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Alpine County weighs search-and-rescue cost recovery; counselors, sheriff urge cautious approach
Summary
County counsel told supervisors state law allows charging counties (not individuals) for search-and-rescue costs and caps recoverable fees, while the sheriff warned that billing other counties risks crippling small jurisdictions; board directed staff to keep researching MOUs and code tweaks, seeking alignment with state and federal partners.
Alpine County supervisors heard options May 5 for recovering search-and-rescue (SAR) costs and directed county counsel to continue researching statutory models, intergovernmental agreements and limited code changes rather than immediately pursuing a countywide billing ordinance.
County counsel (Speaker 2) told the board that state statutes authorize counties to recover some SAR costs but generally require charging another countys government rather than an individual, and that the statute sets a per-incident cap (described in the meeting as $12,000, adjustable for inflation). "The way I'm reading the statute is it isn't adjusted from inflation from the date that the statute was put in place, but I think it's adjusted from a prior year upon which the county adopts the ordinance," counsel said, framing the limits and complications of the legal path.
Sheriff Tom Ender (Speaker 16) urged caution. He said sheriffs across California have long followed an informal practice of not billing one another for rescues, warning that "a small county will get killed if LA County goes after one of our subjects" and that individual incidents can run into large fuel and staffing costs. The sheriff described local workarounds, including citing individuals and seeking restitution through the courts when enforcement provisions apply.
Some supervisors said they hoped for a path to charge individuals in egregious cases. Supervisor (Speaker 3) said she had been hoping to find a way to bill individuals for SAR responses, but counsel and the sheriff explained statutory limits and practical challenges making that route difficult.
The board's direction: continue researching statutes and county models used elsewhere, pursue memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with state and federal partners where feasible to secure enforcement authority or shared responsibility, and identify modest code changes that could be incorporated in the countys comprehensive code review to address camping, illegal dumping and related behaviors on access points. No ordinance imposing county-to-county billing or individual liability was adopted at the meeting.
County counsel noted the need to confirm statutory authority before proposing new county ordinances and said staff will return with examples and draft language for the board to consider. The sheriff said deputies will continue patrols and enforcement as allowed under state law and that the county will pursue restitution via the courts where appropriate.
What happens next: staff will collect model ordinances and MOUs, and the board will consider potential code amendments as part of a larger comprehensive code update. The meeting did not result in a formal vote on a new SAR fee or billing policy.
