Yolo Habitat Plan needs a new business manager

Yolo County’s long-worked-on Habitat Conservation Plan needs to be led by a person with more experience in management than conservation, the Grand Jury has concluded.

That was one of the findings in the 2019-20 Grand Jury report this week. The annual report was released this past week and looked at a number of countywide concerns ranging from school safety to election security and is compiled by a sworn group of volunteers who serve as watchdogs for local government and its institutions.

The Yolo Habitat Conservancy is a joint powers agency comprised of Yolo County and the cities of Davis, West Sacramento, Winters, and Woodland, the mission of which is to conserve natural and working landscapes, and the species on which they depend, by working with local communities and conservation partners to coordinate mitigation and implement regional habitat conservation. It’s funded by the various members as well as county landowners — typically farmers.

Development and approval of the plan took about 10 years and cost millions. It was criticized by the 20152016 Grand Jury for both the length of time it was taking to develop, as well as the preparation cost.

Partly as a result of those criticisms, a new leadership was put in place which jumpstarted the work and led to its completion. In August this year, the plan received the 2020 Award of Merit for Innovation in Green Community Planning by the American Planning Association California Chapter. Earlier this year it also received the Sacramento Valley APA Section Award of Excellence in the same category.

However, the current Grand Jury notes that for developers to comply with the requirements of federal and state endangered species law it needs to be funded. In exchange for obtaining the plan’s benefits, landowners and developers must pay a fee to for mitigation of the adverse effects of their development on the plan’s 12 covered species and their habitat.

The plan was fully approved and permitted as of Jan. 11, 2019 and the 20192020 Grand Jury found that the plan as developed and approved is “well-constructed to accomplish its species and habitat conservation goals” in that it provides a centralized process for the coordinated establishment of contiguous conservation land reserves to protect those 12 species.

Those species include one plant, the palmate-bracted bird’s beak; and 11 animals, including the giant garter snake, valley elderberry longhorn beetle, Swainson’s hawk, California tiger salamander, white-tailed kite, western pond turtle, western burrowing owl, western yellow-billed cuckoo, bank swallow, least Bell’s vireo and tri-colored blackbird.

While it may be protecting species, the plan isn’t getting the needed revenue to do its work effectively. During the first 16 months of the plan’s implementation, mitigation fees received are “significantly below” the current fiscal year budget and far below the annualized projections in the 50-year model, which is affecting how well the plan is administered.

“If revenue from mitigation fees are less than expected, fewer dollars are available to pay administrative expenses,” the Grand Jury concluded. The JPA has three options for management of the plan include partnering with an existing contract plan operator that already has the expertise or experience needed to operate a successful plan; directly hire an executive director and staff as employees, or contract with the Yolo County Administrator’s Office to provide the administrative structure and services necessary to operate the plan.

“The Grand Jury found that if the plan is to endure and prosper, the Yolo Habitat Conservancy requires leadership from a person with a business management skillset who has some knowledge of conservation, as opposed to a conservation-oriented person who has some knowledge of business,” the report found.

“As written, the plan fails to anticipate a sound business and financial model for its ongoing success over its 50-year term,” the Grand Jury noted. “If the business model fails (due to poor management or insufficient revenue), the Plan’s conservation objectives will not be accomplished.”