Members Present: Tom Casselman, Kevin Keown, Mary Opperman, Ben Walen- Oregon Department of Forestry, Janet Hutchison, Jenna Deibel, John Shelk, Dawn Alexander, Suzie Hermreck.
Members Present: John Shelk, Janet Hutchison, Cameron Scott, Cari Press, Jenna Deibel, Mary Opperman, Kevin Keown, Necole Ontko, Susie Hermreck, Dawn Alexander. Zoom: Marilyn Miller, Tom Casselman.
Welcome: Introductions were made.
Meeting Logistics: Cari has asked that to be efficient, productive and respectful of time during our meetings. When you have something to contribute if you would state the objective of your topic, list a few key points or questions. One person talking at a time. She will keep our time and may have to redirect the discussion.
December Minutes: Tom made a motion to accept the December minutes with corrections. Janet 2nd the motion. Minutes were approved with corrections.
Facilitator Position: Cari mentioned that she spent December/January learning the process, google prep, reading documents, and communicating with members. She observed at the November meeting and facilitated the January full group meeting.
Finances & Grant Measure Tracking: When Shelk money runs out where will money from? OWEB? Should Cari search for grants? Annie Price will be the main contact with COFSF. META grant has about $8,000 in it that hasn’t been tapped into. Caution not to run out of Shelk money as some of the grants need a private funding source. Go straight to META for now. Janet will convey to Annie, resubmit a new invoice to Kevin so he can process it. Janet will follow up with Annie, to reinvoice work prior to 9/23 and resubmit through ASC typical channel of invoicing. $3421, not all of that. Probably about $3,000 coming back in.
Expenses for Jill are coming out of OWEB and New Unknown out of Meta. Use whatever we can in META for Dawn, Travis, Cari. They will let us know if they have questions. Jenna will keep eye out for admin outreach grants.
Grant Measures: Cari wanted to know if we were meeting the measures on our grants and which ones we need to do work on. Deliverables are tied to the grants. This would inform scope of work.
Facilitator Program of Work: Cari brought up that in the Scope of Work it states that she will be given a program of work, she is wondering what she should be working on. She noticed that to become an official voting member you need to sign the last page of the Operations Manual, is that something that should be updated? Jenna sent out a skeleton outline in Deschutes Collaborative Forest Partners and her 4 partner groups asking if anyone wants to join OFRC- Jenna will let Cari know.
Forest Service Update: Kevin; Shared that Shane, the Forest Supervisor, has taken a new position, regional 6 and 10 fire position effective 1/27/25. He will be working out of the Redmond Air Center and will support Oregon, Washington and Alaska. Kevin will be acting supervisor in February.
Some of the programs are on pause. Hiring freeze, contracting unable to obligate money. Title II is secure. Not approved budget until April 11th. Budget timber sale receipts can operate with those.
Work front: post fire work from last meeting. Crazy Creek Roadside CE is out for public scoping. Will have Wiley Flat coming out soon for public scoping. Rail Ridge will also come out soon. Area Salvage CE is in development and will be in the next few weeks with proposed actions. Wiley Flat and Rail Ridge post fire looking at Reforestation CE which will come out later. Pre NEPA side looking at soil types, etc. Field season BEHR implementation tasks include hazard tree abatement, road signing, public safety and fence line. Approved BEHR on all three big fires. BAR submitted request 2.8 million for Crazy Creek, Wiley and Rail Ridge which will be submitted in March.
OSU related research coming on water quality, temperature sediment in Crazy Creek. This will be done by grad students.
North Fork Crooked River Vegetation objection phase- 2 objectors withdrew. 2 are still on. A proposal and decision will be signed soon. Some post objections which are same common themes for treatments, and temporary roads. Kevin will send out a calendar invite. Oregon Wild, Central Oregon Landwatch, Blue Ribbon Coalition, AFRC, Old Broads, get out in the field and talk to these groups. The purpose of the collaborative is to get these groups involved in OFRC.
Pre NEPA ready what to do on the North Slope? This would be a good pre-project field trip. Steep ground, lot of issues around fir mortality. Check out Trout Creek, Mtn. Creek, Bear Creek. The impact of wildlife coming down into new seeded fields has severe impacts.
Wildfire Crisis Strategy-Lower Bridge is about ready to sign CE. Central Project, Crooked River Ranch is the next part.
Forest Service CE’s: Do we want to comment- Jackson Fuelbreak Project- Was a lot of overlapping and compounded by fires. Now more streamlined. We did not comment the first time. Mary and Jenna will make a positive comment for us. Due by Feb. 17th.
Crazy Creek Hazard Tree Abatement. Removing killed and dying trees along 14 miles of road. 95% are dead. Some commercial can be taken out. Mary and Jenna will comment on this also. Due Feb. 12th.
Monitoring/Outreach: next month
Request for Website Builder License: Travis has requested an update for a plugin on the website, around $69.00 Susie made a motion for Travis to purchase the plugin. Janet 2nd motion. Motion passed.
Sustainable NW Update: next month
February full group/Future meeting agenda items: Conversation around salvage logging, inviting environmental groups and other groups with varying perspectives.
Post fire treatments. Marilyn knows Doug Heiken as a presenter.
Sustainable NW report-John- 10 minutes.
Elections.
