To: Sonoma County Board of Supervisors
Department or Agency Name(s): County Administrator’s Office
Staff Name and Phone Number: Christel Querijero, 565-7071
Vote Requirement: Informational Only
Supervisorial District(s): All
Title:
Title
2020 Recovery and Resiliency Framework Implementation Report Annual Report
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Recommended Actions:
Recommended action
Receive the 2020 Recovery and Resiliency Framework Implementation Annual Report
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Executive Summary:
On December 11, 2018, your Board approved the Recovery & Resiliency Framework, including a comprehensive list of potential activities and actions that, if implemented, would help the County and community recover and become more resilient to future disasters. On January 14, 2020, the Recovery and Resiliency Framework Year 1 Annual Report was presented to your Board and attached to this Summary Report is the Year 2 (2020) Annual Report.
The Recovery & Resiliency Framework (Framework) is a vision for how the County will recover from the October 2017 wildfires, a vision for a resilient future, and an approach to achieve it. It is a foundation for recovery efforts County-wide, and is informed by residents, community partners, County departments, cities and other jurisdictions in the County.
The Framework draws from the structure, functions, roles, and principles in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Disaster Recovery Framework and serves as a forum for the ways the County and community build and sustain recovery capabilities. A focus of the Framework is planning and preparedness before a disaster occurs. Planning includes coordination with partners, risk mitigation, continuity planning, identifying resources and developing capacity to manage the recovery process.
Information about previous disasters can be found at: <socoemergency.org/recover/>
Discussion:
Recovery & Resiliency Framework Implementation
Your Board approved the Recovery & Resiliency Framework (Framework) on December 11, 2018 which included a comprehensive list of potential activities and actions that, if implemented, would help the County and community recover and become more resilient to future disasters. On January 14, 2020, the Recovery and Resiliency Framework Year 1 Annual Report was presented to your Board and attached to this Summary Report is the Year 2 (2020) Annual Report.
The Framework Implementation Annual Report (Report) includes recovery activities for the five strategic area of recovery: Community Preparedness and Infrastructure, Housing, Economy, Safety Net, and Natural Resources, as well as a description and update of ongoing grant activity and Framework project funding.
Highlights from the 2020 Framework Annual Report
Community Preparedness and Infrastructure
2020 was a year marked by disasters both worldwide and countywide. The County has demonstrated enhanced communication, improved coordination, effective and responsive recovery practices, and has used the lessons learned to become even more ready and able going forward.
In 2020, the Department of Emergency Management (DEM) worked with the Sheriff’s Office and Information Systems Department (ISD) to develop a comprehensive Countywide evacuation map to greatly facilitate evacuation and hazard threat communication to the public. Additionally, DEM developed a public information and warning systems training program for County officials and Emergency Operations Center personnel, including appropriate authorizations to issue evacuation orders. This was implemented in 2020 during the two wildfire emergencies.
The County, through the new preparedness staff at DEM, developed a public outreach campaign to inform the public on warning expectations and what alert systems are available. They have created a series of videos in English and Spanish detailing how each system works and challenges for them found at <https://socoemergency.org/get-ready/sign-up/>. DEM continues to highlight systems at public town halls, community meetings, and other forums.
In 2020, DEM rolled out the Sonoma Ready Library Series which was planned countywide at all 18 libraries. Due to COVID, only Petaluma, Windsor, and Cloverdale communities received their three workshops each. The remainder will happen post-COVID in 2021. Additionally, The County is working in collaboration with Community Organizations Active in Disaster (COAD) and other volunteer, non-profit and private organizations.
DEM is coordinating with Sonoma Water and other groups to support the installation of fire cameras, weather stations, and seismic monitoring equipment in strategic County locations in support of a common operating picture. These cameras were instrumental in the early detection of the LNU Lightning Complex fires (Walbridge and Meyers) in 2020. Although the initial target was the Lake Sonoma Watershed, Sonoma Water has been working with the County and other partners to secure additional fire cameras that are being installed throughout Sonoma and neighboring Counties.
Housing
In December 2018, the County and the City of Santa Rosa formed a joint powers authority (JPA) known as the Renewal Enterprise District (RED). The RED regionalizes housing production, pools and leverages financing and funding, shares risks and benefits of development, provides confidence in constructible projects that meet RED goals, and puts equity, affordability and climate solutions in the center of local economic strategy. The RED is actively building capacity and producing results. Work plans and products include:
• With RED technical and financial assistance, grant applications for state funding were awarded totaling $37,656,673 in 2020 to support the development of 345 units of mixed income, transit-oriented housing in four separate developments located in Roseland and downtown Santa Rosa, 37% deed restricted as affordable. Total cost for these projects is $183,408,406, representing a significant infusion of economic activity within the RED’s jurisdiction. The RED is currently working to assemble a package of projects to submit in the next funding cycle, with potential to fund up to 700 units, 49% affordable.
