On July 8, the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County (FSC) submitted its response to the latest Grand Jury report, and local media outlets made the document available to the public. It was interesting reading.

Let’s look at some of the Jury Findings and Recommendations and the FSC’s responses to them. One FSC response was so glaringly wrong that it prompted me to write this piece.

Finding #7 reads: “From at least April 2019 through January 2022, FSC, knowing it was subject to the Brown Act, appears to have violated it numerous times.” The FSC response is: “Disagree: FSCNC is not currently subject to nor has ever been subject to the Brown Act.”

I don’t know whether the FSC violated the Brown Act during the time it was subject to it, and it’s correct they are NOT subject to it at this time. But to say they have never been subject to the Brown Act (and thus exempt from any alleged violations of it) is flat-out wrong.

The Brown Act clearly states that a private, non-profit corporation is subject to its rules “if a legislative body provides some funding to a private corporation or entity and appoints one of its members to serve as a voting member of entity’s board of directors.”

The Chair of the Nevada County Board of Supervisors appointed Supervisor Hank Weston to the Fire Safe Council (where he was a voting member of the board of directors) in 2017 and 2018, then later (2019 to 2021) appointed Sue Hoek to the same role. (Hoek resigned from the FSC Board in January 2022.)

Minutes of every FSC board meeting that Supervisors Weston and Hoek attended contain Brown-Act-required legalese such as publicly posting the Agenda, Public Comment, etc.

The staff and directors of the FSC absolutely knew that its board meetings were subject to the Brown Act when it had County Supervisors sitting on the board. What could possibly be the reason for the bogus response to the Grand Jury? I’m just reporting. You decide.

Most of the Grand Jury’s Findings and Recommendations dealt with financial management, including the need for transparency, for providing training for board members on fiscal oversight, and more.

FSC responses to some of these are questionable. For example, Recommendation #9 called for “greater transparency so that Nevada County and the public are able to confirm proper use of county funding.” The FSC response: “Implemented. All appropriate information, including financial, required to maintain our 501c3 non-profit status is considered public information and available on the FSCNC website.”

Those FSC words do not respond to the Recommendation. It’s unclear how the FSC’s ability to “maintain [their] non-profit status” has anything to do with enabling the County and the public to “confirm proper use of county funding.”

On the FSC website, in Board Packets for April, May and June 2024, there is no financial information. Zero. Their calendar shows monthly Executive Finance Committee meetings, but not every director is on that committee. Directors can’t perform their fiduciary duty of fiscal oversight without financials. Those three months are during the period when most staff were furloughed. One wonders if the FSC feels that is an excuse for it to not provide ongoing financial information to directors.

To defenders of the FSC, this critique may seem unfair. But when the organization has been criticized so heavily and for so long about their financials, I think most people would agree it’s deficient to not provide directors with whatever financial information IS available. If directors received that information separately (i.e., outside the Board packet) – three months in a row – that is not being transparent.

Then there’s that response where FSC says, “lack of competent job performance of two past fiscal staff” is why they had repeating turnover of their top financial person. Really? Both of those men now have high-level local jobs, one a bank VP and the other CFO of a large, major non-profit. FSC’s assertion is simply not credible.

A well-functioning Fire Safe Council is important to Nevada County. What will it take to get one, and what steps are board members taking to identify and solve the root causes of its difficulties?

Susan Freas Rogers has lived in Grass Valley for 24 years and has been active in wildfire preparedness for seven years. The opinions stated are her own and do not represent the position of any organization with which she is affiliated.