Pine/Strawberry Fuel Reduction Executive Session Meeting
Wednesday February 3, 2021 via Zoom
9:00 – 10:30 am
Attendees: Mike Brandt, Janet Brandt, Brenda Darling, Joan Backman, Scott Khel, Elsa Steffanson.
Absent: Cindy Jordan
Joan asked if we could meet the new PSFR Chief John Wisner to hear his vision and have him hear our vision.
Mike spoke briefly of a meeting later today at noon with the Forest Service, National Forest Foundation, and Chief Wisner at the Control Road to talk about all the future clearing projects.
New Board Member: Scott Khel
Vote: Joan made a motion to accept Scott Khel as a new PSFR Board member as a Director. Janet seconded, all in favor. Motion passed.
Janet Brandt will be leaving the PSFR Board. Therefor we still need an additional Board member
Elsa agreed to take on the Secretary roll so that Brenda can become a general member.
Vote: Joan made a motion to promote Elsa to PSFR Secretary. Scott seconded, all in favor, motion passed.
Brush Pit:
When mike received a call to open up the Brush Pit so it could be burned he was told that when Don was contacted he informed them that he had quit. Mike called Don and inquired and Don said they kind of misunderstood him but then said maybe he wasn’t going do it. However as the conversation went on he seemed to back out of quitting.
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Given the recent snowfall we will not be able to open the Brush Pit in February. Instead we will try for the month of March, starting March 7th with the Board Members taking 4 hour shifts as previously agreed upon.
Regardless of who ends up manning the Brush pit every Sunday, we need regular Board member volunteer participation every Sunday and a more secure way to handle and account for all donations received.
We can hire a new contractor at a lower rate of $15/hr but we still need to write up a job description.
Scott suggested a lock box where donations can be dropped. Elsa brought up the envelope discussion we discussed previously. Mike reminded us that any structure would get shot up so it would need to be removed every Sunday afternoon.
Scott brought up the need for a job description and offered up working on a collection box. Mike said he had a pretty good idea on the tasks involved. Brenda volunteered to write up the actual job description if provided with a list of tasks required.
The Brush pit hours will remain 8am – 4pm as Brush Pit Flyers were just printed.
Cedar Bench Mastication Project:
Cedar Bench Mastication Project starts at the Pine Brush Pit, down the canyon to the landfill. This project is expected to start in March. The spotted owl pack is near the Brush Pit and PSFR will pay separately for the 30-50 acres to be cleared in March because the Forest Service cannot do the clearing between April and December due to the Spotted Owl mating season.
Poco Pino Project:
This is a fuels reduction and water shed restoration project in the community of Pine along Pine Creek Canyon North and East of Camp Lo Mia. PSFR needs to think about how we can get the community involved and raise money to help fund this project. In addition to the FS and National Forest Foundation, we are looking to
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get the PSFD, water districts, and County to partner with us on this very important community project. This is also a 4FRI project.
If the water districts would give customers the option to add a few dollars to their bill to help fund this it would go a long way to raising enough funds for the project.
Website:
Alan is no longer with us. He said he made a video on how to update our website and placed it on the google drive. After we watch the video we can ask him questions. Elsa still has all the resumes from our previous webmaster search, her top candidate was Bobbie McKee. Elsa reminded us that we may end up paying for a whole new platform if it needs to be re-built in order for her, or whatever webmaster we hire to maintain our website.
Trail Maintenance:
The Highline trail is 55 miles from Pine all the way over to the 260 above Chirstopher Creek. This is a historic trail with a lot of value to our community. We have several partners working on this trail with us, the Arizona Trail Association, Volunteers of Arizona, and USFS.
Now the Catena Foundation (part of Mountain Bike Youth Program) is very interested in what we are doing and is very likely to partner with us. Mike has an initial meeting this week with them and wants to include the rest of the Board in all future meetings. The first part of our partnership, phase I will include the Highline from Pine to Washington Park, the Good Enough trail, and the Pine-Strawberry Trail #15. There have already been enough NEPAs done to allow us a categorical exclusion for those three trails and possible for the new Purple Haze (across Strawberry Mountain) and Snow White trails as well.
The goal at this time is to secure funding from Cantena for the Highline to Washington Park. The rest of the Highline will be in Phase II. Then the plan is to bring up the Good Enough and Trail #15. The God Enough will actually have a small parking lot added. Parts of Trail #15 will be re-routed up a little higher.
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The Pine Strawberry Fire District is looking at potentially hiring a grant writer. This will help us get more funding for fuel breaks. The issue of getting our community hazard mapped was brought up with the PSFD again as this is a necessary component to any grant proposal.
Pine Trail Run:
Vote: Scott made a motion that we approve the May 7, 2022 Trail Run to include
• 5 K – 75 person limit
• 10 k – 150 person limit,
• 50 K – 75 person limit
Janet seconded, all in favor, motion passed.
FOTR Bike Race:
We need to make a decision one way or another soon. We may need to at least do a virtual bike race or we risk losing our date to other races. We also need to trim down our events so that they are more manageable. It was suggested that we tell the race organizers that we are planning to hold the bike race in September unless the virus situation worsens and if so we may need to cancel.
Submitted by
Brenda Darling
PSFR Director
