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Board backs letter supporting Napa-Lake forest health grant after debate over private-land benefits
Summary
The Lake County Board of Supervisors voted to back a Napa County Resource Conservation District-led Cal Fire Forest Health Grant application that would fund vegetation management and fuels reduction across Napa and Lake counties, including a 200-plus-acre treatment on private property at 6 Sigma Ranch in Lake County.
A majority of the Lake County Board of Supervisors voted Wednesday to send a letter of support for a Cal Fire Forest Health Grant application led by the Napa County Resource Conservation District that would fund vegetation-management projects in Napa and Lake counties, including more than 200 acres at a privately owned property, 6 Sigma Ranch, in Lake County.
The board’s action authorizes Chair E.J. Crandall to sign a support letter for the application, which planners said pairs Lake County projects with adjacent Napa work and would fund roughly 800 acres of joint treatments, including oak woodland restoration and fuels reduction.
The vote followed a focused exchange about public advantages of routing grant funds to a private landowner. Supervisor Sabatier said she was disturbed by the proposal’s reliance on private property participation without a clearly quantified match, and questioned whether large private parcels risk receiving outsized public support compared with smaller landowners who also need protection from wildfire.
“Public–private partnerships are supposed to help the community,” Sabatier said. “But this really helps out one specific private property and business. I don’t know that I can support this without better understanding.”
Julia Sullivan, executive director of the Lake County Resource Conservation District, replied that 6 Sigma is committing to measurable on-the-ground follow-up work on the property, including broadcast prescribed burning, which she said is a significant, ongoing landowner commitment that functions as part of the grant match and extends the value of the funded treatments.
“6 Sigma as part of this project is committing to carrying out follow-up maintenance activities in the form of broadcast prescribed burning on the property to maintain the treatments that we complete with this funding,” Sullivan said. “That is a significant commitment by the landowner.”
Matthew Rothstein, deputy county administrative officer presenting for the county’s climate resiliency officer, said the Lake County RCD joined the Napa-led application because Napa’s application and project pipeline made the combined package more competitive under the current Cal Fire funding round. He told supervisors the Lake RCD lacked the CEQA-ready project pipeline elsewhere in the county to compete alone in this cycle.
“We were pretty much ready to roll on those abatements,” Rothstein said during the earlier grant discussion, noting the county sought to align with projects that could show near-term implementation and CEQA momentum.
Supervisor Crandall and others argued the funding mechanism is a standard use of state forest-health grants—which are commonly deployed on private parcels because private lands account for most acreage at risk in the county—and stressed the county should not “leave money on the table.”
“I mean, this isn’t anything different than any of the Cal Fire grants,” Crandall said. “If we’re ever going to achieve the goals of forest resilience, then we have to invest in private property.”
After discussion, the board approved the motion to send the letter of support and authorized the chair to sign it. County staff said the Lake RCD will participate as a project partner and will use the collaboration to build program capacity for future, locally initiated projects.
The county presentation notes that the proposed work across the two counties includes more than 800 acres of treatment in total, with more than 200 acres of fuels reduction and oak woodland restoration at 6 Sigma Ranch. The Lake RCD’s forester, hired in November, was described by staff as a core part of Lake County’s capacity build to administer and sustain future forest-health projects.
The board’s support does not commit county funds to the project beyond the letter; any final award and the scope of Lake County participation would follow grant award procedures and interagency agreements.
Action recorded: board approved a letter of support for the Napa County RCD-led Cal Fire Forest Health Grant application, authorizing the chair to sign.
