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Supervisors direct staff to partner with Fire Safe Sonoma, RCDs on wildfire resilience pilot
Summary
After a consultant's review, the board directed staff to negotiate MOUs with Fire Safe Sonoma and the county's resource conservation districts to implement a phased wildfire resilience plan and to avoid duplicative county bureaucracy. The motion passed unanimously.
The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors on June 2 directed staff to work with existing local organizations instead of creating a new county-led governance structure for wildfire resilience, approving staff's recommended phased approach and authorizing negotiations for draft MOUs.
Yvonne Hsu, an analyst in the county executive's office, summarized consultant Eastern Research Group's recommendations for a centralized, phased framework including department alignment, a countywide resilience working group, a climate resilience collaborative, and a technical advisory committee. She said the plan proposed an initial two-year evaluation phase and emphasized the need for data, technical assistance, and sustainable funding. "The basic project structure and funding for this project were approved in early 2023," Hsu said, and ERG proposed a phased implementation to evaluate effectiveness.
Many public speakers and partner agencies urged the board to rely on existing, trusted organizations for implementation. Ben Nichols, executive director of Fire Safe Sonoma, and representatives from the Gold Ridge and Sonoma RCDs, the County Fire Chiefs Association and other nonprofit partners described existing coordination roles, on-the-ground project work and grant-leveraging capacity. "Rather than creating a new function, a new department, any extra dollars into the work that's already being done is more money for implementation downstream," FireSafe Sonoma executive director Ben Nichols said.
Assistant CAO Jennifer Solito told the board staff favored a complementary, phased approach that preserves scarce one-time PG&E settlement funds for sustainable, capacity-building pilot work rather than funding permanent new county FTEs. Solito said the consultant recommended spending $2.3 million to $3.2 million over two years primarily to staff operations, but staff recommended pausing the full staffing proposal and instead negotiating partnerships for a resilient, sustainable system.
Supervisors pressed staff on representation, governance clarity and how to measure success. Several board members said the county should prioritize funding implementation and grant-ready projects rather than additional studies. Supervisor Gore said she wanted money focused on organizations with the trust of landowners and on concrete deliverables: "It's not just about synthesizing and coordinating—it's about delivering," she said.
By unanimous vote the board approved staff recommendations to modify the consultant's governance suggestion and directed the CEO's office to negotiate agreements with Fire Safe Sonoma and the RCDs and return draft agreements for board consideration. Staff will also continue discussions with the Sonoma County Transportation and Climate Authorities (SCTCA) on climate coordination outside wildfire and bring draft agreements back to the board.
