County creates Office of Recovery, Resilience after fire devastation

Santa Cruz County Supervisors unanimously approved creating an Office of Recovery and Resilience to respond to not only the CZU August Lighting Complex fire, but also future disasters.

Supervisor Ryan Coonerty explained that the creation of the ORR is born out of accepting a new reality, one with “more intense storms, droughts, fires.”

“It’s really trying to look at what we can try to do to prepare for the future,” Coonerty said Tuesday during a supervisors meeting.”

He said the Office of Recovery and Resilience is modeled after one in Sonoma County.

Coonerty explained Sonoma County supervisors said an ORR is an incredibly important way to speed recovery for, not only the current disaster, but future disasters.

Super v isor Br uce McPherson agreed and said that Sonoma emphasized the need for full time, dedicated staff to “manage this recovery and rebuilding process was critical in creating a culture of trust and understanding that we can have between the county and our residents.”

The ORR will be responsible for ensuring that the program provides goals, tasks, milestones, and timelines to recover/rebuild from the CZU August Lightning complex fire, as well as communications associated with the recovery work and resiliency policies and programs to increase the county’s preparedness for future disaster.

McPherson added that this doesn’t establish a new department at the county and instead is using existing personnel to fill the roles.

With the approval of the ORR comes the direction to the County Administrative Officer, Carlos Palacios, to appoint a full-time manager of the ORR.

Additionally, the CAO will return Nov. 10 with funding recommendations.

Coonerty, a county staff report, noted that there is a good possibility that many, if not all, of the expenditures would be reimbursable by FEMA. Additionally, according to the county, the ORR would help prepare for future disasters by seeking potential Green New Deal, state climate adaptation funding, Hazard Mitigation Program, and other grant funding sources for resilience projects.

Meanwhile, an ad hoc committee composed of Coonerty and McPherson will be established to monitor and oversee the implementation of the county’s recovery and resilience work over the next calendar year.