COASTAL FOREST ALLIANCE
Director Tuttle
Department of Forestry and Fire Protection
1416 Ninth Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
Dear Director Tuttle,
It has come to our attention that “pre-consultations” by your timber harvest review field staff are being given to landowners preparing forestland conversions. Is this service for these applicants being budgeted against your staff time allotments that are directly paid from California State general fund monies? If they are, it would seem proper to point out that these extra hours of your staff time are appropriately paid for by the applicants themselves.
A pre-harvest inspection by all the commenting agencies are already provided and the mechanisms for feedback for their proposals are in place and budgeted. This pre-consultation should not be needed by a properly registered and prepared forester and is an inappropriate use of your agency’s time and resources. These applicants should be invoiced for these meetings as they are, in fact, being used to lighten the workload of the preparer in the filing and aimed the potential of success for these forestland conversion projects.
During trying budgetary times as these for the reviewing agencies, it is appropriate fiscally and in regulation that these project proponents bear the burden of their discretionary requests.
Fees levied for this service could be directed to the Department’s programs to produce seed trees and used in reforesting efforts
I look forward to your investigation of this potential new policy and your response.
Chris Poehlmann
Coastal Forest Alliance
P.O. Box 61
Annapolis, CA 95412
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