The Year in Review: FONA in 2009We are again reaching the end of another year for the Federation of Neighborhood Associations of Nevada County, and it is once again time to take stock of what we have accomplished and perhaps look at what might be ahead for FONA in the future. I want to take a moment however to thank Bob Goar for two good years of shared responsibility as co-chair of this organization. His partnership, encourage, openness and integrity have made this shared task much more workable for me, and I hope successful for our membership.The mission of the Federation is to educate, empower and support neighborhoods in the creation of optimum community living conditions through participation in neighborhood and public affairs of Nevada County. The way we have chosen to do this over the last two years is by acting as a forum for the public discussion of issues identified by our members and working together to address them. We hope these discussions have encouraged the creativity of our members, and by bringing together the wide range of experiences they represent, helped to catalyze workable solutions – ones that can then be freely shared among our membership for further development to address similar issues in their local neighborhoods.A great example of this process is Evacuation Planning. Several years ago, faced with a political climate in Nevada County that refused to address evacuation planning in any way, Bob Goar developed an evacuation plan for the Rattlesnake Neighborhood Association and freely shared it with FONA. In 2008, Helene Hall took that product, and worked with Consolidated Fire, and Nevada County Office of Emergency Services (OES) to create a similar plan for the Banner Mountain Homeowners, and the plan was expanded to include all of Banner Mountain. In 2009, FONA working with the Technical Committee of the Fire Safe Council of Nevada Council (FSC) of Nevada County and OES saw the process developed by Bob and Helene accepted by the Fire Chiefs of Nevada County and OES as the official process for creation of local evacuation plans; and new plans were developed for Lake Wildwood and Morgan Ranch. Today, a similar plan is scheduled for Lake of the, and the concept has been expanded by the FSC for application to “FireWise Communities” in all of Nevada County.This year Cascade Shores, led by Kent Rees, developed a formal notification policy for dealing with local health and safety issues in their neighborhood. This process permits local residents to register complaints such as excessive fuels, leaking septic systems, etc. with the Homeowners Association. Such complaints are validated by HA leadership. Validated issues are then addressed by the Homeowners Association with individual property owners reducing the potential for interpersonal conflict between individual neighbors. An escalation process steps through several notifications with the property owner, and if unaddressed can be referred to 1
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