Laguna Beach To Clear Brush In Hills Above City
Written by 991KBU on July 25, 2019
With another nasty fire season right around the corner … one Southern California beach city is taking steps to fortify the city against fire.
And we are not talking about Malibu.
Laguna Beach will spend 23 million dollars on major wildfire protection efforts over the next two years.
Laguna Beach will underground power lines along its section of Pacific Coast Highway.
Laguna Beach also will expand its efforts to remove dry brush and vegetation that provide fuel for fires — with the goal of clearing the entire city within 10 years.
The L A Times reports that Laguna Beach has created a new city position, defensible space inspector, … who will oversee brush removal.
Malibu also has a new fire safety officer … but our city is taking back seat to the Los Angeles County Fire Department on brushfire mitigation.
The only major fire reduction project in Malibu was a proposed small intentional burn … in thre works for years … to remove 400 acres of thick brush and dead trees above the Big Rock neighborhood.
But the L A County Fire Department has dropped that plan … purportedly after the Las Virgenes Homeowners Association objected to it.
That group is over the hill … not in Malibu.
But it apparently convinced the county supervisor for the area to ask the fire department to cancel the prescribed burn in Malibu.
At the last city council meeting … when a Big Rock resident complained about the canceled preemptive burn …. the answer from the city was that it was an L A County decision.
Getting back to Laguna Beach … the city has adopted 29 short-term goals recommended by a committee.
The city is spending about 16 million dollars on undergrounding power circuits.
It extended the value of its undergrounding money by buying 10 million dollars worth of undergrounding credits from other cities.
It got a 4.7 million state grant.
And it is extricating almost $1.3 million from its water district.
Tuesday’s vote approved allocating the remaining $6.9 million from various city funds, redirected pension contributions and the annual hotel tax.
Laguna Beach has an estimated $138.5 million in unfunded long-term fire prevention goals.
LA Times article: https://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/news/story/2019-07-24/laguna-beach-will-take-sweeping-measures-for-fire-preparedness
