December 19, 2023

• 12/9/23 BOS recap
• Jaron is voted as vice chair
• OES is going a lot of good work, summary of 2023 is below. It’s a lot to read but that my point. A lot of work done so read it.
• Responding to City of Sonora regarding homeless
• Clean and clear ordinance
• OES:
• Staff Report Tuesday Dec 19, 2023
• Good morning Board Dore Bietz, your Office of Emergency Services Assistant Director. Today I am joined by all of your OES staff Tracey McKnight, Sara Daniel and Anna Fagioli.
• Each of us is going to give you some highlights of our accomplishments for 2023
• Let’s start off with Public engagement – Anna Fagiloi unfortunately is sick today and could not make it to rerpot out but her position is funded through a California Fire Safe Council grant as our Education and Outreach Analyst who is responsible for much of what and how we engage with the public.
• I am going to read Anna’s report…..
• This year we have attended over 35 different community events where we have educated the public on all things OES. (Planning, Preparedness, Mitigation, Response and Recovery) Emergency Alerts, Go Bags, evacuation maps, Firewise Communities, home hardening and defensible space.
• By attending outreach evets like, National Night out, Community Roots Resource Fair, the home and garden show to name a few, we have reached over 2,000 individuals in person.
• We have reached over 65K on social media
• We have handed out hundreds of flyers on how to sign up for emergency alerts. What to do during an evacuation, sirens, defensible space, home hardening and the hazardous vegetation ordinance.
• Currently we have an add running at the DMV. The message expressed covers vegetation management, defensible space and home hardening.
• Because of our tourist population, we are currently working on a visitor’s flyer which we would like to have at all vacation rentals and Airbnb’s.
• What public engagement do we have planned for 2024?
• Right now, we are working on our Wildfire Preparedness Town Hall which will be at the Mother Lode Fairground on April 6th so please Save the Date!
• But our main goal is to keep educating the public on how to be prepared for large scale emergencies. We currently did a survey for the Multi-Jurisdictional Hazardous mitigation plan were out of 300 plus people only 35% felt that they were prepared for a natural disaster. By teaching and reinforcing the importance on how to be ready our community increases the odds to reduce the risk and build a natural disaster resilient county.
• We are available to come speak to any organization, club, HOA or entity, just reach out by calling our 209-533-6395 number or emailing us at oes@co.tuolumne.ca.us
• Now lets move to Mitigation – Sara is our newest OES staff member and her position is funded from a 5 year Cal OES Jumpstart grant to focus on mitigation. As you know, we are in the midst of updating the required Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan and Sara has been instrumental in helping us get that done
• Sara then to report on
• Thank you Sara, now on to response and recovery
• OES Successfully responded to 2 Presidential Declared Disasters (back to back)
• o Open and operated the EOC
• o Coordinated and opened shelters
• o Coordinate the first ever Individual Assistance or IA as a result of a disaster in Tuolumne County.
• Let me introduce Tracey McKnight our Senior Administrative Analyst in OES who has been instrumental in making sure not only all of our grants are on track with respect to reporting and documentation but in our Recovery of the two storms.
• Tracey then to report out on
• Thank you Tracey……as you can see staff have been busy and in addition to those programs each of them have reported out on…..
• Awarded approx.. $31,249,000 in grants for in 2023
  o Awarded Community Wildfire Defense Project = 10 Million
  ▪ to provide defensible space work on approx. 1,290 homes, roadside vegetation management on approx. twenty-three miles of road and outreach to create additional Firewise Communities and other fire adaptive cohorts within at-risk and low-income communities.
  o Awarded California Wildfire Mitigation Program Home Hardening Initiative = 20 Million
  ▪ to reduce the threat to life and property in our area’s Wildland Urban Interface/Intermix (WUI) areas.
  ▪ This will be the 4th pilot project in the state
  o Recipient of a CA Jumpstart grant = $694,000
  ▪ provides a full time OES Resilience Analyst to help socially vulnerable and high-hazard-risk communities Jumpstart their progress toward greater resilience through advanced outreach.
  o Awarded 2 California Fire Safe Council Grants
  ▪ County Coordinator position pays for one full time staff for Education and outreach. = $175,000
  ▪ County Evacuation Planning grant pays for GIS evacuation planning of potential secondary egresses and 5 miles roadside brushing. Assisted with the development of a GIS dashboard of vulnerable entities needing additional assistance during evacuations. = $380,000
• Coordinated the funding for and completion of the County’s Emergency Operations Plan or EOP which had not been updated since 2012
  o We just received the review from Cal OES and you will see that in January
• Assisted in the development of a county-wide fuels reductions storyboard
  o Very excited about this capability of not only county but local stakeholders for coordinating fuels reduction.
• Development of a county sponsored Community Emergency Response Team or CERT volunteers
  o Hold monthly meetings and training of volunteers to assist during an emergency whether it is operating cooling/warming centers, shelters or answering our public information line when EOC activated.
  Relief workers will be interviewed this week for help in sheltering or cooling/warming centers as needed
  Developed the informational brochures for the Haz veg ordinance
  Assisted in the development and review of the draft CWPP through our partners at the Tuolumne FireSafe Council
• Alert and Warning
  o Worked to get 5 sirens on-line and operational (working on testing of those for the spring)
  o Increased number of registrants in the Everbridge Emergency Alert notification system to over 90,000 (when I started in Dec 2020 we had about 33,000)
  o Working with NWS to place NOAA Weather radio sensors throughout Tuolumne county (in progress) that will serve as an additional layer
  In closing…… the Office of Emergency Services is never a dull moment as we support Preparedness, Response, Recovery and Mitigation of disasters that may or have affected our county. There is a lot of mandated work that most do not know we are required to do and we pride ourselves on providing customer service, support to all of the first responder agencies and most of all to make our communities more resilient and safe.
  Thank you to our OES Director, Tracie Riggs and you the board for all of your support as we continue our much-needed work. We are looking forward to making even great strides in 2024.

