 * “I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”
—Helen Keller
Photo at the southern end of the Valley by Jack Leishman, reminding us what rain clouds look like.
This is my last newsletter until after the November 8 election. That’s because of the “blackout,” a 60-day period before elections when legislators running for re-election are barred from using any state government resources to communicate with the public. That strikes me as a pretty good balance point between two important objectives: keeping your constituents informed and reducing the incumbent advantage in elections. So this will be ‘so long’ until November.
At about 11:00 a.m. two years ago today, September 8, 2020, a fragment of fire sparked to life on a vacant lot near Ashland’s Dog Park. Swirling winds blew it northwest and by evening the Almeda Fire had ripped the heart out of the Bear Creek corridor, destroying almost 2500 homes. killing three people and turning countless lives upside down. Some of the feel of that day is captured in this short video from Harry & David. I was also moved by this interview excerpt with a couple who lost their home.
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It’s been a rough two years for so many of our neighbors. Waves of funding have flowed in from FEMA and the Oregon Housing and Community Services Department (OHCS) for short-term transitional housing and the beginnings of permanent housing, some of which will spur more ownership opportunity than many people had before the fire. This week we got great news about the $25 million we secured in the 2021 session to purchase property, with special focus on the housing parks lost in the fire. The core idea, envisioned for years, is to help manufactured home residents gain cooperative ownership of their parks, freeing them from the whims of absentee park owners who have raised space rents steadily, sometimes dramatically, for years. It’s hard to describe how much this kind of security can change the lives of older residents who have been living with so much anxiety.
About 90% of this 99-space mobile home park in Talent was destroyed by fire. Photo by Chris May
After lengthy negotiations, the purchase of Talent Mobile Estates takes a big step towards that vision. It can show the way to what I hope will become a cluster of manufactured home co-ops in our valley, perhaps hundreds of units where people of limited income can live securely into and through their later years.
But the truth is we’re a long ways from full recovery and meeting the needs of Almeda survivors. Before the fire had cooled, many valley residents and loosely-formed groups sprang into action to help these survivors every and any way they could. That’s continued ever since. Standing out for its perseverance is the Jackson County Community Long Term Recovery Group, which hasn’t slowed the pace of their work, and won’t until the needs of all survivors are meaningfully addressed. To commemorate the fire and recovery, they’re one of the spark plugs for a series of community events, some moving and some fun, every day from now through September 17; the full schedule is here. I hope you’ll make it to Blue Heron Park in Phoenix this Saturday, September 10 starting at 3:00pm, when we’ll come together for the wonderfully titled event “Honoring the Spirit of Resilience.”
 One ongoing event worth checking out is the Southern Oregon premiere of ELEMENTAL, a powerful new film that challenges the way we think about wildfire. You can attend free screenings at Ashland’s Varsity Theatre daily from September 11-17 at 6:00 p.m., at the Talent public library September 13 and 15 at 12:30 p.m., and at the Phoenix public library September 14 at 1:00 p.m. Jackson Care Connect members can secure rides to events by calling 888.518.8160.
My last letter detailed the challenges that have come up around the comprehensive SB 762 wildfire program. I’m attaching it at the very bottom of this page for reference. I also want to share with you a portion of Rep. Pam Marsh’s recent newsletter, beginning with her description of a field visit we made to the West Bear Restoration Project near Talent.
At the West Bear Restoration Project
Thanks to Rep. Marsh for sharing what follows, because it summarizes important SB 762 context that was pushed to one side when the first wildfire risk map came out. She writes:
Earlier this summer I had an opportunity to join a tour of the West Bear All-Lands Restoration project, a game-changing federal, state and local collaboration aimed at reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfires in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) between Phoenix, Talent, Medford and Jacksonville. The strategy is simple: reduce overgrown vegetation that fuels wildfires in the critical zone where forests and communities rub shoulders. Lomakatsi Restoration Project, a non-profit, is managing implementation. It was impressive to see first-hand the incredible progress that has already been accomplished and to meet the people who are doing this vital work.
