Can a policy that increases wildfire risk be a good policy?
That’s the question I’ve been pondering over the past week as I reported a story on a new camping proposal being pushed by Santa Cruz County Supervisor Zach Friend, the county’s community development department, and Hipcamp, the online platform that connects campers to camp sites hosted on private land.
The low-impact camping area (LICA) ordinance would clear much of the red tape for private owners of large properties to rent out some of their land for recreational camping. Property owners today need a public hearing, environmental review and state and local permits to open more than one campsite on their plots. LICA would allow up to nine campsites on a property without a public hearing or on-site monitoring. The proposed ordinance has triggered the fears of Bonny Doon residents whose homes burned down in the 2020 CZU fire, including Steve Homan and Nancy Kille. As Kille told me: “There is so much PTSD up here.”
Residents aren’t the only ones questioning the policy. The county’s planning commission rejected it, and fire officials from Felton and Zayante down to Rio Del Mar say the camping program would increase wildfire risk at a time when local fire rural districts are already stretched and struggling to stay solvent.
Dozens of unregulated Hipcamp sites already operate in the county. Friend told me that, by requiring permits and signoff from fire officials, this policy would introduce new rules that could reduce fire risk, while opening up more opportunities for people to experience Santa Cruz County’s great outdoors.
Yet, at a time when thousands of Santa Cruz County residents are losing their fire insurance policies, and the increasing cost and frequency of climate disasters is throwing the county’s budget into turmoil, many are unconvinced. The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors will take its first vote on the LICA ordinance on Tuesday.
Of Note
Downtown Santa Cruz’s complicated equation: Creating a new neighborhood in downtown Santa Cruz already requires some complex land-use algebra; trying to fit it into a specific height and scope when the state has taken away much local control requires advanced political and urban design calculus. This all became apparent last week, when the city council and planning commission met for the first time since the city planners released their 80-page plan for Santa Cruz’s SoLa District (South of Laurel), perhaps the most significant downtown realignment since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. If all goes smoothly, the city could adopt the plan by the middle of next year.
Looking Ahead
Clocktower Center redux: In regard to the northern end of downtown Santa Cruz, local developer Workbench will again host a virtual community engagement meeting, on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m., to discuss its 16-story mixed-use residential development envisioned for behind the town clock. The first installment earlier this month brought hundreds of viewers and questions.
Watsonville strains toward a balanced budget: The $278.7 million city budget proposed by interim Watsonville City Manager Tamara Vides has had its hiccups as increased salary and pension costs outstripped projected revenues for the upcoming year. Vides is, among other things, recommending a temporary hiring freeze for vacant city positions. The Watsonville City Council will meet on Tuesday to vote on the budget.
Weekly News Diet
Local: Eyeing financial crisis, the Felton Fire Protection District is considering a new property tax on its service area to help keep it afloat. As my colleague Max Chun reports, the challenge of financial solvency is an increasingly urgent challenge for rural fire protection districts throughout the county.
Golden State: Within days of U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy calling on Congress to require teen mental health warning labels on social media platforms, Los Angeles Unified School District voted to ban student use of cellphones on campus. The new rule will go into effect in January, according to the Los Angeles Times’ Howard Blume and Defne Karabatur.
National: Further tying U.S. Surgeon General Warnings, social media and teenagers together in this past week’s news cycle, the attorneys general of 45 states and the District of Columbia are suing Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, for failing to protect teenagers from social media addiction and its harmful effects. According to Natasha Singer of The New York Times, the attorneys general are using a similar legal tactic to the one employed in the 1990s during the lawsuits against Big Tobacco.
One Great (Vintage) Watch
The Madoff family speaks to “60 Minutes,” October 2011
Somehow, I’ve fallen into an obsession with archived episodes of “60 Minutes” over the past week. It’s not an endless well, but boy is it deep. The timing of this weeklong obsession paired well with the Bernie Madoff scandal rabbit hole I’ve dug myself into over the past month. Although I lived in the greater New York area and had family in Florida, I wasn’t yet of age in 2008 to fully grasp the impact and tragedy of Madoff’s scam. After watching this episode of “60 Minutes,” that is somewhat relieving.
In October 2011, three years after Madoff’s sons turned him in to the FBI, the broken family broke its silence, and agreed to an interview with Morley Safer that, even 13 years later, maintains a chilling air.