Lawn signs are appearing along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. Campaign mailers are landing in post office boxes beside ballots. As Americans warily prepare for a fraught midterm election, Inverness residents are making their choice on Measure O, the local wildfire prevention tax on the ballot this November. Marin County’s voter information guide is delayed due to a glitch with the printer, leaving voters without important analysis and arguments.
Supporters paint a stark picture of a tinderbox of bishop pines on the ridge and name-check tragedies in places like Paradise. Opponents cite the Inverness Public Utility District’s ambivalence and call the measure a “tax in search of a plan.” No one wants to see homes burn. But is Measure O necessary and prudent? Or is it redundant and hasty? How should Inverness voters decide?
Based on interviews with the measure’s architect, Jerry Meral, officials from IPUD and the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority, and some proponents and detractors, the Light created this explainer to help answer questions about Measure O.
What will it pay for?
Measure O would bring in about $275,000 a year for IPUD, which can spend the money on planning and implementing a wide array of projects aimed at protecting Inverness from wildfire. Projects could include creating shaded fuel breaks, removing risky trees and branches, giving defensible space and home hardening grants, and clearing evacuation routes. But the measure also authorizes IPUD to spend the money on conservation programs, rainwater storage systems, storage tank repairs and other water system expenditures to ensure water is available in a wildfire. This could help the district with long-planned expensive maintenance, like replacing the 40-year-old redwood Colby tanks. Voters should note that in the event of an intense wildfire, responders would likely not use potable IPUD water, instead relying on bay water scooped up by aircraft, as was done in the 2020 Woodward fire.
Measure O contains a standard condition that no more than 5 percent of its net revenue can go toward administrative costs, a figure that has confused some voters. Administrative costs are narrowly defined, referring strictly to bookkeeping and accounting. They do not include pay for new staff members or consulting fees related to planning or implementing the programs. Likely over half of the measure’s revenue would be spent on pay for staff and consulting in the first year. Once the district adopted a spending program, those costs would drop.
Is there a spending plan?
IPUD has no expenditure plan for Measure O. The ordinance was crafted by Mr. Meral, who has no affiliation with the district, and it was submitted to the district’s staff and legal counsel for edits.
In a separate initiative, IPUD’s board voted in September to put out a request for proposals to consultants for a hazard mitigation assessment. The resulting plan, which will cover environmental hazards from floods to earthquakes, will be completed regardless of the outcome of Measure O. IPUD general manager Shelley Redding said the plan will help the district identify priorities for wildfire mitigation spending if the measure passes.
How great is the risk of wildfire in Inverness?
In 2019, a report produced for California State Parks concluded that the bishop pine and tanoak forest in Tomales Bay State Park is ailing, jammed with dead trees and debris that both prevent the forest from regenerating and act as ladder fuel in a wildfire. The report alarmed Mr. Meral and helped spur Measure O. But forester Tom Gaman, who authored the report, is opposed to the measure. State Parks is creating its own plan to secure a coastal permit for fuel reduction in the park, he said, and IPUD would have difficulty putting Measure O monies to work on state and federal lands.
A mailer from Supervisor Dennis Rodoni in support of Measure O says it will help Inverness avoid the fate of towns like Paradise, Greenville, Klamath River and Grizzly Flat, which were devastated by fires. But according to IPUD fire chief Jim Fox, the window of extreme fire behavior in Inverness is narrow, and comparisons to the Sierra and other inland areas are misleading. He said if a rapidly growing wildfire was bearing down on Inverness, a shaded fuel break would do little to stop it, though a break could be used as a staging area for the response.
How much will I pay?
Measure O levies a tax of $0.20 per square foot of structure, including spaces like decks and woodsheds, and $150 per vacant parcel. Property owners can calculate their Measure O tax bill by looking at their recent property tax bill. Find the existing tax charge for “Inverness Fire Department” and multiply it by three and one-third. The product will approximate your first-year Measure O tax bill, which would be levied on top of the current IPUD tax. Mr. Meral said the average bill would come out to $340. IPUD offered a higher estimate of roughly $473, based on 2,367 square feet, the average size of structures on Inverness properties. No residents are automatically exempt, but the IPUD board will be able to grant waivers to low-income households.
Will Measure O help me keep my home insurance?
Seeking to avoid massive losses caused by California wildfires, insurance companies are canceling homeowners policies across high-risk regions of the state, or sharply increasing premiums. In Inverness, a handful of homeowners contact IPUD every year to report that their rates have ballooned or that they have received notices of non-renewal. State assemblyman Marc Levine, who ran unsuccessfully to unseat the incumbent California Insurance Commissioner, endorsed Measure O in a mailer this week. He told voters that insurance companies would take note of the local initiative and be more inclined to extend coverage at reasonable rates.
Mark Brown, executive officer of the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority, agreed, provided Measure O funds are used to amplify the defensible space inspections and grants that M.W.P.A. is already handling. The authority is working with the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, an industry group, to give “Wildfire Prepared Home” designation to properties that pass defensible space inspections. These certificates, more than the existence of any tax measure, are likely to guarantee affordable and continued insurance coverage, Mr. Brown said. Lastly, Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara announced Monday he would enforce a new regulation that requires insurers to give discounts to customers who meet the state’s “Safer from Wildfires” standards, which are similar to the I.B.H.S. designation.
Is IPUD opposed to the tax?
IPUD has no official position on the tax, voting in August to remain neutral. Mr. Fox has raised serious reservations about it, but the district’s board is split. Staff have voiced concern about the legal ambiguity around the margin of votes needed to pass such a tax initiative. IPUD’s primary activities have been providing drinking water and responding to emergencies, including structure fires. But wildfire mitigation isn’t new for IPUD. It has conducted its own defensible space inspections and cleared evacuation routes, and its volunteer firefighters are trained in wildfire response. IPUD is authorized to branch out into a more active role in wildfire prevention.
What about Measure C and the M.W.P.A.?
Marin property owners already pay $0.10 per square foot to the M.W.P.A., which was established in 2020 with the passage of Measure C. Some critics say Measure O would duplicate the M.W.P.A.’s responsibilities and that the countywide agency is better suited to tackling the regulations that come with large-scale wildfire mitigation. But supporters have bemoaned the authority’s relatively slow march in West Marin, where it only recently cleared Coastal Act hurdles to cut vegetation along evacuation routes.
Mr. Brown said if the measure passes, he envisions a collaboration whereby IPUD could delegate some of the programs entailed in the new ordinance to the authority. The M.W.P.A. board would have to vote on such an agreement, but Mr. Brown said it would likely concur. IPUD could use its own staff to complete the water supply improvement side of Measure O and rely on M.W.P.A. for the wildfire side. However, the authority’s staff is already stretched thin, and some of IPUD’s money would have to pay part of a part-time M.W.P.A. employee’s salary, Mr. Brown said. One way or another, IPUD would need to fund more staffing for the new workload.
The M.W.P.A. is in the early stages of conceptualizing a shaded fuel break for the Inverness ridge akin to those it is already working on in Ross Valley and Novato. The complex planning and environmental compliance phase will likely begin in the next fiscal year, Mr. Brown said. Measure O could help IPUD secure matching grants that would speed up the process. Mr. Brown said his agency would find a way to fund the shaded fuel break and other Inverness-focused work with or without Measure O.
Along with $42,000 for local Inverness projects, the West Marin core area received about $400,000 from Measure C this year, but Mr. Brown said West Marin could get more of the money in the future because of flexibility in the core expenditure plan. Overall, he said, Measure O could accelerate projects in Inverness, but would not lead to more M.W.P.A. spending in the village.