More than $11 million in private, state, and federal funding has already been awarded to the project. Oregon is contributing $3.5 million dollars, allocated by Senate Bill 762, to support fuel reduction treatments on 2,000 acres on private land. So far this year, 25 landowners have been recruited into the program, three local contractors have been hired, and 100 pairs of boots have hit the ground.
West Bear just is one of many wildfire-mitigation projects in our region funded by SB 762. In the Upper Applegate Watershed, $700,000 has been granted to treat 350 acres of Forest Service lands. That work will start this fall. To expand the workforce, Lomakatsi is engaging the newly formed Oregon Conservation Corps with $900,000 to staff and operate a 9-month workforce program aimed at training 20 Corps members aged 18-26 from Jackson, Josephine, and Klamath counties. The goal is to equip young adults with the skills and experience needed to pursue related careers immediately after the program, which includes certification in ecological restoration, technical chainsaw operation, cultural resource monitoring, prescribed fire, wildland fire, and forestry data collection.
These boots-on-the-ground projects are just the tip of the SB 762 iceberg. In total, this measure will invest $220 million to help Oregon modernize and improve wildfire preparedness through three key strategies: creating fire-adapted communities, developing safe and effective responses, and increasing the resiliency of Oregon’s landscapes.
SB 762 investment categories include:
- $28 million for landowner and community grant programs to improve forest and rangeland health to reduce catastrophic wildfire risk across the landscape
- $32 million in wildfire prevention grants to protect homes and to provide first responders with conditions for safe and effective wildfire response, while increasing home and community survivability when wildfires do strike
- $109 million to hire forest workers and firefighters, and to purchase new equipment and aviation resources for wildfires
- $13 million for clean air shelters, smoke filters, and public assistance to protect vulnerable communities from wildfire smoke
- $12 million to create the Oregon Conservation Corps and train the next generation of forest and wildfire professionals
Property owners are the key to success
Many of the high-risk lands in the Wildland Urban Interface are privately owned by Oregonians. A key goal of this work is to provide resources, including expertise and funding, to property owners who are most at risk. While many rural landowners have implemented extensive defensible space programs, others may need assistance. Conversely, landowners can also provide assistance to fire management planners: the hard-earned knowledge of rural communities and fire personnel is essential for devising local strategies. The Oregon State Fire Marshal will partner with residents, fire districts, fire departments and local governments to establish programs that address wildfire risk reduction, defensible space requirements, response planning and community preparedness.
To identify communities that are most at-risk of catastrophic fire, SB 762 directs ODF to work with Oregon State University (OSU) to develop and maintain a statewide map of wildfire risk. Data from the Wildfire Risk Map can be utilized by the Oregon State Fire Marshal, ODF and local fire departments to determine the most critical need for resources, specifically driving money, professional services, and education to these areas.
The first draft of the state wildfire map raised many concerns from property owners. Many saw it as a threat, not a promise. ODF has withdrawn it and is working with OSU on refinements to improve the accuracy of risk classification assignments based on what they’ve heard from property owners. The agency is also looking at ways to use a map layer to document properties and neighborhoods where owners have implemented good wildfire protection strategies. But the purpose of the map remains the same: to identify areas most in need of additional resources.
Property insurance concerns
The Wildfire Risk Map raised concerns that the identification of individual tax lots will lead insurance companies to increase rates. In August the Oregon Division of Financial Regulation (DFR) announced that insurance companies in Oregon do not use, and currently have no plans to use, the Wildfire Risk Map in their decision making.
This announcement reflected the results of a formal data call to all relevant insurers doing business in Oregon issued by DFR. A data call is a formal inquiry that insurers are required by law to answer truthfully.
The data call asked the following:
- Does the company use the state wildfire map for rating or underwriting?
