Measure Q: Water and wildfire protection tax has one surprising opponent — county fire chiefs

Santa Cruz County has fared well so far this wildfire season, but since the devastating CZU fire in 2020, the threat has remained at the forefront for residents across the county. At the same time, the effects of climate change have impacted water quality and access. Measure Q on the Nov. 5 ballot seeks to fund prevention and protection efforts for these major issues.

The measure, named the Santa Cruz County Water and Wildfire Protection Initiative, asks voters to add a new chapter to the county code, allowing it to collect a special parcel tax of $87 yearly until ended by voters. The measure would raise an estimated $7.3 million annually, and fund a wide range of projects that protect drinking water sources, rivers, creeks and groundwater resources. It also seeks to “reduce catastrophic wildfire risks” and preserve native wildlife, working lands and agriculture.

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A “yes” vote in November would authorize the county to collect a special tax of $87 annually until ended by voters. A “no” vote would reject it. The measure needs a simple majority to pass.

If approved, the county would establish a dedicated citizens oversight body for disbursement of the money and disclose all public spending.

Sarah Newkirk, spokesperson for the Yes on Q campaign and executive director of Land Trust Santa Cruz County, said the measure is the result of years of conservation organizations discussing how to confront these problems.

“The responsibility of ongoing management of all those lands is very expensive, and that’s sort of why this measure came together,” she said. “Santa Cruz County has the four horsemen of the apocalypse in terms of climate change — extended droughts, extreme floods, catastrophic wildfires and sea-level rise — so we have to manage our lands with those impacts in mind.”

Newkirk said a number of prominent nongovernmental organizations played instrumental roles in forming the measure. The Coastal Watershed Council was closely involved in identifying where the funding could go, the Fire Safe Council provided input on how to manage vegetation and prescribed burns on private land, and the Resources Conservation District of Santa Cruz County, Save Our Shores and County Park Friends were all involved in determining priorities, safe beaches and park access.

“One of the things you’ll see in the measure is a prioritization of projects in the grant funds bucket to the Pajaro Valley and to serving underserved and under-resourced communities,” she said, adding that the nonprofit Watsonville Wetlands Watch played a major role in those discussions, too. “I think that comes from a desire to equalize the access to recreational open space.”

The revenue raised would be distributed in several different ways. A new county-administered grant program that the measure would create would distribute 40% of the funds, while 20% would go to incorporated cities for eligible projects, 20% would got to unincorporated parts of the county for eligible projects, and the final 20% would go to the Resource Conservation District and a land-stewardship partner for eligible projects on private lands that offer public access. Eligible projects pertain to activities that include efforts such as groundwater recharge, restoring trails, culverts, floodplains and wetlands, litter removal, forest management, restoring vital habitats and controlling invasive species, creating defensible space along roadways and trails, and building wildlife infrastructure.

Newkirk said the money will not be going to the general funds of these jurisdictions, but will be specifically earmarked for the fund the measure is creating: “It would be against the law to use it for any other purpose.”

Newkirk said the 40% heading to the new grant program is “really meant to benefit nonprofits,” because many of them maintain public lands in the county, but added that governmental organizations may also seek money from the grant program for their own efforts. For instance, a fire district could get money from the grant program for its own fire-risk reduction project. Getting priority will be projects that serve under-resourced communities, projects that provide multiple benefits such as wildfire risk reduction and park access, for example, and projects that leverage additional public funding.

“Our goal with this is not just to have a couple million dollars to spend on these priorities every year, but to be able to draw down tens of millions of dollars in state and federal funds through public match,” said Newkirk. “We’ve never, ever had a dedicated, sustained, ongoing local public match for those programs.”

Newkirk said the citizens oversight group that will be formed to conduct hearings and consider public input on funding allocations will have nine representatives from across the county. Each of the five county supervisors will get a pick and each of the four cities — Santa Cruz, Capitola, Scotts Valley and Watsonville — will get a pick, too. She said this component is “really crucial,” because it will ensure that knowledgeable experts will oversee the measure’s operations, and it encourages public participation.

Commercial agricultural parcels, timber harvest parcels and government parcels would be exempt from the tax, as “those landowners are already investing significant money in land stewardship,” said Newkirk.

Along with many other endorsements of Measure Q from politicians and environmental and labor organizations, both District 2 county supervisor candidates Kristen Brown and Kim De Serpa did not hesitate to voice their support for the measure at a Lookout candidate forum Monday. 