Brochure Jenna will work on an outline to look at-10 minutes.
Environmental Discussion continued from full group: next month
Members Present: John Shelk, Janet Hutchison, Cameron Scott, Cari Press, Jenna Deibel, Mary Opperman, Kevin Keown, Necole Ontko, Susie Hermreck, Dawn Alexander. Zoom: Marilyn Miller, Tom Casselman.
Welcome: Introductions were made.
Meeting Logistics: Cari has asked that to be efficient, productive and respectful of time during our meetings. When you have something to contribute if you would state the objective of your topic, list a few key points or questions. One person talking at a time. She will keep our time and may have to redirect the discussion.
December Minutes: Tom made a motion to accept the December minutes with corrections. Janet 2nd the motion. Minutes were approved with corrections.
Facilitator Position: Cari mentioned that she spent December/January learning the process, google prep, reading documents, and communicating with members. She observed at the November meeting and facilitated the January full group meeting.
Finances & Grant Measure Tracking: When Shelk money runs out where will money from? OWEB? Should Cari search for grants? Annie Price will be the main contact with COFSF. META grant has about $8,000 in it that hasn’t been tapped into. Caution not to run out of Shelk money as some of the grants need a private funding source. Go straight to META for now. Janet will convey to Annie, resubmit a new invoice to Kevin so he can process it. Janet will follow up with Annie, to reinvoice work prior to 9/23 and resubmit through ASC typical channel of invoicing. $3421, not all of that. Probably about $3,000 coming back in.
Expenses for Jill are coming out of OWEB and New Unknown out of Meta. Use whatever we can in META for Dawn, Travis, Cari. They will let us know if they have questions. Jenna will keep eye out for admin outreach grants.
Grant Measures: Cari wanted to know if we were meeting the measures on our grants and which ones we need to do work on. Deliverables are tied to the grants. This would inform scope of work.
Facilitator Program of Work: Cari brought up that in the Scope of Work it states that she will be given a program of work, she is wondering what she should be working on. She noticed that to become an official voting member you need to sign the last page of the Operations Manual, is that something that should be updated? Jenna sent out a skeleton outline in Deschutes Collaborative Forest Partners and her 4 partner groups asking if anyone wants to join OFRC- Jenna will let Cari know.
Forest Service Update: Kevin; Shared that Shane, the Forest Supervisor, has taken a new position, regional 6 and 10 fire position effective 1/27/25. He will be working out of the Redmond Air Center and will support Oregon, Washington and Alaska. Kevin will be acting supervisor in February.
Some of the programs are on pause. Hiring freeze, contracting unable to obligate money. Title II is secure. Not approved budget until April 11th. Budget timber sale receipts can operate with those.
Work front: post fire work from last meeting. Crazy Creek Roadside CE is out for public scoping. Will have Wiley Flat coming out soon for public scoping. Rail Ridge will also come out soon. Area Salvage CE is in development and will be in the next few weeks with proposed actions. Wiley Flat and Rail Ridge post fire looking at Reforestation CE which will come out later. Pre NEPA side looking at soil types, etc. Field season BEHR implementation tasks include hazard tree abatement, road signing, public safety and fence line. Approved BEHR on all three big fires. BAR submitted request 2.8 million for Crazy Creek, Wiley and Rail Ridge which will be submitted in March.
OSU related research coming on water quality, temperature sediment in Crazy Creek. This will be done by grad students.
North Fork Crooked River Vegetation objection phase- 2 objectors withdrew. 2 are still on. A proposal and decision will be signed soon. Some post objections which are same common themes for treatments, and temporary roads. Kevin will send out a calendar invite. Oregon Wild, Central Oregon Landwatch, Blue Ribbon Coalition, AFRC, Old Broads, get out in the field and talk to these groups. The purpose of the collaborative is to get these groups involved in OFRC.
Pre NEPA ready what to do on the North Slope? This would be a good pre-project field trip. Steep ground, lot of issues around fir mortality. Check out Trout Creek, Mtn. Creek, Bear Creek. The impact of wildlife coming down into new seeded fields has severe impacts.
Wildfire Crisis Strategy-Lower Bridge is about ready to sign CE. Central Project, Crooked River Ranch is the next part.
Forest Service CE’s: Do we want to comment- Jackson Fuelbreak Project- Was a lot of overlapping and compounded by fires. Now more streamlined. We did not comment the first time. Mary and Jenna will make a positive comment for us. Due by Feb. 17th.
Crazy Creek Hazard Tree Abatement. Removing killed and dying trees along 14 miles of road. 95% are dead. Some commercial can be taken out. Mary and Jenna will comment on this also. Due Feb. 12th.
Monitoring/Outreach: next month
Request for Website Builder License: Travis has requested an update for a plugin on the website, around $69.00 Susie made a motion for Travis to purchase the plugin. Janet 2nd motion. Motion passed.
Sustainable NW Update: next month
February full group/Future meeting agenda items: Conversation around salvage logging, inviting environmental groups and other groups with varying perspectives.
Post fire treatments. Marilyn knows Doug Heiken as a presenter.
Sustainable NW report-John- 10 minutes.
Elections.
Brochure Jenna will work on an outline to look at-10 minutes.
Environmental Discussion continued from full group: next month
Adjourn: Meeting was adjourned at 3:18 pm.