- Does the company use the state wildfire map for any other purposes?
- Does the company plan to use the state wildfire map for any purpose in the future?
All insurers responded that they do not use the map for rating and underwriting and have no plans to use it for rating and underwriting. In addition, DFR has not received any new proposed rate filings that include the state wildfire map as a rating factor. DFR does not set rates or determine what rates should be; however, all rates used by insurance companies in Oregon must be filed with DFR for review. The filing must include the methodology used to develop rates and the proposed rates must be actuarially justified, adequate, not excessive, and nondiscriminatory.
Insurance companies have been using their own risk maps and other robust risk management tools to assess wildfire risk for many years in making rating and underwriting decisions. DFR notes that there has been confusion between decisions based on insurers continued use of their own tools, including their own risk maps, and the discussions on the new state wildfire risk map.
Anyone who is being told their insurance policy is not being renewed or is being canceled due to the map should file a complaint with DFR online at dfr.oregon.gov or by calling their consumer advocacy hotline at 888-877-4894.
DFR recently issued a homeowners insurance guide to help people better understand how insurance companies determine whether to offer and renew insurance policies and set their rates: dfr.oregon.gov/insure/home/storm/Pages/wildfires.aspx
Meanwhile, we must all continue to address the very real risk of catastrophic wildfires—a risk that will only increase as the current historic drought continues. You can subscribe to email updates on SB 762 programs and find opportunities for feedback by visiting oregon.gov/odf/pages/sb762.aspx and entering your email address in the top right corner.
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I’ll add to Rep. Marsh’s comments that recent meetings have centered on how important it is to make knowledgeable professionals available to homeowners who want to know what’s needed on their specific property for fire safety, and potentially to secure official certification for better insurance rates. In almost every case, site visits assure property owners that the needed work is easier and less burdensome than they expected. We need these cooperative consultations to be widely available before any regulation comes into play.
At the beginning of summer, as Chair of the Senate Natural Resources Committee, I convened a work group to explore an issue that’s troubling a lot of people near the town of Scio, which lies southeast of Salem. A CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation) for chickens has been established there, and there are indications that the country’s largest poultry processors are eyeing the Willamette Valley to site more facilities that can confine millions of birds at a time.
The work group’s been considering whether Oregon law and administrative rules are prepared for that.
I asked Senator Michael Dembrow to chair the group, and their work is almost over. Last week they heard from dozens of people with strong, sometimes passionate views on the environmental, animal welfare and economic dimensions of poultry CAFOs. You can see and hear what they had to say here. My committee will hear their conclusions in December to decide whether any legislation is called for in the 2023 session.
You’re going to hear a lot of opinions in coming months about the state’s economic future, and its implications for budget-making in the 2023 session. What’s at stake is whether or not we’ll continue 2021-2022’s serious investments in services that get at the heart of our problems rather than applying short-term bandages. They’re the big ones: housing, mental health, child care, mental health, water infrastructure, law enforcement, education and job training.
We’re hearing the opening rounds of next year’s argument in response to the revenue forecast that state economists released last week. This article captures the nuances, substantive and political, pretty well.
In late July I reported on the grueling experience some of you are having at the Department of Motor Vehicles office in Medford, one of the most overburdened anywhere in the state. That’s largely because nearby offices in the valley were closed because of staff shortages, which funneled people from around Southern Oregon to Medford.
Since then we’ve been in steady contact with DMV’s main office in Salem, but the scary waiting lines around the Medford office don’t seem much shorter. DMV has been increasing the number of tasks you can complete online rather than in person—a help for some, but not for people without full computer capacity. And they tell me it’s become easier to get an estimate of when you can come to the counter, so that you don’t have to wait in line for hours, also a minor improvement. But they know that service levels aren’t acceptable.
