The city of Ukiah is still awaiting word on whether it will receive previously awarded federal grant funds intended to help mitigate wildfire danger in the Ukiah Valley, City Manager Sage Sangiacomo reported Wednesday.
Wildfire risk reduction efforts in the Ukiah Valley have included removing tree limbs and other excess vegetation in Low Gap Park. (File photo/The Ukiah Daily Journal)“We haven’t received official notice that (the fire mitigation vegetation management grant) the city received is on-hold, but we are concerned at this point that those funds might not be forthcoming in a timely way,” Sangiacomo told the Ukiah City Council at its Feb. 19 meeting, referring to federal grants that the city has used in recent years to reduce the potential devastation a large wildfire could cause in the Ukiah Valley by maintaining shaded fuel breaks in the Western Hills and other vegetation management projects.
And while Sangiacomo said the city did receive an advance on the fire mitigation grant “that we have used to purchase equipment, because of the lead-time needed to get vehicles and chippers, and staff has worked very diligently to bring equipment in,” he added that the city is moving more cautiously in terms of hiring the personnel needed.
“We’ve hired a supervisor, and this week I believe we are doing interviews for the actual field crew team,” he said, explaining that while “we decided to move forward with those interviews, we’re concerned about actually hiring individuals if we don’t have the funds forthcoming to be able to keep the program going. But we will continue to engage with our grant representatives, (as this) funding is very, very critical, and we’re certainly hoping that the federal administration sees the importance of these dollars and will not hold those funds up.”
Earlier this month, the office of Rep. Jared Huffman (D – San Rafael) issued a press release stating that Huffman and dozens of his fellow Democratic lawmakers “demanded that the Trump administration restart paused wildfire prevention work under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act. Through executive orders, the administration has frozen essential wildfire mitigation efforts, like reducing flammable vegetation, providing emergency planning services to communities, and hiring wildland firefighters.”
When asked Thursday morning if his office had any updates for his constituents on the federal funding for such wildfire prevention efforts, Huffman spokeswoman Mary Hurrell reported that “we don’t have any updates at this point.”
The federal grant the city of Ukiah received was expected to cover another approximately four years of “basically the work that we used to be able to get done with Chamberlain Creek and Cal Fire with the inmate crews on vegetation management throughout the Ukiah Valley, which is essentially a resource that is no longer readily available to most communities,” Sangiacomo told the City Council this week, describing the federal fire prevention grant as providing a way for the city to be able to enhance shaded fuel breaks, maintain and clear vegetation, assist individuals to clear around their houses, and “just overall supporting our fire-hardening efforts in the valley, as well as putting an additional 12-plus staff members available for wildland fire response.”
In the meantime, Sangiacomo said the city does “have a little remaining funds from that advance that we got of about $250,000, so we are continuing with the planning efforts, and the individual who’s been brought on will continue to develop the work plan if we’re able to bring on the full crew. Either way, that work is important work that needs to take place, and there is additional personal protective gear and other things that are still going to be ordered during this time period, and we will use that advance to in essence be ‘shovel-ready’ to actually have a really vital vegetation-management program for the springtime if the money is available.”
Sangiacomo noted that he was providing an update on the grant as possibly “the first of the significant impacts, or potential impacts, on federal funding (the city has experienced), as we indicated that we would bring those forward to the community as we get word,” he said, stressing again that the city did not receive “official word that the money is not available, we just are not sure we would be advanced additional funds at this time.”
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Ukiah officials still unsure of federal funding for wildfire preparations )
Also on site :
- Global March to Gaza activists report delays, deportations at Cairo Airport
- ‘She lit up the classroom’: First British victims of Air India plane crash named after 241 killed
- What nuclear sites does Iran have and where are they?