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Angel Fire council adopts revised wildfire protection fees, offers free initial defensible-space assessment
Summary
The Village of Angel Fire approved Resolution 2026-44 to adjust wildfire protection fees using a revised CPI and a compliance-based discount; the council added enforcement language allowing fines for repeated noncompliance and will provide the first defensible-space assessment free of charge.
The Village of Angel Fire council voted to adopt Resolution 2026-44, a revised schedule of wildfire protection fees that applies a CPI adjustment and a compliance-based discount structure.
The resolution ties rates to a CPI index (revised to 4.2% in the most recent calculation) and grants a 50% discount to properties that have a defensible-space (DSO) assessment and are compliant. Village staff said the membership of compliant properties reduces the base and that the shortfall is distributed among noncompliant lots, which produces higher per-lot charges for those properties.
Fire Chief Jason Paz, who led the presentation, said the village has recorded roughly 118 DSO assessments to date, 113 of which were completed successfully, and staff are using Smartsheet to collect and store assessment data. “We created a back end, data collection system with a program called Smartsheet,” he said, describing how assessments are logged and how lot size is verified with utility billing.
The resolution includes an operational detail that the first DSO assessment and one follow-up will be provided free of charge. It also authorizes a limited enforcement penalty — up to $100 — if crews must repeatedly return to a property where no changes were made since the last visit, a provision council members said is intended to discourage unnecessary re-inspections.
Councilors discussed the math behind the fee table and how the compliance discount is allocated. Manager Weir and staff explained that the rate shown for the prior year was increased by the CPI figure and that the compliant-party discount is reallocated across noncompliant lots, which accounts for some cells appearing to rise by more than the CPI alone.
The council adopted the resolution by roll-call vote. The new fee structure is scheduled to take effect in the upcoming fiscal period; staff said lists will be reconciled after a June 1 compliance cutoff to calculate final billings.
Next steps: staff offered to show council members the data-collection spreadsheet and will use the reconciled lists to generate individual bills under the new structure.