One factor is the federal requirement to convert drivers licenses to “Real I.D.” standards before May 3, 2023 in order to fly without a passport. Another is the annual summer peak of demand for their services: young people getting their driver’s licenses, increased demand for RV and trailer permits, etc. But at the core is a challenge you’re hearing about in every sector, and more intense here than in other places: recruiting and hiring enough people to do the work. That’s compounded by the estimated six months it takes to fully train a new hire to perform all the front-counter tasks. The Department tells me that they’ve lost more than a few people during the training period to higher-paid opportunities.
I asked DMV for a clear and specific plan to solve this problem. They’re working up prospective legislation for the next session that, not surprisingly, would raise fees to fund adequate staffing levels (all of their funds come from the fees they charge for various services and permits, with none from the state General Fund). They know they won’t be cheered for that proposal at a time when costs for pretty much everything else keep rising, but don’t see another responsible alternative. If there is, it would involve reducing their cost of doing business. That deserves some inquiry.
The DMV shortfall is one of many where it’s hard to tease apart the overarching challenges—pandemic and wildfire recovery, the “Great Resignation” and staff shortages generally, widespread inflation—and operational performance that’s just not as good as it should be. Given all that’s happening right now, what are fair expectations for us to have about the quality of government service? That links to another, more practical question that I hope you’ll explore with me next week:
That’s the title of a Town Hall forum I’m hosting at the Medford Public Library, on September 14th, at 6 p.m. along with Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan. Secretary Fagan is exactly who we want at this event, because along with her other duties (most notably serving as the state’s chief election officer and de facto lieutenant governor) she’s in charge of Oregon’s performance audit system. Performance audits examine and assess how well state agencies are fulfilling their purpose and make recommendations for improvement.
Please come if you can to let us know what you think.
That’s all from my legislative office until after the election. Take care until then.
 Senator Jeff Golden, Oregon Senate District 3
From the August 19th newsletter:
As I write this in the middle part of August, we’ve been unscathed (fingers crossed) by major wildfire this summer with the exception of the McKinney Fire just south of the state line. The reasons for that are well described here. I appreciate the recognition of SB 762’s contribution here, but the credit goes mostly to ODF’s firefighting skill and strategy.
Think about it. On a single stormy summer evening in the State of Jefferson, hundreds of dry-lightning strikes can touch ground on parched woodlands and brush fields, often with fierce winds swirling across them. Add to that an abundance of terrain across the Cascade and Siskiyou Mountains that’s too rugged for firefighters to access on the ground. All in all it’s close to a miracle that in the last couple of years you can count the number of Oregon’s massive wildfires on the fingers of both hands.
That’s easy to overlook because it’s about what doesn’t happen. What we notice are the fires that consume hundreds to hundreds of thousands of acres and inflict massive damage and suffering. These would be more common without tools that SB 762 has brought to the table: a vast network of state-of-the-art smoke detection cameras, a detailed strategy of “pre-positioning” ground and air resources at critical sites, and the resulting ability to extinguish nearly all of these ignitions before they reach an acre in size. ODF is serving us exceptionally well here and I’m grateful.
I wanted that on the record at the outset in light of recent criticism leveled at ODF and those of us responsible for passing SB 762. True, the rapid reaction to tiny fires, part of the bill’s “Safe and Effective Wildfire Response” section, is not what’s bothering people. Neither is the third of the bill focused on “Resilient Landscapes,” which involves making forests healthier and less likely to fuel the ferocious megafires that have been exploding across the west—though within that section are controversial forest management issues I’ll write about another day. This edition is about the third of the program, working in coordination with the other two, that IS at the center of the concern and anger you may have heard about. That’s the portion called
The devastation experienced by towns like Santa Rosa, Redding, Weed, Paradise and our own Talent and Phoenix put front and center one question: what can we do to prevent this kind of destruction in the future? It turns out we have little or no control, at least in the short run, of most of the key factors—terrain, the evolving climate, increasing heat, dryness, wind and lightning. The one element where we can make a major difference is the composition, configuration and surroundings of our home and business buildings.
