COMMUNITY NEWS
Tight Window For No-Cost Chipping T he Summer 2021 No-Cost Community Chipping Program. is available to Santa Cruz County residents who live in the Wildland Urban Interface, areas such as the Aptos Hills and Soquel Hills with potential for wildfire to impact their properties. The Resource Conservation District of Santa Cruz County, which offers the program, started early-bird registration online May 7 for residents in neighborhoods that have achieved, or are in the process of, FireWise USA recognition. with registration for all other eligible county residents May 12. The application due dates are: • Corralitos Creek area, May 18. • Aptos Creek, Aptos Hills-Larkin Valley and Soquel Creek areas, May 25. • Mount Hermon, Felton, Pasatiempo and Bean Creek areas, June 1. The city of Scotts Valley is outside the agency’s jurisdiction so property owners are not eligible. This program incentivizes the creation of defensible space around homes in high wildfire risk areas by offering no-cost chipping for residents who clear vegetation within 100 feet of occupied structures or 10 feet on either side of a private road. With the limited rains this past winter, Santa Cruz County is likely to experience greater than normal wildfire risk due to extra dry conditions. “Now more than ever we need to be diligent about the landscape immediately next to our homes,” explained Angie Gruys, who manages the chipping program for the Resource Conservation District. “It’s
been a difficult year for so many and we hope that by offsetting some of the cost more folks will be able to reduce wildfire hazards around their properties and neighborhoods.” Establishing and maintaining defensible space around your home and outbuildings, before fire-prone summer months, is imperative to avoid major damages to your property when wildfire strikes. Defensible space is the buffer you create between buildings and the vegetation that surrounds them to prevent structures from catching fire, either from direct flame contact or radiant heat. Creating ample buffer zones not only increases the chances of your home surviving a fire on its own, but it also gives firefighters a safer location from which to defend your home. In fact, fire crews are more likely to spend time and prioritize defending your property if you have taken steps to limit fuel loads around your buildings. Having defensible space does not mean you need a ring of bare dirt surrounding your property; with proper planning, you can have a fire safe home and a beautiful landscape. The general concept is that trees should be kept farthest from the house, shrubs can be closer, and lawns and bedding plants can be the closest. If your landscaping has a different configuration than this, you can improve defensibility by keeping larger trees limbed up and shrubs free of dead, dry material. How does the program work? Signups are first-come-first served by
region and each household must complete a two-part registration process to be enrolled and confirmed into the program. Part one is an online pre-registration application to verify space is available, and part two is a chipping scheduling form that is completed once your materials are stacked and ready for chipping. A detailed schedule of areas served, deadlines for program applications, chipping dates and guidelines for preparing materials for chipping are posted on the RCD No-Cost Chipping Program web page. Participants must take at least one photo before clearing and one photo after – from the same location. Tree limbs must be hand-stacked in piles, with cut ends facing the same direction toward the road. Piles can include tree limbs up to 8 inches in diameter and 10 feet long and side branches up to four feet. Piles cannot include poison oak, ivy, blackberry vines, broom or acacia with seed pods, painted or treated, lumber, trash, stumps, roots or palm fronds, rocks, timber harvest
debris, or vineyard or orchard waste. Each property is allowed up to three piles, 8x4x10 feet each. Piles must be accessible to a large box truck and chipper trailer, ad within five feet of the chipper access location. Extremely narrow or steep driveways may not be serviceable. Chips will be blown back onto your property. Make sure your house number is visible, and the piles marked with your street number. Inform the agency if you have dogs as loose dogs may prevent chipping. Check dates for when chipping is to be done. Chipping starts June 8 in Corralitos Creek and Boulder Creek area and June 15 in Aptos and Soquel, and June 22 in Mount Hermon and Pasatiempo. If you don’t want your piles sitting too long, prepare them as close as possible to the chipping date for your area. You must provide the number of hours you spent clearing and preparing your piles, or know the dollar amount you paid to do this work. n
CALIFORNIA NEWS
New Attorney General Bonta to Release Gun Violence Data
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n April 26, newly sworn in Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that the California Department of Justice will expand the gun violence related data the department releases to researchers working with the University of California Firearm Violence Research Center. He also announced an internal review of all the data DOJ currently collects to determine ways to make the data more accessible to the public. He said he will work with state legislators on their efforts to provide clarity
about the specific data DOJ may share with help inform new efforts to strengthen California’s commonsense gun laws and keep qualified researchers. “Transparency is key to increasing firearms out of the hands of dangerous individuals.” public trust between law Right now, DOJ maintains enforcement and the commuOpen Justice, a public website nities we serve,” said Bonta. “As with dashboards that include news of tragic mass shootings data on Gun Violence Restraining continue to dominate the news Orders, firearm transactions, and cycle, leaving many with feelings crime statistics. of fear and uncertainty, one of DOJ has balanced its duties my priorities as I begin my work to provide requested gun as the people’s attorney is to Rob Bonta violence and firearms data to create strategies for providing researchers with the data necessary to support research efforts while protecting
12 / May 15th 2021 / Aptos Times www.tpgonlinedaily.com
the personal identifying information in the data. While researchers often rely on identifying information to make sense of the data and produce meaningful studies that inform state legislation, current California law does not clearly authorize disclosure of certain categories of firearms data, including confidential personally identifying information. DOJ will now release Dealer Record of Sale and Automated Firearms System records to researchers working with the UCFC in compliance with applicable law. n
