Members: Tom Casselman, Mary Opperman, Suzie Hermreck, Jenna Deibel, and Dawn Alexander
Agenda Overview: Suzie made a motion to approve the minutes, Mary 2nd the motion. Motion approved. Mary reported expenses from Title II account – Dawn for June, July, August- $863.23, $665.00, $455.00 Nikka $1301 covering indirect costs from Foundation. META account- New Unknown Travis $785. Dawn printer ink $24.98, Nikka $2796, Costco for snacks $54.36, New Unknown Travis Sept. $260.
Monitoring: Jill waiting for FS protocol input, field work for Mill Creek will be done summer 2025.
Forest Service Update: Big Summit Prairie- Kevin and another gentleman came to Suzie about the sale of the East half of Big Summit Prairie. The Elk Foundation, Confederated Tribes, Deschutes Land Trust and a water conservation group would be stakeholders for the purchase and put in next Sept. Suzie spoke to the Natural Resource committee with Shane. The purchase would control a lot of the watershed. The Elk foundation and ODFW would make it into a special district, Confederated Tribes would want as ceded ground. Suzie wants to talk to other people to see what they think. $20 million is the asking purchase price for 9,020 acres.
Stakeholders would then turn it over to the Forest Service. Must be fronted by stakeholders to get the government money. Water is one of the concerns, as crucial to irrigators. Seth is against it, Woodwards are against it.
NRAC meeting next month, Oct. 9th 1-3. COCC Jenna will attend, Suzie will be there also.
Get Kevin to speak on this at a future meeting, the Big Summit Prairie purchase. Ask him for the October meeting. FS, hear from County (Suzie and Seth). Woodwards?
Membership: Jenna went over the draft letter Op-Ed: Join the Effort to Restore the Ochoco National Forest. Will make a brochure with the information. Will put on area bulletin boards, the newspaper and Round-Up.
Title II funding update: We did not receive the Title II funding. Will apply again next year.
COSSA Field Trip- Oct. 3rd– Thursday 8:30-2:30-Jenna and Thomas are facilitating this field trip. New proposed wildlife corridors, modeling work that Thomas has been doing with wildlife buffers for 12 different species. Tribes will be talking about their mule deer collaring. ODF&W crossing and ODOT. NRCS will be talking, programs for private landowners. Wildlife friendly fuels reduction (Jenna). Deschutes Land Trust efforts for easement. Central Oregon Land Watch will also present climate change considerations. Shared networking. Will walk through a riparian restoration area.
October Full group meeting: Brief presentation from Kevin and/or Shane about the Big Summit Prairie sale. Land acquisition person in the Forest Service. Slater/ Scott would any of the 4 be able? As the Ochoco Collaborative, we feel we need to have an opinion on this and would like more information on this topic?
Jenna will summarize the COSSA meeting. (10-15 mins.)
Jenna- Membership letter after edits, then Dawn will send out to membership.
Vote on the Prescribed Burn ZOA. Tom will summarize and put pertinent information from our agreement so Dawn can send out to full group with the ZOA document. Dawn will send out the ZOA and a couple of email reminders to read the document and we will vote at the October meeting.
Field trip discussion- what field trips would the full group like to see?
Future Plans: put the same stuff down as listed on the agenda. November, Report out from the Forest Service wildfires, representative from the BAER team? (Dawn will send out an email to Kevin)
Website Update: Dawn gave a report. 51 new users to the site.
Adjourn meeting: Meeting adjourned at 3:00 pm.
