Members Present: Cari Press, Jenna Deibel, Kevin Keown, Mary Opperman, Ben Whalen, Cameron Scott, Janet Hutchison, Susie Hermreck, Dawn Alexander
Agenda Overview: Mary made a motion to accept the minutes with corrections. Minutes were approved. Financials: Program coordination costs are ~$3K/mo. We have ~5K left in the Meta grant after Feb invoices are paid to pay for program coordination. We also have ~$5K in the Shelk and Crook grants but we wanted to save those to use for matching if we apply for other grants. We have an additional $3400 that will be reimbursed to Shelk from the USFS but we don’t know when we’ll get that. OWEB has ~$57K remaining and ~$50K of that is allocated to “contracted services”. Jill’s contract is for $20,000.
Forest Service Update: Kevin- Post fire work will take up most of the time for the next few months. Crazy Creek Roadside Hazard tree abatement is out, Wiley Flat scoping letter then Rail Ridge will be the last letter out. Planning time is happening now. Trying to get the value of the wood so it can be sold, this is time sensitive. BAER work- replacing culverts, trying to get out there and do the work.
Post fire work will happen when people can get out in the field. BAR funding, 1 proposal for Crazy Creek, Rob Tanner is working on it. Another proposal will be coming out soon. Fencing, invasive plants, additional seeding, and roadwork that wasn’t covered under BAER.
COFSF Update: Cameron, Mary, Jenna- Meeting with the foundation and Jacob Fritz; Fiscal admin discrepancies- John Shelk money did we or didn’t we pay the 10%. OWEB grant did not have overhead taken out for COFSF. Vernita was paid to put this together. Not sure if we’re allowed to take that out after the fact. Also, not sure if we can use money from the $50K in contracted services to pay for program coordination (facilitation, program admin, and website). We may need to have a conversation with OWEB?
Janet wondering if Travis will be going out on some monitoring with Jill to take pictures and some of Dawn’s time to help with the project. Details of what was set aside. Need to look at the grant application to see what was applied for.
When we wrap up the monitoring project, we will need to use some of the grant for facilitating the final meeting, presentation to full group and some additional administrative time.
Cameron- biggest impact looking at other funds to keep the foundation going. No funding to pay bills. February is covered but beyond that is at risk. Looking at inefficiencies to help Annie with her position. COSA and Climate Change funding will help as that was costly with administrative costs.
Shelk discussion as to whether the 10% ($1,000) was paid. Meeting with Jenna and Mary needs to be set up with Nikka and Annie to go over the spreadsheets and financials. Jenna mentioned that there would be more competition for grants now but we still need to search.
Ben mentioned that CWGC’s- Community Wildfire Defense Grants are available and due March 14th. These are for private lands. The grant would have to tie to the Ochocos. Possibly explore this grant next year. Mill Creek has some cross boundary potential with private/public lands.
Future Meetings: Jenna: How do we want to move forward options: 1). Pause until we receive Title 2 RAC funds. 2). Run at half time caliber, meet every other month.
Are we serving our purpose? Without environmental groups, industry people…
After a discussion we decided to postpone full group meetings but still meet monthly as an executive committee.
Janet made a motion to postpone the full group meeting in March, Susie 2nd the motion. Motion passed. The Executive Committee will move to March 18th at the Commissioners building. Will send out email to the full group about postponing full group meetings indefinitely. Mary and Jenna will write up a note to send to Dawn to send out to the membership.
On Friday Feb. 28th there is a meeting of all collaboratives across the state. Open forum discussion. 9-10:30. Jenna will attend.
Once we get full group meetings going again Cameron said he could reach out to some of the environmental groups such as Central Oregon Landwatch.
Potential industry members: Gilchrist meeting with Jenna.
Timber Contractors would also be good to get in touch with.
Topics to plan for: Post -Fire Recovery discussions, future range of variation educational presentations, update on Biomass project from the city, Fuel Barrier project field trip, Seeding (Frank), Grant deliverables, reforestation, watershed work, salvage logging.
Letter of Support Forest Service: After a discussion about sending a letter supporting the Ochoco Forest Service to our congressmen it was decided that Mary and Jenna would attend the collaborative meeting on Friday and then meet next Monday with Janet to write up a letter to send out.
Update on Monitoring: John and Jill have met. Jill has everything she needs and is eager to get going. Janet spoke to Jill, working on designing vegetative work, John is doing site selection, another meeting Friday.
March Executive Committee Agenda: Jenna will have an outline for review on the collaborative story proposal. Strategy for using the rest of the OWEB grant money. An idea for a project for upcoming full-group meetings. Forest Service report. COFSF report.
To do list: Meeting with Cameron on finances. Meeting on Friday with collaborative groups. Meeting on Monday with Janet, Jenna and Mary to work on the support letter for the Forest Service.
Mary made a motion to adjourn the meeting. Jenna 2nd the motion. The meeting was adjourned at 3:04 pm.
