COBB AREA COUNCIL
PUBLIC MEETING
Thursday July 18, 2019,
6:30-8:30pm NOTE NEW START TIME
Little Red Schoolhouse/Cobb Mountain Lions Club
15780 Bottle Rock Rd., Cobb, CA 95426
Draft Meeting minutes:
CALL TO ORDER (shut down cell phones; sign in please)
Roll Call: Cindy Leonard, Cathy McCarthy, Jessica Pyska, Eliot Hurwitz, Absent: Frank Lincoln. (Gary Prather has resigned as treasurer)
• Annual Election of CAC Board members (2 seats) and officers (postponed from last month)
-Opening for council position: Jake Strickler is nominated by Jessica Pyska and Cathy McCarthy. All in favor of electing Jake: unanimous.
-Eliot’s position is up for election. He is excited to continue on as Chair. All in favor of re-election of Eliot as Chair: unanimous.
-Opening for treasurer: Eliot proposes that Frank Lincoln take over treasurer from Gary and that all other positions remain the same.
33 people in attendance
Approval of Minutes from May 16, May 24, and June 27 2019. Motioned: Robert Stark , Seconded: Jim. all in favor and none opposed.
SHORT ANNOUNCEMENTS
-KPFZ mentioned that the county is exempt from Hazardous Vegetation Ordinance, as is the state and federal, is this correct? Yes, that is true. Magdalena suggests that we contact the other municipal advisory councils to get a letter from all the councils to let the county know that
Lisa Kaplan announced that the Eco Arts show has returned to the Trailside Park in Middletown. Please come check it out!
Middletown Arts Center is having their Fire Anniversary Show on Friday September 13. Look on their website for information on submitting art for this show. All That is Now is the theme.
Next Friday is a talk about a 13 panel piece that Alana has done. Please come join them for that show.
Justin Coundjeris came to announce that the path from the Estates neighborhood to Hardester’s is now being closed because the lot is now going to have a house built on it. Jessica says that one of our long-term goals is to have walking paths around town. Maybe an easement could be made like they do for beach access? Robert Stark says that it is a prescribed easement and unless the public takes action to state that it is a known and obvious easement then you will lose out on keeping that path. You would need to contact the county to order a “stay” to prevent construction until the issue is resolved. Jake says that in that situation, somebody has to take responsibility for the easement. The county would be an obvious choice, but Justin says he has been maintaining it thus far. Perhaps Hardester’s needs to be involved. Ben Murphy says that the fire department is wanting enough room for a firetruck to drive through
Jon Meyer announces that Bingo Bob is coming back a week from tomorrow. Also another Lobster dinner will be coming up.
Joe from Pine Grove is going to have a star gazing night with Angelo who lives in Anderson Springs. It is a 16” lens and can be programmed to locate specific points in the sky. Look out for posters about this event.
TREASURER’S REPORT Eliot says there will be a treasurers report next month as we transition to Quick books. Thank you to Jon Meyer for helping with that transition.
t-shirt report: Pre-sold $2400 plus $2200 for the ones Hardester’s bought.
PUBLIC and BOARD COMMENT ON NON-AGENDA ITEMS (3 mins./individual):
Fire Season Update:
new CAC “Puller Bear” loan program (big tool to pull out big weeds like Broom)
Cindy is looking for approval of a document that community members sign to check out our weed wrench tool. All were in favor of document.
Firewise Community organizing update. lots of good news about insurance discounts for people living in Firewise neighborhoods.
Mel has an update on the communication committee. He gave a demonstration of the radios in different locations to explain how the new repeaters work. There are now about 40-50 radio users (the less expensive $12 toy radios), plus 4 ham radio operators. CAVERN is the name of the network. Mel will program them for you if you would like to join in and get one. Each of the Firewise areas has a different zone, but in general they just use one for the testing on every Saturday at 1:00.
Supervisor’s Comments
Community Reports
Introducing Guests from Paradise, CA – sharing recovery/regeneration stories. The guests from Paradise attended an event at the New Paradigm College in Lucerne. Then they also toured around our area to help bridge our communities and share experiences.
-Susan says that one of the things that they are reflecting on is that the work that we have done after the Valley Fire has made things they are doing easier. For example our trouble with insurance has made it easier for them.
-David says he is feeling that we are the big brothers and sisters in disaster, even though they know there are some big differences in the two fires . They know there is a lot they can learn from our experience.
-Susan says she was contacted by a southern California filmmaker to take the story of Paradise to Washington, DC. The first filming he did was when they initially visited the rubble of their home.
Please look up “Refugee John Michael Son” on YouTube to see a video of a film that was written by a fire survivor.
Tom comments that he is so pleased with the progress
Blackberry COBBler Festival Plans – Jessica Pyska
We successfully obtained a grant from Calpine donation fund. ($4,000 for the Economic Development Committee which includes $2,700 for the Cobbler festival, and $2,000 for the Disaster Preparedness Committee)
Jessica reports that the Economic Development Committee has lots of plans and has produced t-shirts to show our Cobb pride. The goal is to add some more fun events, and get back some of the events that we used to have on Cobb. We now have lots of music committed and local vendors. It will be noon to 5:00.
Cathy announces Tuesday August 6th 5-9ish Cobb Village night in the Hardester’s parking lot. Renee Chastain is going to be selling food, pizza place will be open, Wendy Collins is reaching out to Mandala Springs to have massage chairs, informational tables, hopefully music. This is just the first Village Night of many that we will be having.
Update from Cobb Area Water Company – Ben Murphy (including Rainbow Bridge project)
-On July 25th there will be the final committee CDBG vote for the final funding. The money is there and they have never seen one turned down in 12 years, so we have very high hopes that the vote will be yes. There are over 5 million dollars in funds. 1.8 has already been received as well as 2.4 million planning grant.
Carol Hutchinson already has been given approval to do the go-ahead. We hope that the bridge builder can begin with the pilings in the fall for the pipeline crossing on Rainbow. This will be a brand new single lane 80 ton bridge with speed bumps.
Summit project is 40 days out to go to the county, then it will go out to bid.
For two weeks in August Ben and his crew will be going up to Paradise to work to help that community.
Ben announces that the Geothermal Committee still needs a Cobb resident on the committee. You can get the form at the Cobb Water office or Calpine Visitors Center.
motion to adjourn at 8:07 by Robert, seconded by Jessica.