it needs a well-funded and committed partner.
Our communities remain at risk until everyone does their part to reduce hazards. Measure C was never intended to pay for reducing all wildfire hazards. Just as Marin homeowners are asked to pay for their own expensive defensible space, every other property owner and land manager should cover these vitally important maintenance costs. Public agency land managers should pay for this work out of their own budgets. If it requires reallocating limited money to meet new urgent priorities, so be it. Everyone has hard choices to make.
Measure A’s annual reports show that the parks department spent an average of only $1.5 million annually on all their vegetation management work, a substantial portion of which was for species preservation and overhead personnel allocations. That’s a tiny portion of Measure A’s $15 million annual revenue, and the department’s overall $32.2 million budget.
Moreover, Marin Parks’ current wildfire management program is unrealistically modest. According to its 2019-2020 annual report (the most recent available), only 109 acres were thinned to maintain emergency access and 1,510 acres grazed to remove fire fuel. Virtually all of these activities occur in the same locations annually, leaving the vast majority untouched.
Nonetheless, at their Dec. 14 meeting, supervisors ignored two fire chiefs who presented their association’s call for spending 33% of Measure A funds on prevention. Supervisors also pushed back on Marin Parks staff proposal to increase spending on wildfire fuels (to be funded by decreasing the 20% allocation for a farmland preservation program). Seemingly suggesting that the public is uninformed or confused, the supervisors rejected two different opinion surveys showing that an overwhelming majority of the public ranks wildfire prevention as the voters’ highest priority for the use of Measure A funds.
Measure A must be revised to meet our new wildfire challenges.
Email BOS@marincounty.org to tell supervisors that your support for the Measure A renewal hinges on a ballot measure that makes a commitment to open space fuel reduction. The funds to pay for this will have to come from other Measure A programs. It is time for our elected representatives to show leadership to ensure the safety of the general public.
Lucy Dilworth, of San Anselmo, is a Coalition of Sensible Taxpayers director, foreperson of the 2019-2020 Marin Civil Grand Jury, member of the Marin Citizens for Wildfire Preparedness, a Firewise community leader and chair of the Citizens’ Oversight Committee of the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority and a practicing attorney.