That’s what makes “fire adapted communities” so important. Awareness grew after the Almeda fire, which showed exactly how landscape and outdoor features—vines, bushes, thick weeds, wooden fences and sheds—can become a wick that carries fire from one structure to the next, turning small fires into community infernos. That happens whether forest or rangeland fires enter communities or, more frequently, when fires start from human activity in the “home ignition zone.”
 We had the responsibility of taking this challenge head-on in SB 762. The bill told state agencies to adopt the International Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) code, already in place in most fire-prone jurisdictions, and customize it to meet Oregon’s circumstances. That work’s been going on for more than a year, mostly to craft rules for “defensible space”—fire-wise vegetation zones around buildings—and for building code revisions to harden new homes, or remodels of existing homes, where wildfire threat is severe. That rule-making work has been guided by citizen committees all along the way. Still ahead is announcement of the draft rules and, before they’re finalized, public meetings around the state, including Jackson County, to gather citizen questions, concerns and opinions.
Where will these new rules be applied? To answer that systematically we asked a team of mapping, natural lands, geography and fire experts from ODF and Oregon State University to bring together years of on-the-ground data in order to produce a statewide
 If you’ve heard about any one piece of the whole 762 program, it’s probably this map. It categorizes all Oregon lands into one of five categories, from no-risk to extreme-risk for wildfire. The top two categories, high and extreme risk, are where the defensible space and building code rules, still under development, would be applied.
After more than a year of intensive work, the map was released on June 30. Two weeks later, owners of some 80,000 parcels statewide received letters that their property had been classified either high or extreme risk, that they would be subject to the rules being developed, and how they could appeal the classification if they chose.
We soon found out how much the letters upset some who received them. ODF and OSU scheduled public hearings in late to July to hear from affected citizens. The in-person meetings scheduled for Grants Pass and Medford were cancelled in part because of worrisome threats to state officials, and replaced with a Zoom call on July 27 that drew over 1200 participants.
Here’s coverage of that meeting (if you’d like a link to a video recording of the entire two and a half hours Zoom, let me know at sen.jeffgolden@oregonlegislature.gov).
It wasn’t a relaxed evening. The information was too extensive and detailed to explain well in that format, and most of the dozens of people who spoke were understandably confused, angry or both. One comment from several speakers really hit hard: the very first they’d ever heard a single word that a new wildfire program was underway was when they opened an envelope to read that their property was at high or extreme risk, and that some kind of regulation would follow.
That would probably shock me, too. Here’s a place where our wildfire work over past years clearly fell short. Those of us deeply involved tried to keep our constituents in the loop as we went. I regularly use this newsletter, social media, and my Town Hall meetings for updates, and as SB 762 took shape, radio, television and newspapers ran more than a few stories. In addition, because we knew imposing new requirements on private property is something you don’t do lightly, we made sure that the important parts of the bill’s development included citizen testimony and ongoing advisory committees that specifically included property rights champions.
So as someone who’s had wildfire policy working in at least part of my brain almost daily through my whole Senate term, I was at first baffled that all of this was a complete surprise to some of the people who spoke. It briefly stung to hear the accusation that we’d cooked up this whole thing in secret and thrust it on landowners with no input at all, nothing but an option to appeal their designation after the fact. To be honest, I momentarily forgot something elected representatives should always remember: the demands of earning a living, caring for a family and meeting all kinds of obligations fill most citizens’ lives to the brim (a major reason we have representative rather than direct democracy in the first place). The fact that opportunities to have input were advertised along the way doesn’t change that.
The takeaway is that a program that might increase citizen costs or responsibilities needs an extra layer of early outreach to make contact with as many people who might be affected as possible. That will be expensive, but odds of succeeding without it are slim.
