Members Present: Tom Casselman, Kevin Keown, Mary Opperman, Ben Walen- Oregon Department of Forestry, Janet Hutchison, Jenna Deibel, John Shelk, Dawn Alexander, Suzie Hermreck.
Agenda Overview: Introductions were made. No changes to the agenda. Minutes from the October meeting. John made a motion to accept the minutes with a couple of modifications, Tom 2nd the motion. Motion passed. Cari Press’s contract has been put together and signed. Dawn’s contract was renewed. Travis’ contract was renewed.
Brochure Discussion/Op Ed Letter: Changes have been made that were suggested by the full-group meeting. Mary made a motion to accept the op-ed that Jenna worked on. John 2nd the motion. Motion passed. Jenna will work on getting the letter into the Central Oregonian, and the Bend Bulletin. Mary will talk to Capri at The Roundup. Jenna will continue to work on images and graphics for the brochure.
Scope of Work Facilitator/Admin. Asst.: Revision to the Administrative Support document- added ‘Work with Travis on website updates.’ The Facilitator Scope of Work document- add who to send the monthly invoice to and take out working on Prescribed Burn ZOA as we have completed that project. Jenna made a motion to approve the changes to the two documents. Tom 2nd the motion. Motion passed.
Forest Service Update: Post fire stuff is something that will take a lot of time. Crazy Creek, Wiley Flat, and Rail Ridge fires working on commercial sales using hazard tree protocols. Planning projects- Crazy Creek is farther along, things will be concurrent. Will be completed by the end of April, beginning of May. The first sale from Mill Creek will be sold mid-January, this is from the Mill Creek EA.
Protocols monitoring meeting with 2 ecologists, refined and will be finalized early Jan. Look at category 4 from Riparian ZOA post treatment effects. Long term risk reduction standpoint tied to ZOA. Streams with fish are the biggest objections. Hydrologists are selecting alternatives, perennial and fish baring reaches. Overlaying the alternative and coming up with an array.
Fire update: Paulina 38% of the district burned this year. Rail Ridge was a little less, Sunflower Flat was high intensity. Little Summit Prairie was also high intensity. A lot of the Sunflower Flat stewardship project with the Turkey Federation did not survive because it was so open with invasive grasses and wind. Crazy Creek, blowing embers up over the top. We want to go back and monitor the areas that we were monitoring already. This would be a good field trip to look at the fire damage.
Suzie- RFPA’s (Rangeland Fire Protection Association’s) are first line of defense and will get some funding. Own cats, water tanks, discussion with some politicians. 370 million dollars needed, and the governor just appropriated 281 million. There are several firemen that haven’t been paid. Meeting with some politicians. Destroying lumber that we should be salvaging. FEMA is a year and a half to 2 years out for funding damage. 40 years ago, we had equipment right on sight. Now we don’t have that out there. Loggers and ranchers were there and when they saw it got on it.
John- How does the collaborative fit into what we are talking about? How do we respond to that in a useful fashion? Future of forest going forward? Kevin mentioned that we still have some more climate change workshops coming up, pulling in more people that are knowledgeable about this. Reforestation, looking in different areas, disease and insects, Climate Change Zone of Agreement is our next focus.
Big Summit Prairie- Sub-committee talking about what public ownership may look like. There was an NRAC meeting last week, but Kevin could not attend. They are planning on putting together some town hall events over the winter. Jenna was at last month’s meeting. Mike Lund is the chairperson of the subcommittee.
Monitoring/Outreach: Kevin covered it with protocols.
Elections Info: Susie is interested in remaining on the executive committee. Discussion about our change to the meeting requirements of being at 2 of 3 meetings for being on the executive committee. From the full group meeting Marilyn brought up a good point about why the rule exists so a person could not just come in and make changes without having been on the committee for a majority of the meetings. Yet, the rule limits opportunities for us. Jenna made a motion to excuse the attendance rule for one year. Mary 2nd the motion. Motion passed. In January will talk about elections and submit names and in Feb. we will have the executive committee elections.
Website Update: 54 new users. Healthy Forests and Communities had the most views. Tom mentioned to get some information about the fires to share on the website. Kevin can share the post fire assessments from BEHR and the Burned Area Rehabilitation, 2.5 million dollars for road and fence repair, as well as the Fire Progression Maps.
Sustainable NW Update: John reported that Greg Block, former president of Sustainable NW has retired, and Dylan Cruise is his replacement. Valuable support to the collaborative. Janet asked if he could possibly talk at a full group meeting sometime when he comes over. Janet will send an email to John asking that.
Commissioners have been asked to write up NW Forest Plan Impact statement on Jan. 9th from 8:30 -10 presented by the US Forest Service. Susie has asked Tim Deboodt to attend also. Susie will report in Jan. at the full group meeting.
January full group/future meeting agenda items: 1) Forest Service Presentation on post fire assessment, progression maps, how the fires were managed and fire severity. Programs from ODFW, an overview. Ben said he would like 15 mins. Kevin 30. Questions for 15 mins. Kevin will not have a forest service update. 2)Election discussion. 3)Susie and Tim with report NW Forest Plan.
OWEB/META grant report: Dawn asked for some input on the OWEB grant report that is due December 31st. Kevin mentioned that the fires this summer prevented us from accessing the forest, and the forest service had not signed the decision on Mill Creek with treatment locations identified. Currently working on protocols with the Forest Service and will have the final in January. Implementation early spring/ summer of 2025, prior to fire season. Monitoring will support Riparian Zones of Agreement.
General Sharing: Tom made a motion to pay for the OWL that was broken at the last meeting we held. Mary 2nd the motion. Motion passed.
Adjourn: Susie made a motion to adjourn the meeting at 3:08 pm. Mary 2nd the motion. Motion passed and the meeting was adjourned.
