Council pauses draft wildfire-risk survey and asks staff, Jensen Hughes and Fire Safe Council to rework questions

Agoura Hills councilmembers on Wednesday agreed to ask staff and the city's CWRA consultant, Jensen Hughes, to revisit a draft community survey intended to inform a citywide Community Wildfire Risk Assessment (CWRA).

Deputy City Manager Louis Solea and Jensen Hughes staff described the survey's role as part of a larger outreach effort that will include stakeholder meetings and a public community meeting for results. Representatives of the Goodyear Hills (Agoura Hills) Fire Safe Council asked the council to incorporate more community-specific questions and to prioritize practical items such as evacuee ability to move large animals, who provides landscaping (homeowner vs. contracted gardener vs. HOA), and resident awareness of whether their property is in a designated fire-hazard zone.

Consultant representatives and staff said the draft survey was intended as preliminary input and that Jensen Hughes planned broader stakeholder outreach and follow-up meetings, but councilmembers and the Fire Safe Council said the initial questionnaire looked too much like boilerplate and risked survey fatigue that would reduce completion rates. Councilmembers asked staff and the consultant to reconvene with the Fire Safe Council and the subcommittee to shorten and re-order questions (move experience and risk questions ahead of demographic items) and to add the Fire Safe Council's suggested follow-ups.

Council members agreed that questions added to the draft should be designed to produce actionable results for mitigation planning (for example, whether residents can evacuate large animals) rather than demographic detail already available from Census and regional hazard plans. Deputy City Manager Solea and Jensen Hughes staff said they would incorporate the Fire Safe Council's input and return to the subcommittee for refinement prior to broader release; the council did not vote formally but asked staff to continue work with the subcommittee and partners.

Peter Feller and Jay Crutcher of the Goodyear Hills Fire Safe Council spoke in favor of deeper collaboration and urged that the city's CWRA process follow the Healthy Forests Restoration Act model of collaborative risk assessment and prioritized fuel-treatment recommendations. The Fire Safe Council requested its members be treated as stakeholders and be given the ability to comment on the survey prior to publication to increase response rates and produce more useful mitigation recommendations.

City staff said the online SurveyMonkey questionnaire will be one part of the outreach and that additional targeted stakeholder interviews, HOA outreach and translated materials are planned. Jensen Hughes recommended a minimum one-month survey window once the council signs off on final questions.