LAKEPORT, Calif. – Ongoing problems with hazard trees in the Valley fire area has prompted the Board of Supervisors to approve a new process that would require such trees be cleared before new construction can begin.

Board Chair Rob Brown took the matter to the board on Tuesday morning.

Sitting in on the discussion were Community Development Director Bob Massarelli and Greg Giusti, a professional forester who also is the University of California Cooperative Extension's Lake and Mendocino County director and its forest and wildlands ecology advisor.

The issue of hazard and dangerous trees that were damaged in the Valley fire and subsequently are deteriorating due to beetles and disease has been ongoing, with county staff working to solve the problems for awhile, Brown said.

“We have plenty of people telling us what the problems are but there's very few solutions,” he said.

He said the county is seeking almost $10 million in Community Development Block Grant funding for a hazard tree removal project on Cobb, adding that he's not hopeful that they'll get the money.

Last week, however, he said county staff identified a small pot of money that's being used to abate abandoned pear orchards that could be used to help with the Valley fire trees.

Part of his proposal included taking $40,000 of that money to use for nuisance tree removal as part of an abatement process, with a lien to be placed on properties where the county has to take such action.

After the Valley fire, many people were in a hurry to get back to their lives on Cobb Mountain. “We were doing everything we could to assist that,” he said.

One of the key problems, said Brown, was dealing with the tree issue.

He said many people wanted to give trees damaged in the fire a chance to recover. However, quoting a statement Giusti had made last year at a community meeting, Brown said that a dead tree has only one other thing to do – fall down.

Now, many of those trees that were left have become dangerous, Brown said.

That situation was illustrated in an incident on Cobb last week, when during a storm a tree fell onto a newly placed modular home, causing significant damage. Brown showed a picture of the damaged home to his board colleagues. He also noted that some months ago a hazard tree fell on a contractor's pickup.

With an estimated 150 to 200 new homes having already been built in the fire area, Brown proposed adding another step in the permitting process, which he said will not slow things down very much but would help ensure more homes aren't destroyed by dead or dying trees.

Brown's plan included requiring people who are rebuilding to give proof that hazard trees have been removed. They would need to present evidence that they had contacted neighbors with such trees on their property and asked to have them felled.

If the neighbors don't respond, Brown – who volunteered to help handle such issues so as to keep more work off of already busy staff – said he would forward information about the property to Giusti, who has agreed to go and examine the trees himself.

If it's Giusti's professional opinion that the trees are legitimately hazards, county code enforcement staff would then do a 48-hour abatement notice on the trees, Brown said. If there is still no response, the county would hire a contractor to remove the trees and then lien the property.

County Counsel Anita Grant cautioned the board that such abatement actions wouldn't be like other abatements, and she said the board needed to be cautious in articulating a very clear public purpose for taking such action.

She said there is a significant difference between private and public nuisances. A private nuisance, she said, is defined as a civil wrong based on disturbance of rights in land, whereas a public nuisance isn't dependent on that at all, but is an interference of rights of the community at large.

In order to do an abatement action, it must be a public nuisance, not just a nuisance to a neighboring homeowner, which could raise constitutional issues and lead to a potential gift of public funds, she said.

Brown argued that taking down hazard trees in the fire area was similar to the pear orchard abatements due to disease concerns.

Giusti said that as he's continued working in the Valley fire footprint since the fire occurred in September 2015, he's seen encroachment into dead trees by insects which are feeding on dead wood and stripping bark. There also are secondary fungi.

“These trees are starting to move into advanced stages of decomposition,” he said.

The integrity of the wood strength is impacted, and eventually the root system will be as well. “What's happening is what was predicted to happen,” Giusti said.

Even trees that were just singed are now starting to show damage from beetles and other impacts. “So many of these trees are under different types of stress,” said Giusti, who expects to see continuing tree mortality, even with those trees that look alive.

Supervisor Jim Comstock said the proposal wouldn't solve the whole problem, but it would be “a heck of a good start.”

The plan also received support from community members at the Tuesday meeting.

Robert Stark, district secretary of the Cobb Area County Water District, and chair of the Cobb Geothermal Mitigation Fund and Cobb Community Development Fund, endorsed the idea.

“It's a clear and present danger,” Stark said of the hazardous tree issue.

He added, “We support Supervisor Brown 100 percent in his effort to try to find another avenue to get this situation mitigated. It's just a looming problem.”

Stark said there is a secondary program funded through Calpine to help with hazard tree removal. Brown added that the Calpine program is for lots where building hasn't occurred yet.

Eliot Hurwitz, chair of the Cobb Area Council, said the group had an energetic discussion about the subject last week.

While the council itself didn't take action on the plan, he said, personally, he supported it, and that his sense was that the sentiment in the Cobb community was that people are grateful for the proposal.

Jessica Pyska, another Cobb Area Council member, also voiced support for the proposal, and said that the council is working to educate community members about the importance of contacting neighbors about hazard trees. Pyska added that a number of hazardous trees in Cobb were taken down on Sunday.

In response to Massarelli's request for guidance on how to proceed – he was concerned that his department already is facing a rush on applications due to people trying to beat the new building code rules – Brown said property owners would have to ensure hazard trees were removed before getting a building permit.

He said the county's abatement process on hazard trees would be complaint-driven.

Supervisor Jeff Smith moved to accept the plan, which would be in effect in the Valley and Clayton fire boundaries.

The board approved the plan 5-0.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.