More serious than the communications shortfall is the credibility of the risk map that came out. I imagine some high-level debate is underway right now about how scientifically accurate it is. I have no way to answer that. What I know, after seeing the particulars on a lot of properties, is that in too many instances there’s a troubling gap between what your eyes and common sense tell you on the ground and what the map says.
There’s a lot of scrambling right now to understand the reason; I’ll share what’s uncovered about that in coming weeks. I’m sure that a lay person’s common sense isn’t a fully accurate way to measure wildfire risk. But what’s clear to me is that we can’t move forward with a new regulatory program based on a map that’s hard to believe. That’s the recipe for a train wreck Oregon can’t afford.
After the turbulent Zoom meeting, I was one of a few legislators asking ODF to withdraw the map. The State Forester did that, here, and this part of the SB 762 program is now on hold.
The process going forward isn’t yet clear. My top priority over the next month is to understand and follow it, and to visit more high and extreme risk properties in our district at their owners’ invitation. What’s certain is that we need either a map that better matches on-the-ground circumstances, or a different tool to determine where to focus our resources to reduce the home ignition zone hazard. More on this in coming weeks.
 The other big concern is the possibility that homeowners insurance will become more expensive, or hard to get at all, as we continue this work. Two things to say about that, one more reassuring than the other.
First is the abundance of evidence that the SB 762 risk map has had nothing to do with increasing insurance premiums and policy cancellations. The last decade of catastrophic fires, and the billions of dollars in claims they’ve cost insurers, drove them long ago to begin their own mapping and actuarial analysis. The Oregonian laid the details out here.
Uncertainty around this issue is likely to last a while. If you have solid reason to think that your insurer is increasing premiums or cancelling a policy specifically because of SB 762, please let me know at sen.jeffgolden@oregonlegislature.gov, because there are remedies. We’re also looking into possible legislation that would prevent any increases based on 762 maps.
But there’s a broader fact we have to recognize: homeowner insurance premiums are going up, possibly steeply and possibly no matter where you live. To pretend that we can prevent that is to treat citizens like children instead of grownups. Other parts of the country subject to catastrophic flooding and violent weather events are ahead of us in this trend, lifting insurance availability into the ranks of major national problems. It’s one of the costs that climate activists predicted years ago, one of the reasons they said we can’t afford NOT to move away from fossil fuel energy. It still is.
Let me move from details to the core question. Why are we taking on this big, difficult project in the first place? Why are we investing so much money and effort, and imposing new requirements on how some people maintain their own property?
The steady northward march of community-destroying fire, from southern California through the Bay Area and northern California towns like Santa Rosa, Redding, Weed, and Paradise and then on to our own Southern Oregon towns, answers those questions better than anything I can say. We don’t have to imagine the danger straight ahead of us. We’ve seen it. We’ve lost thousands of homes, seen or experienced the suffering that’s caused, and watched hundreds of valued families leave our valley forever, with many others struggling mightily to regain their footing. For a powerful minute with a local couple that deeply understands what’s at stake, click here.
 The steady climate trend towards hotter summers, drier woodlands, and more intense winds almost guarantees very rough fire seasons ahead. When I think of what that calls on us to do, I try to imagine our frame of mind three or five or ten years from now, after more Oregon towns burn to the ground, if we DON’T aggressively prepare along the lines of SB 762. I doubt that we’ll be congratulating ourselves over how we managed to steer clear of any measure that might impose any cost or additional responsibilities on Oregonians.
We can’t back down. I will do whatever I can do to make SB 762 work better—which, we’ve known from the start, would be a course-correcting process over the years, because the urgency of wildfires called for the earliest possible launch. One part of that will be to provide as much state aid as possible to shield citizens from unbearable costs.
There’s no sugar-coating the challenge of the next few years for Southern Oregon and the northwest generally. State government has tools to meet it, but they won’t work well unless communities like ours come together with more awareness and willingness to prepare cooperatively than ever before. I’m glad to live in the Rogue Valley right now, because we’re a community that can do this.
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