How to resolve AdBlock issue? MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – Lake County's representative in the California Senate spoke to the Middletown Area Town Hall on Thursday night, offering updates on the state role in the Valley fire recovery and other important issues to the community.
Sen. Mike McGuire spoke to the group for close to an hour during its gathering at the Middletown Senior Center.
MATH Board member Mike Tabacchi introduced McGuire, who took office in December, noting it was the first time in the group's nine-year history that a state senator had addressed it. (Tabacchi's introduction begins just after the 35 minute mark in the video above.)
A topic that would arise throughout the evening – both in public comment and in McGuire's talk – was the Valley fire and its aftermath. “It's changed the landscape here,” said Tabacchi. “For many of us in this room, it has changed our lives forever.”
McGuire began his talk with a discussion of the response to the fire and the recovery, explaining that the state is committed now and in the years to come to helping the community rebuild.
“There are times where the state has not been nearly as active or engaged as they should have been here in Lake County,” he said. “And I also promise you that those days are over.”
He said a top priority has been making sure Lake County has the resources it needs to thrive.
“It has been an extremely challenging year to say the least,” McGuire said.
McGuire said 52 percent of all of California's fire activity this year was in Lake County.
“I have never seen anything like the Valley fire,” he said, recounting arriving in Lake after midnight on Sept. 13, meeting with Sheriff Brian Martin and traveling down to the fire area. Recounting it, he said, is an emotional experience.
McGuire said that a crisis like that of the fire can bring out the best in people. He said Lake County has the hardest working people in California, and he's proud to talk about that to his colleagues in the Legislature as well as people across the state.
“I know we've got a lot in front of us,” he said.
Discussing the state response, he said within hours of the fire beginning the California Office of Emergency Services activated and had staff embedded in the county. Within 72 hours, the state had advanced $5 million to help the county.
“We won't quit until we are looking at full recovery,” McGuire said.
McGuire said there also is the need to go out and raise private dollars. He reported on an effort that he is part of that includes Redwood Credit Union that has so far raised $2.3 million for the Valley Fire Fund. Just under $1 million has been distributed, with another $800,000 to be advanced over the next 45 days.
The fund has so far focused on helping students impacted by the fire, the firefighters who themselves lost homes, and has offered assistance through North Coast Opportunities and the Lake County Farm Bureau. McGuire said they will be doing a significant push around the holidays to help everyone who lost their home.
McGuire said long-term solutions for the south county's financial and economic stability need to be considered, and a Nov. 23 call with state and county officials is planned to discuss that subject.
There also is a need to focus on the potential mud flow and erosion in the months ahead, McGuire said, explaining that the Valley fire burned so hot that it has sealed the ground.
That means that a 10-year rain event could produce nearly as much runoff as a 100-year event, he explained, raising concerns about flooding.
In order to prepare, McGuire said Cal Fire's helitack base on Boggs Mountain is remaining staffed full-time through the winter months. Cal Fire also will have additional crews and engines staffing its facilities through the winter in case of emergency.
McGuire said $2.4 million in payments that the South Lake County Fire Protection District would normally pay under its contract with the state have been frozen for a 12-month period.
As for the cleanup, progress is being made, said McGuire, with 218 properties having been cleared by 42 debris removal teams. Another 12 to 13 teams are expected to be activated in upcoming weeks, with McGuire adding that there is an emphasis on hiring local.
He said the Federal Emergency Management Agency has disbursed just under $6 million in housing assistance to fire survivors, with about $2 million disbursed for other property needs. He said Nov. 23 is the deadline to register for FEMA assistance.
Updates on state economy and drought
From the topic of the fire, McGuire moved into updates on a variety of other issues.
He said the state has a fiscal reserve for the first since 2006, and despite its regulations and environmental laws, California was named by Bloomberg as the best state in the country to do business.
“We need to continue to invest, especially in rural California,” he said.
One of the best investments is in public schools, said McGuire, pointing out that California has slipped to dead last among all states for K-12 per-student spending. Efforts this year to invest more money in students is expected to raise California to No. 35.
California also has more children in poverty than any other state in the nation, and some of the poverty-busting programs were cut during the recession, McGuire said.
McGuire discussed a $400 million infusion into career and technical training in high schools, which came about as a result of one of his bills this year. That training is key, since he said the data shows that 72 percent of high school graduates won't go on to college.
McGuire also succeeded in getting $5 million restored for replacing older school buses in rural school districts.
In other education news, he said there are 7,000 new preschool slots, 6,500 new spaces in after school programs and 32,000 new community college openings thanks to increased education investment.
He said next year California also is poised to make its last $3.5 billion payment on $35 billion in bonds it took out during the recession.
Regarding the drought, McGuire said the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has reported that California is the driest it has been in 500 years. “We've seen that, quite frankly, in fire activity.”
During the peak of the Valley fire, 34 acres per minute burned, which McGuire called “unprecedented.”
He said the state has moved $2.2 billion out of its Proposition 1 bond funds for ground recharge and other measures to deal with the drought.
As for expectations of an El Niño-driven winter, McGuire said 11 to 12 trillion gallons of rain is necessary to get the state to where it was before the drought began.
McGuire then moved talked about his district's products, noting that, compared with anywhere else in California, it has more wineries, craft breweries and oyster production, and that it produces 60 percent of the nation's marijuana.
Earlier this year, an effort led by McGuire succeeded in establishing new statewide medical marijuana regulations. He said he plans next year to bring forward a 15-percent state excise tax on medical marijuana sales to fund law enforcement and efforts to address environmental damage resulting from illegal marijuana grows.
He reported on California's recently passed law establishing equal pay for women, the strictest law of its kind in the nation. It goes into effect in January.
McGuire said white women make 78 cents for every dollar a man makes, compared to 54 cents for every dollar for Latinas and 64 cents per dollar for black women. He said two-thirds of minimum wage earners in California are women.
“What we know is when we pay women well, families thrive and our communities are stronger,” he said.
He also said he will be hosting a meeting on Dec. 16 in Sacramento with the state officials to find ways to help Lake County get first shot at the new career and technical education training.
Other topics McGuire touched on included the need to increase the reliability of the region's 911 system, which was taken offline by a fiber cut in the Hopland area earlier this year; plans to work with the governor next year to find funding to promote Clear Lake's health; the backlog on the state's public and road infrastructure; the need to increase the tobacco tax; and his goal of having community college education made free in California.
In other news at the Thursday meeting, MATH Chair Fletcher Thornton announced that Margaret Greenley has been named to the MATH Board. She will succeed Charlotte Kubiak, who left the county as a result of the Valley fire.
Email Elizabeth Larson at elarson@lakeconews.com . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