December 9, 2023

• I can’t make this up. Just got another chip in my windshield driving Tuolumne Road.

December 8, 2023

• Update on Tuolumne road chip seal and how to submit a claim for damages
• American Pavement Systems, Tiffanie Lee, Safety Assistant, 209.522.2277 tlee@americanpavementsystems.com

December 7, 2023

• I’m done with Tuolumne road chip seal
• Make a claim for damages here:
• American Pavement Systems, Tiffanie Lee, Safety Assistant, 209.522.2277 tlee@americanpavementsystems.com

December 5, 2023

• 12-5-23 BOS recap
• A lot covered! Enjoy the recap and check out what we’re doing with telling our story about fire here
• https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/fe8b91465c6b4001b39e0569d2e93381

November 13, 2023

• Town hall meeting Thursday November 16 in Sugar Pine
• Homeless blog coming this week
• https://www.mymotherlode.com/news/local/3262235/tuolumne-county-district-three-supervisor-kirk-plans-town-hall.html

November 9, 2023

• 11-7-23 BOS recap
• Transition housing for those in services
• North Tuolumne Road closure

October 17, 2023

• 10-17-23 BOS recap
• fire insurance changes coming in 2024 / 85 % of us should be absorbed back into the private market
• don’t drive around school buses 🚌
• continuing down the path of turning the courthouse into office space while keeping the old charm character
• adopt a room at the navigation center
  https://www.tuolumnecounty.ca.gov/DocumentCenter/View/25957/Oak-Terrace-Navigation-Center-Sponsor-A-Room-Flyer

October 11, 2023

• Tuolumne road and standard should be completed in 24-28 hrs weather permitting.

October 3, 2023

• 10-3-23 BOS recap
• Open Gov is live!
• Tour of Quarry Fire
• Andy Merrill of Sonora City Council continues to lose his marbles
• I brought forth some concerns to our legal department regarding behavioral health supporting pairing kids with adults as “mentors” when discussing LG.BTQ issues. I think it is dangerous to pair kids with adults when the conversation focuses on their sexuality. In the law enforcement world that is called grooming.