MEMORANDUM

TO: Timothy Navarre, Assembly President

Members of the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly

THRU: Dale Bagley, Borough Mayor

FROM: Bonnie Golden, Grants Manager bg

Bob Bright, Planning Director

Jeffrey Sinz, Finance Director

DATE: June 6, 2002

SUBJECT: An Ordinance Accepting and Appropriating a Grant from the U.S. Forest Service in the Amount of $1,000,000 for Wildland Fire Mitigation

As part of our continuing effort to reduce fire hazards due to the Spruce Bark Beetle infestation, the Borough requested additional funding from the U.S. Forest Service. Our request can be found in the Borough's 2002 Federal Participation Projects, listed as "Spruce Bark Beetle Infestation - Phase III". Our stated objective is the "construction of emergency response facilities and updating emergency response equipment".

Notice has been received from U.S.F.S. that Congress passed legislation (P.L. 107-63) "which provides funding in the amount of $1,000,000 to the Kenai Peninsula Borough. Funding is provided for fire mitigation and hazardous tree removal, to be made available as a direct lump sum payment to the Kenai Peninsula Borough." The $1,000,000 has been received and deposited into the Borough's account. The funds must now be accepted and appropriated by the assembly before any expenditures can be made. In addition, we seek approval of a plan for allocation of these funds to local fire departments. The borough intends to enter mutual aid agreements with any of these fire departments not currently subject to a mutual aid agreement, which will improve the borough's capacity to fight fires and further support the borough's authority to provide these funds.

Although not directly indicated in the legislation approving the funds, it is stated by the U.S. House-Senate Conference Committee that a portion of the funding is to be provided for Funny River fire mitigation. Our proposed allocation plans include $375,000 for Funny River Emergency Services for construction of a fire station. The remaining $625,000 had no direct purpose associated with the appropriation other than for fire mitigation and hazardous tree removal. Our plan is to use the $625,000 for wildland fire equipment and storage facilities, pursuant to our request in the legislative priorities. Shown below are two options for distribution of $625,000 to local fire departments.

Option 1 - Direct Allocation to Specific Fire Departments. This option sets out the amount of funds that would be available for use by local fire departments. Because the southern peninsula has been identified as an extremely high-risk area, and because of the high population and number of structures, this area would receive a large portion of the funding. However, since this is a borough-wide problem, each area of the Borough would receive some funding.

Funny River (fire station) $ 375,000

KES (fire station) 300,000

Anchor Point (fire station) 100,000

Port Graham 25,000

Nanwalek 25,000

Ninilchik 25,000

CES 25,000

Nikiski Fire Service Area 25,000

Hope 25,000

Moose Pass 25,000

Cooper Landing 25,000

Bear Creek Fire Service Area 25,000

TOTAL $ 1,000,000

Option 2 - Wildland Fire Allocation Committee. Under this option, after distribution of the $375,000 to Funny River Emergency Services, a committee would be formed to allocate the remaining funds to fire departments. The committee would be made up of recognized wildland fire experts who would make recommendations to the Assembly for the distribution of $625,000. The directive given to this committee would be to develop criteria for evaluating proposals submitted by local fire agencies likely to be first responders in a wildland fire (i.e., non-urban).

The committee would first develop technical criteria, related to the suppression of wildland fires, which local fire agency applicants would have to satisfy (i.e., risk and present capabilities). These criteria would ensure that agency proposals would only be related to wildland fire suppression, thereby meeting the intent of the Congressional funding received by the Borough.

Secondly, the committee would solicit funding proposals from wildland fire first-responder fire protection agencies within the borough. The committee would evaluate these proposals based on the pre-established criteria, and make a prioritized recommendation to the Assembly for funding. The Assembly would then review these recommendations, making any necessary changes, and fund $625,000 of the prioritized list. The prioritized list could be used to seek additional funding from other sources, if necessary.

Regardless of the allocation plan that is adopted, funds should be made available to the firefighting agencies as soon as possible. Therefore, a shortened hearing date has been requested.

Attachments:

Ordinance

Notification letter from U.S.F.S.

U.S. House-Senate Conference Committee Media Release

Funding Request Chart



cc: Ed Oberts, Assistant to the Mayor