LAKEPORT — The City of Lakeport is considering making changes to its health and safety code that could promote more controlled outdoor burning in the name of fire safety.
At a meeting on Tuesday, the Lakeport City Council will discuss the recent work of a group comprised of city, Lakeport Fire Protection District, and Lake County Air Quality Management District staff that has been developing potential code revisions to reduce wildfire risk.
According to Lakeport Community Development Director Kevin Ingram in a report to the city council, “this working group has identified potential revisions to the Municipal Code that would establish a permit procedure allowing for outdoor burning on properties larger than one acre in size.”
Currently, Lakeport’s health and safety code bans “outside burning of all kinds” in city limits with only two exceptions: barbecues and fire department structure burn trainings. That means getting rid of dry vegetation and other fire risks on properties is generally done without the use of fire.
And in 2018, the city tightened a pre-existing hazardous vegetation abatement ordinance to require property owners to remove such hazards by June 1.
The kind of revisions likely to be discussed tonight would create a permit process for property owners to be able to conduct prescribed burns, subject to fire department and air quality district review and supervision.
But some outdoor burning could be carried out prior to any ordinance changes, Ingram suggests, writing that “the working group is recommending some possible supervised outdoor burns, by the Lakeport Fire Protection District, be conducted this winter.”
Such outdoor burns are “not expressly listed” as exceptions in the city code, Ingram admits, but he argues that they would “provide a public safety benefit without violating the spirit and intent” of the law.
Plus, Ingram notes, performing some supervised, outdoor vegetation burns would inform the code revision process.
“The conducting of these supervised burns,” Ingram writes, “would allow City staff to monitor the effectiveness of the proposed permitting revisions and acceptance of such outdoor burning by the general public prior to the consideration of a formal ordinance revision.”
Also Tuesday, the city council will consider selecting two of its five members to join a post-PG&E power shutoff ad-hoc committee made up of members of the Lakeport and Clearlake city councils and the Lake County Board of Supervisors. Similar pending appointments by the county and Clearlake will likely form a committee tasked with formulating written demands from these local governments to the California Public Utilities Commission regarding Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s recent blackouts that are estimated to have affected more than 1 million of its customers across most of Northern California.
Last week, both city councils and the county board approved a letter to the CPUC expressing their frustration with the outages, but making no specific policy demands. Prior to that letter’s approval, plans were made to form an ad-hoc committee that would create subsequent letters to the state commission, which oversees the regulation of utilities like PG&E.
Exactly what demands the committee will recommend are as yet unknown. Clearlake Mayor Russ Cremer on Monday noted that he foresees the committee being established sometime this week, followed closely afterward by another letter to the CPUC.
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Lakeport City Council meetings are held on the first and third Tuesday of each month. Regular council meetings begin at 6 p.m. in the City Council Chamber at city hall. The public is invited to attend all council meetings. The council’s agenda can be found at www.cityoflakeport.com.