• Alongside local affordable housing stakeholders, the RED contributed to a multi-jurisdictional and community-wide effort to secure an allocation of federal disaster Low Income Housing Tax Credits to match the proportion of Sonoma County’s losses against the total. The effort has so far resulted in an increased allocation of tax credits, adding approximately $100 million in affordable housing investment in Sonoma County over the ten-year lifespan of the credits. This effort continues, with the goal of capturing another $50 million over ten years for low-income housing production.
• Significant progress continues toward creation of a new RED Housing Fund (revolving loan fund) to fill existing funding gaps and leverage additional resources to jumpstart stalled infill housing projects. The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors has pledged a $10 million loan as seed capital for the Fund, contingent on the City of Santa Rosa matching the investment. Additional capital is being sought from private, corporate and philanthropic sources, with a minimum of $20 million required to launch the Fund. On an aggressive timeline, the fund could be operational by July 2021.
Permit Sonoma is also updating Specific Plans to support meeting regional housing needs. There are two specific plans currently underway in the Airport SMART station area and the Sonoma Springs area that are anticipated to increase allowable residential uses and densities near employment and transit.
It is the County’s objective to facilitate construction hardening techniques appropriate for wildfire/urban interfaces for rebuilding and existing homes through education and grant programs. The FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) grant for Wildfire Adapted Sonoma County Phase 1 for $1,692,510 was awarded March 2020. This project will educate wildlife urban interface (WUI) residents in unincorporated Sonoma County about the importance of defensible space and the principles of structural hardening, through targeted events and outreach
Another important effort to facilitate climate positive construction techniques for building/rebuilding homes is through consultation and project planning assistance from the Energy and Sustainability Division (ESD) of General Services. The Sonoma County Energy Independence Program (SCEIP) expanded financing for improvements that can make a home more fire hardened (e.g. roofing, gutters, siding, windows, vents, hardscaping and decks). Throughout 2020, the program worked and received authorization from all 10 jurisdictions to provide these expansion improvements throughout the entire county.
For the 2017 Complex Fires, as of December 28, 2020, after three years, the combined County of Sonoma and City of Santa Rosa permit departments have had 4,097 homes, or 80% of the homes lost in the fires, start the permitting process. The remaining 1,046, or 20% of the homes lost in the fires, have not yet started the permitting process in order to rebuild.
Economy
The Economic Development Board (EDB), in partnership with the County Administrators Office, developed a countywide Economic Recovery Action Plan during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 LNU Lightning Complex Fires, and 2020 Glass Fire emergencies, including coordination with businesses, Community Based Organizations, municipal jurisdictions, and County departments/agencies. Your Board approved the 2020 Sonoma County Economic Recovery Action Plan <https://sonoma-county.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=8922881&GUID=BA888D90-FE19-4467-B55A-A8D09157726E> in December 2020.
The County, through multiple partner organizations, is establishing a formal construction skills training center to support North Bay Construction Corps programming. The County is partnering with the Santa Rosa Junior College (SRJC), Tipping Point Community Foundation, and the US Economic Development Administration (EDA) to access grant and matching funds to build such a training facility to make a home for all of the Career and Technical Education (CTE) construction training programs across the county. The EDA application approval was announced in January 2020. Next steps are EDB and SRJC staff working to fund match requirements.
The Economic Development Board is seeking to expand scholarship offerings from non-profit organizations and other philanthropic individuals and organizations for low-income and middle-class students. CTE has launched a pilot cohort for its Sonoma Corps program, which provides a "gap year" internship experience for local high school graduates. After successful completion, participants will be awarded scholarships for post-secondary education, preferably in a related education pathway at Sonoma State University (SSU) or SRJC.
The Economic Development Board is assisting public and private organizations in Sonoma County in accessing economic recovery loans and working with state and federal agencies, local banks, credit unions, and alternative lenders to support business lending and grants to qualified businesses and provide information in English and Spanish. EDB is working closely with state sponsored loan programs through the I-Bank, with our local banks and credit unions, and with micro lending partners to connect businesses with loan funding for both English and Spanish or bilingual clients seeking assistance.
