Approval of the Fire Adaptative Community Fuel Mitigation​

History was made at the “Building Advisory Board” last evening,  when the code we have all been working on was approved with one “Change” to be submitted to the Town Council for consideration at their next meeting Thursday , July 23rd. The Second and final vote will be on Thursday,August 13th. An excellent Powerpoint presentation was delivered by Kevin McCully and Alan MacKay outlining the need, and the gradual steps in moving Payson towards becoming a Fire Adaptive Community. 

The only real “pushback” against the ordinance was that of the “consequences” for those that refuse to comply with the ordinance. It was pointed out by both the FireChief, David Staub, and Kevin, that it is NOT the goal of the ordinance to “club” town citizens and business into compliance, but to work with them to help them move closer to solving the issues that are facing all of us living in a small mountain town surrounded by forest. Darlene Younker, a long time worker on bringing an Ordinance to Payson, suggested that a one-year moratorium clause be added to the Ordinance so that citizens would have time to digest and adapt to the new provisions. 

Alan MacKay spoke regarding his experience in fighting fires in towns and areas similar to Payson, and the need to start working on the issues that we all know exist here, and CAN work on to mitigate the damage to us all not IF, but WHEN fire does strike our town. 

We have passed the first “hurdle”, and now hopefully the Town Council will share in our concern to have the Ordinance approved. Many “next steps” and many more citizens will be needed to assist in growing this movement to make our town a safer place to live. More to come.

 Many, Many thanks to all that have worked on getting the Ordinance this far, and to the Board for moving it forward to the Town Council. 

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