“Our needs are great and our resources are scarce,” said Brown. “We’ve got to be willing to put additional money towards wildfire resilience and water resources, it’s incredibly important.”

De Serpa agreed.

“I lent my name to endorse Measure Q,” she said. “To the extent that the Land Trust here could do more with some of the money to conserve and protect our wild areas, I’m all for that.”

However, some worry that the measure does not provide enough specifics on how the money will be spent and how the efforts will work to prevent wildfires. 

At Lookout’s District 5 county supervisor candidate forum Sept. 18, candidates Monica Martinez and Christopher Bradford shared their concerns. Although Martinez ultimately said she would support the measure, she thinks organizers “dropped the ball” by not working more closely with the fire districts.

“The opposition for this measure comes from our fire district chiefs because they weren’t consulted,” she said. “I’m pretty disappointed to see that. I do know that the fire districts can apply for the funds, and I hope the county does whatever it can to support the district in applying for those funds if the measure is passed.”

Bradford, though, was less supportive. He acknowledged that the measure has good aspects, but said he is too taken aback by the fire chiefs’ opposition.

“If they’re telling you that this measure being marketed as a solution for some of our disaster-related issues is not the right thing for our fire districts, then we need to listen,” he said, adding that he thinks the measure needs to be revised before being handed to voters. “It’s better to do a thing the right way and lose, have to iterate, and then win the right way than to do a thing the wrong way.”

The Santa Cruz County Fire Chiefs Association remains the only official detractor.

“It’s probably the first time ever in the fire chiefs association history that we are speaking out against something,” said Santa Cruz County Fire Chiefs Association President Mark Bingham, speaking on behalf of the organization. He added that the group initially wrote a letter of non-support, which then became a letter against Measure Q.

Bingham, who is the Boulder Creek Fire Protection District chief, said the association’s biggest concern is that neither it nor the local fire districts were consulted in the drafting of the measure, leading to what they believe will be an ineffective approach to better preventing wildfires.

“You’re talking about the topic of wildfires and reducing risk, and you don’t even speak to the people who do that,” he said. 

Bingham said other major concerns include worries that not enough money will get to the unincorporated areas, which make up the majority of the county’s lands, and that even though fire districts are able to apply for grants through the measure’s new program, that could prove difficult for some of the small districts: “Small agencies don’t have the staffing to do grant applications — both writing and grant management.”

Bingham said that if it were up to him, he’d want to work with the county transfer station to establish regular “free green waste days,” allowing people on fixed incomes to manage their lands and dispose of excess vegetation. Similarly, he would push for what he calls a “community chipper plan,” which would involve purchasing equipment that could be manned at various fire stations with money allocated specifically to fund staffers to head to peoples’ property and maintain their lands for them. Bingham said that fewer homes feature real fireplaces nowadays, which causes excess wood and vegetation to accumulate and possibly ignite.

“There’s a lot of debris around here that people don’t want to use for fire. Fireplaces are kind of going to the wayside, people are not heating with them and new houses aren’t being built with them,” he said. “People managing their property through heating their own homes is happening less and less.”

Bingham said that the groups involved with organizing Measure Q are all “great groups,” and that neither he nor any of the other local fire chiefs have any issue with any of the organizations, but instead thinks the measure goes about land management incorrectly: “Should the taxpayer dollars be going to a nonprofit group to manage their lands that they bought to manage? Seems a little off.”

Newkirk said it’s fair to say the fire chiefs were not consulted in shaping the measure, and she “completely understands disappointment,” and acknowledges that some might be frustrated that the fire districts don’t automatically get any of the money. However, she said that she believes the measure is focused on more than just fire response. She added that she is “very supportive” of the fire district bond measures, and said the Yes on Q campaign made a contribution to the Central Fire District bond measure.

“I think it really reflects the fact that the districts are mostly involved in fire response, and this money is primarily in service of fire resilience,” she said. “It’s a land-management measure, and I strongly believe we need money for both response and for resilience.”

Newkirk also said she believes cynicism toward county government is a driving factor in opposition to this measure, with some believing – incorrectly – that it is a county measure.

“We’ve actually had people say, ‘Oh, this is a county measure,’ but it’s not,” she said. “This is a grassroots measure that was written by a coalition of local nonprofit organizations and some regional nonprofit organizations, and we worked with the county to make sure that the structure was going to work.”

But that is one of the biggest qualms for Bingham and the fire chiefs association.

“All these groups are great groups, but they literally have no background or education for [fighting fires],” he said. “They are not the stakeholders making the decisions on how to either prevent it or combat it.”

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