FEATURED COLUMNIST
Recent Rains Haven’t Removed Wildfire Threat By Manu Koenig, Supervisor, First District
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ire mitigation and prevention efforts remained a top priority for our office during October. While we are excited to welcome recent rains, the threat of wildfire remains. After requesting in September for the Office of Response, Recovery & Resilience (OR3) to work with County Fire and any other relevant parties to obtain permission, cost quotes, and other logistical needs for several new ALERT Wildfire camera installations to serve Santa Cruz County, the Board received a status update from the OR3 on Oct. 5, identifying 6 new locations the OR3 will be analyzing further. Potential locations identified included: Watsonville Fire Station #2 Cell Tower, City of Santa Cruz coastal area (wharf, Dream Inn, Long Marine Lab), Silver Mountain Winery/Summit Area, Davenport Cement Plant, Cabrillo Horticulture/Mid-County, and Mount Madonna Center. The OR3 will return to the Board of Supervisors in January 2022 with an update on costs and feasibility of these locations.
Adding additional ALERT Wildfire camera and other thoughts and concerns related locations will greatly increase our County’s to the proposed medical office building project (Kaiser Permanente) at early-detection capabilities, 5940 Soquel Ave in Live Oak. allowing us to be more prepared Director of Public Works, Matt for future fire events. Machado and Assistant Planning Reducing fire risk and Director, Stephanie Hansen, developing mitigation and emerjoined us to provide background gency-response strategies is a top and technical expertise. concern for residents throughout More than 100 participants the county. attended the hybrid meeting via My office continues to support the formation of local Shane Mckeithen Zoom or in-person at the Live FireWise communities, and we encourage Oak Sheriff’s Center Community room. Next steps for this project include residents to organize into FireWise communities within your unique neigh- another developer-hosted meeting on Nov. borhoods in order to work together 3, with public hearings before the Planning to reduce wildfire risk in your Commission to occur in Nov./Dec. 2021, area. By working together and before the Board of Supervisors in to address fire risk and early 2022. To learn more about this project, or increase prevention and mitigation efforts to sign up for the developer’s mailing list, in our neighborhoods, go to https://www.5940soquelave.com/. we can all become FireWise! Our office will continue to spread the F o r more information about becoming a word about upcoming meeting dates and FireWise community, visit: Firewise USA opportunities for public comment on this Recognition Program (firesafesantacruz. important project. This last month we welcomed a new org). In October, we hosted a neighborhood member to our team, Shane Mckeithen. meeting to discuss the traffic impacts, Shane was raised in Watsonville and potential transportation improvements completed his K-12 education within the
PVUSD school system. He has a bachelor’s degree from UCLA, and a master’s of public administration from CSU Long Beach. Shane brings seven years of experience in the legislative sphere, having worked at the City, County, and State level to serve residents of Long Beach and Monterey County. From 2017 to 2021, Shane was a senior field deputy in the City of Long Beach, crafting policy, providing constituent services, and implementing strategies to address the COVID-19 pandemic, housing needs, quality of life, and social equity concerns. He is a proud AfroMexican American with a diverse wealth of knowledge and experience. He enjoys playing chess, drawing caricatures, mentoring youth, and spending time with loved ones. He is excited to be back in Santa Cruz County, and is looking forward to meeting 1st District residents and serving the 1st District community. Want to get in touch with us? Give us a call at (831) 454-2200, email us at first. district@santacruzcounty.us, visit our website at http://www.co.santa-cruz. ca.us/Government/BoardofSupervisors/ District1.aspx, where you can find a full list of upcoming community meetings. n
“School Board” from page 27 Please spread the word about this. We do not want anyone surprised when the next election comes around. There are two main websites you can use to get informed and get involved. First, we have dedicated a page on our website to the CVRA process. If you go to www.suesd. org/cvra, you will find plentiful information on this subject. We will use this page to continuously update where we are in the process. Secondly, if you go to our board
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page at www.suesd.org/board-oftrustees, you will find information related to our board meetings. Those meetings now include the
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ability to view them on YouTube and provide public comments via email or text. Of course, you can always attend our board meetings in person. Please always be sure to preview the agenda and note where each meeting is being held. Also, be sure to be on the lookout for two additional meetings that will be scheduled so that we can get even more input on our map building process. n ••• Scott J. Turnbull is superintendent of Soquel Union Elementary School District.