Safety Net Services
Human Services Department (HSD) is enhancing the County’s capacity to manage disaster shelters with increased training opportunities and collaboration with community volunteer partners and jurisdictions. HSD developed and implemented new procedures for sheltering during a pandemic, including the development of Temporary Evacuation Points and managing non-congregate shelters. After-action learnings were incorporated into the Sonoma County Shelter Operations Field Guide, which was distributed to shelter partners throughout the County and became the basis for an October 2020 training series for HSD staff. The trainings were delivered by HSD subject-matter experts. Over 330 HSD staff have already completed the trainings. HSD will provide a more in-depth training series for shelter workers in Spring of 2021, which will also be available to shelter partner agency staff.
The Human Services Department has developed a plan to ensure available resources and services at disaster shelters are accessible to non-English speaking and/or undocumented residents. HSD shelter leadership and the Department's Civil Rights Coordinator met several times with the North Bay Organizing Project's Immigrant Defense Task Force to discuss ways to ensure bilingual staff are available at shelters.
In response to COVID-19, the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) Food Task Force from Department of Emergency Management and the Office of Recovery and Resiliency coordinated an emergency food insecurity program that has served over 4 million meals and allocated $3.5 million in FEMA PA and CARES Act funds countywide in 2020. The program, the first of its kind in the State, developed a countywide program that covered all demographic groups and geographic locations within the county. Specific attention was given to seniors, the Latinx community, the Access and Functional Needs community, those who were unemployed, and those who did not have access to traditional food providers or government services. The Food Task Force worked with the Community Organizations Active in Disasters (COAD), the Latinx COVID Task Force, the Sonoma County Area Agency on Aging, and the Food Systems Alliance/UCCE to ensure that unmet needs were addressed throughout the year. The program is continuing into 2021.
Family, Youth and Children's Division (FYC) administers the Bringing Families Home program that secures permanent housing for between 50 and 70 families annually with a retention rate of approximately 70% at 6 months. FYC increased its THP beds by 3 and increased its HUD housing vouchers from 50 to 117 in 2020.
The HomeSafe program targets Adult Protective Services (APS) clients who are at risk of homelessness and seeks to help stabilize client housing whenever possible. This is a grant funded program. The HomeSafe program’s goal is to serve 300 clients by the end of June 2021.
The County enhanced services and capacity of 2-1-1 Sonoma County through a partnership with United Way of the Wine Country. United Way took over as the 2-1-1 administrators in July 2019. 2-1-1 played an active role in providing information to the public during the LNU Lightning Complex and Glass fires of 2020 and in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Natural Resources
During 2020, Ag + Open Space conducted research evaluating multiple aspects of the fires, including carbon impacts, fuel loading, and relative damage to particular land cover types (e.g., agriculture, riparian zones). Next steps for Ag + Open Space staff include working with the Watershed Task Force and County's Vegetative Management Coordination Group to put these critical and foundational data sets to best use. Ag + Open Space’s draft Vital Lands Initiative strategic plan was developed using best available data and extensive community input with the draft plan anticipated to be considered by the Board in early to mid-2021.
In order for Regional Parks to assess, design and implement stabilization and re-vegetation needs on Hood Mountain Regional Park sites burned or damaged during firefighting to prevent flooding, erosion, and debris flows, Regional Parks submitted a funding request to CalOES/FEMA for soil stabilization and revegetation efforts at Hood Mountain (PJ0302). Regional Parks received grant funding from the Regional Parks Foundation to begin work on the re-vegetation project prior to CalOES/FEMA award. Regional Parks partnered with the SRJC to begin monitoring of the site prior to CalOES/FEMA award. The site was completely burned in the 2020 Glass fire, but the reburn will not impact funding and makes the project all the more valuable. Execution of the FEMA grant and onset of implementation are anticipated by early 2021.
Regional Parks continues vegetation management on properties that Parks owns and/or operates. Vegetation management includes grazing, mowing, weed whacking, and prescribed fire with more acres actively grazed, burned, and mowed than ever before. Parks is actively establishing shaded fuel breaks to strategically reduce ladder fuels near communities and partnering with neighbors and community groups to facilitate volunteer vegetation projects. Regional Parks has successfully implemented two prescribed burns in partnership with CalFire. These are organizational firsts with one burn per year in both 2019 and 2020. Implementation is seasonal and next steps are planning for an ongoing, ever increasing scope of vegetation management.
Permit Sonoma and Office of Recovery and Resiliency staff have been tracking research and recommendations from other communities and organizations. This allows the County to better evaluate and consider expansion and adaptation of wildland urban interface (WUI) and community separator planning concepts to include possible 'green breaks' with multiple benefits for natural resources and communities. In 2020, the County started the Community Wildfire Preparedness Plan (CWPP) Update and, if funded, the Building Resilient Communities (BRIC) FEMA grant processes will provide suggestions for ‘green breaks’ and other mitigation strategies for WUI areas.
