George Rebane

The CABPRO Letter alerts us to the next puzzling steps taken to hammer out an acceptable fire safety plan for Nevada County’s unincorporated areas.  The current plan going forward contains unchanged the 21dec07 draft of the plan.  This version co-mingled a mishmash of old and new requirements – some mandated by the state, and some mandated by local authorities.  Please read CABPRO’s assessment and consider going to the Planning Commission meeting this Thursday 1:30-5:00pm where they will push this thing forward as is, or … .

Without rehashing the laborious pro and con arguments about the merits of each part, a number of us appealed to the BoS to clarify the plan.  I specifically went before the Board to 1) ask them whether it was their intent to one-up any of the requirements that came down to us from above, and 2) to please rewrite the 21dec07 draft, separating out the state mandates and the local mandates.  The sense of the BoS to the first question was that we didn’t want to make things more difficult for ourselves than they already are.  And everyone thought that clearly pointing out the source of the mandates was a good idea so that everyone could see who was doing what to us.

I went away from the fire plan adoption process with the good feeling that the BoS would direct such a redrafting, and that we could all see what was coming down the pike when we next gathered to review and provide citizen input to our elected leaders.

We now learn that the same undecipherable piece of …, I mean ‘plan’ has been repackaged and tied with a bright new ribbon as something that satisfies the sense of the BoS, and is ready for the next step in the adoption process.  If the Planning Commission passes the “GP08-001” document that does not reflect the direction of the BoS, then our electeds are being railroaded.  And if it does reflect their direction, and provides no further clarification to the people of the county, then we all are being railroaded.  If you listen carefully, you can hear the whistle blow.