Q&A
Parks Department budget impact on forest fire prevention
0:45:09
ยท
137 sec
Council Member Krishnan inquires about the Parks Department's budgetary needs for addressing forest fires, particularly in light of recent budget cuts to the forestry division and natural areas. Assistant Commissioner Marit Larsen responds, explaining the department's approach to resource allocation and the impact of budget fluctuations.
- Recent budget cuts affected the forestry division and natural areas
- Parks Department adjusts work based on available resources each year
- No direct link established between resource shortage and recent fire occurrences
- Department focuses on reducing fuel load and improving ecosystem health within budget constraints
Shekar Krishnan
0:45:09
And just to jump in with the question too, thanks, Chariola, is, similarly for the parks department, what do you all need, from a budgetary standpoint to help you?
0:45:18
And one thing I wanna call particular attention to is that city hall, in our last budget, cut the funding to the forestry, division and natural areas in particular.
0:45:28
And I'd like to know what impact that reduced funding had, on on the ability of the parks department in the natural areas unit in particular to address this, situation of forest fires?
0:45:41
And then what do you all need budgetarily going forward to help you with the from a resource standpoint to address these fires?
Marit Larsen
0:45:49
Thank you for the question.
0:45:51
We are used to, at the parks department and and in the natural resources, group as well, adjusting our work to the finite resources of a given year.
0:46:03
We are we're used to to fluctuations.
0:46:05
So we, look at our long term planning and our our forest management framework and our other natural resource planning frameworks and strategies to really allocate, our staff to the the projects that we have given the the resources we have.
0:46:22
We always appreciate, more resources, to cover our 14,000 acres of natural areas.
0:46:29
In this, particular case, last fall, for example, it's we don't really see that there was a a particular, resource shortage or change in staffing that would have made a difference in responding.
0:46:44
Again, we don't respond to fires, ourselves.
0:46:47
But in terms of having managed those areas or been able to, prevent, those particular occurrences, it's always very hard to predict what is the instigation of a of a fire.
0:47:01
And, we end up focusing on again those areas where we know that we can reduce fuel load and focus on those, project projects and and management areas where, we can anticipate both having a benefit potentially of reducing fire risk but also have having that co benefit of, contributing to our overall ecosystem health.