Your Board allocated $25 million from the PG&E settlement toward vegetation management on October 6, 2020. Next steps include a Board vegetation management discussion on March 23, 2021 when Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment will present recommendations from the policy discussion groups that they are convening in February 2021 to help inform the County’s vegetation management decisions.
The County has prioritized developing an expanded vegetation management County ordinance that improves resiliency of at-risk residents and properties, including those subject to Homeowners Associations' Covenants, Conditions & Restrictions. Sonoma County Fire Prevention Division is leading annual Inspection and abatement of Hazardous Vegetation and Combustible Material in conjunction with several Sonoma County Fire Districts to improve compliance to the requirements of Sonoma Ordinance. No. 6148. As part of the inspections, the outreach effort includes communicating that state and local hazardous fuels regulations take priority. The Ordinance Update was adopted June 9, 2020.
The County has expanded the chipper program to help homeowners with vegetation management countywide. Permit Sonoma Fire Prevention has internal staff in place and cooperative support in the Geyserville Fire District. Chipper services have been advertised, applications have been received and jobs are underway. As part of a CAL FIRE grant, an additional vehicle and chipper has been ordered. The chipper program was extended from 6 months to 11 months per year in 2020.
Grants
Given the pressure on local budgets, grants are and will remain a critical project implementation pathway for funding Recovery and Resiliency Framework projects.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) helps communities implement hazard mitigation activities following a Presidential Major Disaster Declaration. To date, $17.9 million has been awarded, or obligated, in HMGP grant funding. Awarded HMGP projects include:
TPW: Geyserville Drainage Feasibility Plan, $124,999 awarded January 2021; completion by January 2024
Regional Parks: Hood Mountain Soil Stabilization and Revegetation, $233,110 awarded December 2020; completion by September 2023
TPW: Forestville Road Yard Generator, $120,000 awarded November 2020; completion by November 2023
DEM: Radio Disaster Alert Devices for Vulnerable Populations, $33,000 awarded May 2020; completion by May 2023
Permit Sonoma: Advance Assistance - Wildfire Adapted Sonoma County Phase 1, $1,692,510 awarded March 2020; anticipated completion March 2021
DEM: Fire Early Warning Camera System, $2,042,039 awarded February 2020; anticipated completion February 2023
TPW: Green Valley Creek Restoration and Flood Resiliency Project - Phase 1 (DR-4308), $376,673 awarded January 2020; anticipated completion December 2021
CDC: Flood Elevation Program, $1,185,545 awarded May 2020; anticipated completion April 2023; additionally, $2,198,796 awarded January 2020; anticipated completion February 2022
TPW: County Airport Generator, $359,460 awarded November 2019; anticipated completion September 2022
ISD: County Data Center Generator - Phase 1, $26,584 awarded November 2019; anticipated completion August 2020
TPW: Generator Installation at Santa Rosa Road Maintenance Yard, $186,741 awarded August 2019; anticipated completion November 2020
Permit Sonoma: Operational Area Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan Update, $249,998 awarded August 2019; anticipated completion August 2022
Permit Sonoma: Community Wildfire Protection Plan Update, $150,000 awarded August 2019; anticipated completion August 2022
Sonoma Water: Advanced Radar Flood Warning System - Phase 1, $110,101 awarded January 2020; anticipated completion April 2021
Sonoma Water: Seismic Rehabilitation and Retrofit of Secondary Treatment Clarifiers, Sonoma Valley County Sanitation District - Phase 1, $195,959 awarded October 2019; anticipated completion April 2021
Sonoma Water: Water Transmission System Ely Booster Station Hazard Mitigation, $2,306,867 awarded June 2019; anticipated completion June 2022
Sonoma Water: Santa Rosa Creek Crossing Hazard Mitigation Project, $2,979,959 awarded November 2019; anticipated completion September 2021
Sonoma Water: Seismic Rehabilitation and Retrofit of Secondary Treatment Clarifiers, Russian River County Sanitation District, $2,238,402 awarded September 2018; anticipated completion September 2021
Sonoma Water: Penngrove Sanitation Zone Lift Station Flood Resiliency Project, $350,266 awarded August 2017; $305,920 additional funding preliminarily approved February 2020; anticipated completion February 2021.
Prior Board Actions:
1/14/20 - Board approved the Recovery and Resiliency Framework Year 1 Annual Report
12/11/18 - Board approved the Recovery and Resiliency Framework
Regular Recovery Updates provided to your Board since November 2017
Fiscal Summary
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Attachments:
Related Items “On File” with the Clerk of the Board: