Firewise Meeting August 13, 2025
LCMC Board Room
Meeting was called to order at 10:00am by President Alec Pennington
Present were board members: Alec Pennington, Gary Nelson, Kathy Stafford, Vicki Knox, Paul Bogacz, and Gregg Dahman.
Community members attending: Sandy Stafford, Rich Kallal, Tim McKamey, and via Zoom, Jenny Sinanan.
Special guests attending: LCMC Board Director Ray Menard and Chris Carr (a former Disaster Preparedness Manager for the city of Los Angeles).
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With a motion by Vicki and a second from Gary, the minutes of the July 9th, 2025, meeting were approved, all in favor.
Treasurer Report – Gary Nelson.
The treasurer’s report had been previously published separately. With a motion to approve by Alec and a 2nd by Vicki the Financial Report was approved, all in favor.
Update on updating bank signatures – Gary reported in order to remove Dennis Wicks and Gregg Dahmen from the signature cards for our accounts at Umpqua/Columbia Bank, we need to discuss removing them, make a motion to remove them (and to keep Alec and Gary as signers) at a general board meeting, and record these steps in our minutes for that meeting. A motion to remove Dennis Wicks and Gregg Dahmen from the signature cards – and to keep David Alec Pennington and Gary Nelson on the signature cards – at Umpqua/Columbia Bank, was made by Vicki Knox and seconded by Paul Bogacz. Passed 100%.
Old Business
Assessment Training – We have several assessment requests and address marker requests pending. Gary and Alec will schedule with Paul to do the assessments and train Paul in the process.
Bank Signature Updates – Required steps to update the signatures were covered in the Treasurer Report above.
Burn Ban banners – the suggested artwork for the Burn Ban banners was shown to all attendees for feedback. Jenny Sinanan felt the LCFW mention was more prominent than the Fire Marshal mention, leading to confusion as to where the authority lies. It was decided to move the LCFW info to the bottom of the banner and make it smaller. It was also decided to enlarge the Fire Marshall ‘authority statement’ as well. Rich Kallal suggested the order of the ‘allowed’ and ‘prohibited’ actions be reversed showing what is allowed first (on the left) and then showing what is prohibited. These suggestions were agreed to. Ray and Gary will work on making the changes.
Disaster preparedness day
Chris Carr has confirmed he will attend the event. Chris was a commercial general contractor on a nationwide basis and has been CERT trained by Los Angeles Fire Department for metropolitan and Urban areas. He has been directly involved in evacuation and recovery for multiple extreme weather, earthquake, flash flood and wildfire events. He moved to Eldon with his wife in 2021 after being displaced by the Bobcat Wildfire in the San Gabriel Forest of Southern California.
Mason General Hospital has confirmed they will be attending the event. As part of MGH, Hoodsport clinic will also have a table and representative present with handouts and a giveaway of 5 emergency packs. Patrick O’Neil, Facility Operations and Emergency Management Leader at MGH will speak at the event.
Kathy confirmed the Masons will bring their ice cream trailer to the event to serve ice cream to attendees.
Vick indicated Market Fresh will be attending and will facilitate recording the speakers and event so it can be put on our website for others to view.
Alec, Peggy Pennington and Donna O’Leary held a planning meeting August 11 to hash out the flyer and marketing for the event. Paul has been included in the discussion via email with Donna and Peggy and the flyer is ready to go. Peggy and Donna have also been coordinating with Paul via email to work out the marketing plan and divide up responsibilities so as not to duplicate effort.
During the August 11 meeting, Donna suggested we contact the local HAM Radio club and a local insurance agent to see if they want to attend. Donna will reach out to her insurance agent with an invitation. Alec has reached out to the Mason HAM Radio Club but has not heard back yet. Alec also reached out to Chief Michael Sexton about attending but has not heard back yet.
Margaret Kreder of Mason Conservation District has heard about this event and reached out to Alec about possibly supporting the event as well. Alec replied in the positive but has not heard back from Margaret yet.
New Business
The annual reports to NFPA are coming due in November. Alec has started writing the report. We are required to submit a new Action Plan every 3 years and one is due this year. A new form is now available for this, and a copy is on LC Firewise Drive under NFPA so all can read and give input.
Regarding the item involving the acquisition of a utility trailer: A local resident is moving and had reached out to FW about purchasing the trailer, but there has been a change of plan so this item is tabled at this time.
Alec suggested a winter time project is for us to create documentation of processes and procedures we have to do in administering LCFW. With two new Board Members it was suggested their fresh eyes will help us spot where we need to put documentation together for this project. All of this is to enable when we have turnover of Board members we have documentation for new members on how to do tasks and where to get the information to do them.
Motion to adjourn Gary 1st, Paul 2nd; 100% in favor.
Next regular meeting will be on September 10, 2025, at 10:00am in the LCMC Boardroom.