California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force Comes to Grass Valley
On September 27 and 28, I attended the Sierra Nevada regional meeting of the California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force, which was held at the Nevada County Fairgrounds.
The California Wildfire & Forest Resilience Task Force was created by the office of Governor Gavin Newsom to directly confront the near perfect storm of climatic and human-caused conditions that have brought the threat of devastating wildfire and its far-reaching effects to the doorstep of nearly everyone in our state, and beyond.
The Task Force is a collaborative effort to align the activities of federal, state, local, public, private and tribal organizations to support programs and projects tailored to the priorities and risks of each region, and bring the best available science to forest management and community protection efforts.
On September 27, a resource fair, where regional partners tabled to showcase their wildfire and forest resilience-related work, preceded the task force meeting that lasted most of the day. On the 28th, attendees were invited to in-field tours hosted by a range of Task Force partners. The tours offered up-close, real-time, boots-on-the-ground details and demonstrations related to the critical work of the Task Force. For example, the Tahoe National Forest and South Yuba River Citizens League offered a tour of their headwaters meadow restoration at Van Norden Meadow.
The event was energizing, the topics so highly relevant, and the Fairgrounds was the ideal venue. I look forward to finding ways to foster future gatherings like this here in our area.
Lobbying for Federal Payment-in-Lieu of Taxes
Last week, I joined with colleagues from around the country for a Public Lands County Lobby Day on Capitol Hill to advocate for more rural funding through a couple of specific allocations – the Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT), and ARPA Local and Tribal Assistance funds – both of which are intended to help rural counties but which continue to be under threat of reduction or deletion. Between six groups of about five county representatives each, we managed to connect with about 40 representatives and senators or their staff members. We will find out if we are successful as the next budget gets approved in Congress. As the sole representative of California, my focus included bringing attention to our devastating wildfires and the need for assistance to better manage our public lands for recreation. I am honored to get to wear out the shoe-leather for efforts like this.
