Rebuild North Bay:
Ex-FEMA director to lead group formed to help in the fire recovery.
James Lee Witt, a former national director of FEMA, was named executive director Wednesday of the most prominent nonprofit agency helping businesses and residents recover from the Wine Country fires.
Witt, who ran the Federal Emergency Management Agency under President Bill Clinton, said his focus as head of Rebuild North Bay will be on squeezing federal, state and local dollars to their last penny so that everybody can “build back better and safer, and build back with more resiliency than ever before.”
A group of North Bay politicians and business leaders formed the nonprofit shortly after the fires broke out Oct. 8 and devastated more than 300 square miles of wildland and neighborhoods, particularly in Santa Rosa and the famed Napa region wine corridors. The formation effort is being led by Darius Anderson, a local political strategist and philanthropist who coowns the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.
Anderson announced Witt’s appointment at Sonoma State University, and he was joined at the podium by area leaders participating in the Rebuild North Bay effort, including Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, Sonoma County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Shirlee Zane and council members from several cities. Organizers said no salary has been set for Witt yet because the nonprofit is so new it’s still figuring out what fundraising or expenditure goals to aim for.
Witt, who lives in Arkansas, said he will stay on as head of the nonprofit until a solid recovery plan has been put into place. Then he intends to hand over the directorship to a local leader.
“You’ll see a lot of me whether you like it or not,” said Witt, who as FEMA director handled recovery processes for nearly 350 disasters across the nation, including the 1994 Northridge Earthquake and a series of 1990s fires in Malibu. “Better days are ahead.”
Judging by the worries raised by residents and community leaders, Witt’s task will be anything but quick or easy.
Some at the Sonoma State gathering said that they felt daunted by the tremendous debris-removal process that lies ahead. Others said they were afraid that many people will give up on rebuilding and leave the area. Still others hoped to replace flattened single-family homes with higher-density apartment or duplex complexes to help ease the area’s longtime housing crunch, but said they anticipated pushback.
“We have to do whatever we can to help people stay here, not leave,” said Willie Tamayo, vice president of La Tortilla Factory in Santa Rosa, who lost his home in the same town to the Tubbs Fire. He said that four of his 300 employees also lost their homes, and keeping them in the area is not just good for his business, but for everyone.
“Every time we hire someone, that person rents locally, buys locally, goes to the doctor locally, does everything here,” he said. “It’s good for the whole community.”