Lake County supervisors approve letter supporting Cal Fire grant partnership with Napa RCD for forest treatments

The Lake County Board of Supervisors voted to approve a letter of support for Napa County Resource Conservation District’s application to the Cal Fire Forest Health Grant Program, authorizing the chair to sign. The application would fund a public-private partnership to treat more than 800 acres in Napa and Lake counties, including 200-plus acres of fuels reduction and oak woodland restoration at the privately owned 6 Sigma Ranch.

Matthew Rothstein, chief deputy county administrative officer, presented the request on behalf of Chief Climate Resiliency Officer Terry Logsdon and said Napa County RCD is the lead agency on the grant application and sought adjacent projects that would align with planned work in Napa. “Lake County Resource Conservation District is engaged as a partner in this project,” Rothstein said, adding that the county’s chief climate resiliency officer recommends the board approve the letter and authorize the chair to sign.

Julia Sullivan, executive director of the Lake County Resource Conservation District, told supervisors that 6 Sigma Ranch would implement the work across the 200-plus acres in Lake County and commit to follow-up maintenance activities, including broadcast and prescribed burning, to maintain treatments. She said the landowner’s commitment is significant but that an exact dollar value for that in-kind match has not yet been calculated. “6 Sigma…is committing to carrying out follow-up maintenance activities in the form of broadcast and prescribed burning on the property to maintain the treatments that we complete with this funding,” Sullivan said.

Supervisor Sabatier questioned the equity of using limited public grant dollars to treat a large privately owned property and said the project felt like a disproportionate benefit to a single private landowner and business. Sabatier said she could not support the letter without clearer information about what the private partner would contribute beyond future promises. Sullivan and other speakers said the project was selected in part because it was CEQA-ready and therefore more competitive in a reduced funding round, and because the partnership offers training and capacity-building opportunities for Lake RCD staff to support future countywide work on forest health.

Supervisors clarified that Napa’s proposal includes three Napa properties—Lake Hennessy reservoir, Moore Creek Regional Park, and Snowdon Vineyards—totaling roughly 700 acres in Napa, which complements the Lake County acreage in the joint application. Sullivan said the Lake RCD has been working on the proposal since November, has recently hired a forester, and lacked other CEQA-ready project sites in Lake County for this funding cycle. She said the application window closed a week from the meeting date.

On the board action, a motion to approve the letter of support and authorize the chair to sign was moved and seconded. The board vote was recorded as carrying 4-2-1; the transcript records one supervisor (Supervisor Sabatier) voting "nay." The approved letter does not itself authorize funding or project implementation; it supports Napa RCD’s Cal Fire grant application and signals Lake RCD’s partnership and planned role if the grant is awarded.

Votes at a glance

• Motion: Approve letter of support for the public-private partnership to improve forest health and resilience in Napa and Lake counties (Cal Fire Forest Health Grant Program); authorize chair to sign. • Outcome: Approved; motion carries 4-2-1. • Recorded opposition: Supervisor Sabatier (nay).

The board did not adopt any implementation directives beyond the letter of support. Sullivan said the partnership is intended to build Lake RCD’s capacity—through project management, contractor oversight and CEQA compliance experience—so the district can pursue future treatments across other private and public lands in Lake County.