LAKEPORT — The Lake County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday will hear updates on two wildfire risk reduction efforts that began in 2019 on the initiative of the county government.
First, Lake County Code Enforcement Manager Andrew Williams and other county staff will update the board on what they’ve done to enforce a hazardous vegetation abatement ordinance aimed at getting more property owners to make their land fire-safe.
After the ordinance was passed in March and went into effect in late April, code enforcement officers inspected about 2,000 properties across Lake County, a memo from county staff notes. While many property owners came into compliance quickly—Williams estimated in August that about 55 percent of the noncompliant properties inspected were brought into compliance by the time staff returned to re-inspect—some of those that did not were difficult to make contact with. Nearly 50 of the 378 letters sent by the county notifying owners that they were in violation of the new ordinance were returned undeliverable, the memo states.
“Unimproved properties are the real challenge due to absentee owners, deceased owners, large properties…and owners not understanding County of Lake ordinances and so on,” the memo adds.
According to a spreadsheet showing properties that were re-inspected by county staff last year, nearly 60 percent of listed mailing addresses were not located in Lake County.
In June, as the 2019 fire season was heating up, concerns were raised that forcing property owners to clear large amounts of brush could create more fire danger. District 5 Supervisor Rob Brown argued during a board discussion on enforcement of the ordinance that the work noncompliant property owners would be required to perform could cause fires.
“This isn’t landscaping the garden,” Brown said, “this is major…It can be done, but it’s gotta be done in the wintertime when it’s safe.”
Ultimately, the county did not perform any abatements of its own, as it is authorized to do by the ordinance following proper notification, at property owners’ expense. “In 2019, temperatures increased early in the fire season and humidity dropped,” county staff wrote. “Winds picked up making abatement hazardous and no county abatements were done.”
The county’s inspection work might look different this time around, according to the staff memo. Cal Fire, which also inspects properties in Lake County for fire hazards, may coordinate with the county to inspect more land.
“This year the County of Lake will be participating in a beta test with Cal Fire’s computer-based inspection reporting software for improved properties, whereas County of Lake inspectors take a specific area and do the inspections and Cal Fire will take other areas with no overlap,” county staff wrote.
Following two inspections that find non-compliance on a given property, the county or Cal Fire would do a third inspection “with abatement process to follow,” the memo states.
In a similar agenda item the board on Tuesday will hear an update from county staff on the implementation of four zones of benefit—also targeted at increasing hazardous vegetation management—that were voted into effect in 2019 by residents of Clearlake Riviera, Riviera West, Buckingham and Riviera Heights. Supervisor Brown, who developed the proposals for these zones, has asked for an update followed by a discussion and possible direction from the board regarding how the zones are used.
Under the benefit zone rules, property owners in the included areas are charged a one-time per-parcel fee of up to $300, dependent on the size of the parcel they own, to pay contractors to perform fire hazard abatements on private properties that are not brought into compliance with county fire hazard code by their owners. The owners are then to be charged for the work done, with the monies collected sustaining ongoing abatement work.
The Lake County Board of Supervisors meets on the first, second, third and fourth Tuesdays of each month beginning at 9 a.m. in the board chambers at the Lake County Courthouse, 255 N. Forbes St., Lakeport. Agendas can be found online at countyoflake.legistar.com.
