Photo: Elias Funez
By October, the Board of Directors of the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County is expected to have voted on a new contract for Jamie Jones, the council’s executive director and CEO.
Her current interim contract, approved last month, grants Jones a base annual salary of $140,000, with an automatic 5% salary increase annually given acceptable performance. Additionally, Jones receives certain benefits, such as health care reimbursements, mobile phone reimbursements, and travel expenses.
In assessing whether a salary for a nonprofit executive is appropriate, there are certain norms that the council board should consider, said Jan Masaoka, CEO of the California Association of Nonprofits.
Additionally, some of its projects are on track for an on-time, or early, finish.
Jamie Jones, who has served since 2018 as the council’s executive director and CEO, said the council is on track to complete the Ponderosa West Grass Valley Defense Zone project well before the project’s previous target date.
However, Jones said progress on the first phase of the Ponderosa project has slowed in recent months, as some homeowners are still reluctant to allow their properties to be treated for fuel abatement. var vf ad container = document.getElementById(vf div id); vf ad container.innerHTML = ;
Forty-year rural Nevada County resident John LeLange looks out over his 11-acre property Wednesday off Dixon Road that was recently masticated and abated of fire prone vegetation. LeLange’s property sits within the Ponderosa West Grass Valley Defense Zone shaded fuel break.
Photo: Elias Funez
The Ponderosa West Grass Valley Defense Zone project is close to wrapping up, with about 907 acres of land having been cleared of potential wildfire fuel out of a target of 1,200 acres.
An additional 60 acres are expected to be cleared by the end of April, with homeowners in these parcels having agreed to have their properties abated, said Jamie Jones, executive director of the Nevada County Fire Safe Council. The remaining 200-250 acres in the defense zone are owned by homeowners who have not yet responded to the county’s request to treat their properties for fuel abatement.
We’re always talking about fire.
It wasn’t always this way. Not long ago the first rains of autumn would fall, and a sense of security would drift across Nevada County. We’d made it through another fire season. The rain and snow would come, and we’d barely consider fire until we were deep into spring, maybe later.
Those days are gone, burned away by a never ending fire season that’s been settled here for years. They aren’t coming back, and we’d be foolish to act like they were.
That leaves only one option for us: change.
John Orona | Staff Writer
With 2020 in the past and a new year upon us, Nevada County leaders outline their focus for 2021, and what they see as the new year’s biggest challenges and opportunities.
VACCINE ROLLOUT
A plastic bag containing the first COVID-19 vaccinations are brought into a room of Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital in late December for inoculations of various hospital staff.
Elias Funez
Just as the COVID-19 pandemic monopolized most of 2020, the rollout of a vaccine and the hope of a return to normalcy it brings will largely be the focus of 2021.
“Our priority will be to continue to protect the community and rebuild the economy and we’ll be working with our community partners to make sure we have safe and equitable vaccine distribution,” Board of Supervisors Chair Heidi Hall said. “We’re not sure yet what that looks like, but I know staff is working on that and taking direction from what the state is planning and then going from there.”