The State Historic Preservation office has just released the results of a “charrette”, which took place last year at this time in an effort to begin to plan the future of the State Fairgrounds.

You can get a copy of that report here.

There is a lot of history and background to cover if you want to understand what’s going on here and why it is important.

But, before we do that and for those of you who don’t know what a charrette is, here is a definition from the report:

“A charrette is an intensive planning session comprised of formal and informal meetings, held over a short period of time for the primary purpose of collaborating on a vision for the future. Public agencies, private citizens, design professionals and stakeholders are encouraged to collectively formulate a plan for development and/or revitalization of a facility, urban area or neighborhood.”

To put this in to context, it’s important to know that our State Fairgrounds is owned by the State of Arizona, even though it is in the city of Phoenix. So, the Arizona legislature and the governor have the power to decide what to do with it.

Unfortunately, for decades the legislature and governor have failed to fully fund historic the preservation of the fairgrounds.

This has been true of both Republican and Democratic governors, although we have not had a Democratic Legislature since the 1960s.

Still, this has had a huge impact over the years. Neighborhoods that surround the fair are greatly affected by the condition of the property, and that has an impact on people’s property values.

So, it has been frustrating over the years to see that the legislature has even periodically swept funds from the State Fairgrounds, which could have otherwise gone to historic preservation.

In 2014, after decades of neglect, this came to a head when the fairground board made the choice to knock down the historic WPA Building on McDowell. This structure has important ties to the reforms of the 1930s that were meant to bring the US out of the great depression through the Work Projects Administration.

Many of us rallied and were able to stop the bulldozers. Since then, it’s been a long road on which we are continuing to try to find funding to begin renovations on the building, from city, state and private sources. We still have some way to go on that.

And, that is only one of many historic buildings on the property.

However, that event sparked a renewed interest in the fairgrounds. As the city has become more dense, people are starting to look at ways that the historic buildings and the entire fairgrounds could be put to use more often throughout the year.

Those changes get us to the Charrette. After some initial calls to the public for ideas, and fears that the governor’s office was thinking of selling the fairground land, the governor’s office began working primarily with the State Historic Preservation Office to generate ideas of what could come.

It is worth a few minutes to skim the report, as some of the ideas that came out of that weekend a year ago are very inventive. There is very little money to work with, and these creative community leaders came up with some great concepts.

In the end, we are left with two major directions we could take: move the fair or keep the fair.

If we move the fair, which people have spoken about for years, then it is in the best interest of neighborhoods in Central Phoenix to have some voice about what will happen to the space. Right up front, we need to protect the historic buildings.

After that, we will want to make certain that the space is complementary to the neighborhoods. For instance, I have been told by developers that the only way they could make the space work would be to build large apartment complexes there.

This would be a non-starter for many people, especially those in the homes right next to the fair. Many apartments are over three stories and would look down on the neighbors’ back yards, which carries many privacy concerns. Furthermore, many apartment buildings tend to lose their luster in only a decade or so. This could cause problems for the neighbors.

While we need more owner-occupied and affordable housing downtown, we would not be likely to get both, were this land to go to developers of condos.

They would likely be higher priced condos, packed on to the acreage of the old fairground, which would exclude many people who need affordable housing the most.

And, none of that addresses what would happen to the colosseum.

The best approach would be to prepare for the exit of the fair with an empowered working group of thinkers from the city, the state, the county, ASU, the historic coalition, developers, historic preservation experts and housing experts.

This is a decision that deserves visionary thinking.

Were the fair to stay in place, then many of these same interests should still convene to consider what that looks like, while improving and re-purposing some of the buildings.

Under this scenario –and perhaps even the first one– the many historic buildings could be re-purposed in a way that re-invigorates the state fairgrounds as a point of community pride.

One developer made a suggestion that I thought was powerful: turn the fairgrounds in to a Phoenix version of Millennial Park. This would require taking over the west 9 holes of the Encanto Golf course.

Regardless, the charrette report will give you a great insight in to the various challenges and opportunities of the fairgrounds.

It’s worth a read while you are waiting for the next episode of Game of Thrones to come on.

 Parking

Donna Reiner, a local historian and a good friend of Get Your PHX, has written many articles over the years for the Arizona Republic and others about what came before us. We use her services when we list properties of historic significance to help us tell the stories behind the homes.

We are happy that Donna is allowing us to re-publish some of her articles on a monthly basis. If you or your business ever needs a historian, let Donna know at laydeescholar@hotmail.com.

Phoenicians are in love with their cars until……they have to find a parking spot. Is there a free place? Do I have enough coins for the meter or will it take a credit card? Where’s the nearest parking garage or lot and will I have to walk far to my destination? And during the hot summer months, if I have to use a lot or street, is there any shade? All of these questions take serious consideration when Phoenicians begin the parking spot patrol.

While these are modern day “worries,” what was it like back in the day?  First there were not as many cars, and many people went downtown by trolley and later by bus. Believe it or not, parking meters “sprouted” along Phoenix downtown streets as early as September 1937 with a one-hour limit (for a nickel). And yes, Phoenicians were not too happy about this new fangled device. It certainly spoiled the pleasure of parking downtown all day for free.

But after the end of World War II, things began to change. More families had cars and disposable money. Women liked to browse and shop. And kids wanted to go to the movies or hang out at one of the many places that had soda fountains. And eventually we had shopping centers.

A few old buildings had rather small parking areas in their basements, but they simply could not meet the new demands of the car driving public. And then, one business owner stepped up.

George Luhrs decided to build a garage on 1^st Avenue and Madison to accommodate the tenants in his various buildings, but also to provide some public parking. Opening in late November 1957, the Luhrs Parking Center provided space for over 400 cars PLUS a two-pump Texaco Gas Station. Several other small lots opened around the same time and the downtown merchants touted the simplicity to find a parking spot during their January Park and Shop Plan. This turned out to be only a small relief to growing parking issues.

Most people have driven in downtown Phoenix today. The streets are still narrow and have limited parking. And not much has changed over the years. Much of the parking before was parallel. Now it’s a mix of parallel and diagonal, but still not much to go around (and trying to figure out the number of allowable hours one can use on the meter is another issue). Parking at a mall especially during seasonal shopping days can be more of a question as to “Where did I park?” after you complete your spending spree. An app to show available spots can be helpful, but will it save that spot before you get there?

Donna Reiner is the co-author of three books on Phoenix history.

There is a huge crisis in trash and recycling in the US today, and there are things you can do about it. In fact, I would suggest that we all need to act quickly to change behaviors.

I’ve had so many conversations with people over the years who are convinced that none of the things they recycle are actually recycled. They were convinced that the city pays all this money for blue bins, but then just dumps it all in the landfill, anyway.

This has not been true in the past. Phoenix has a goal of diverting about 40% of its waste by 2020. The last I saw, they recycle about 24% of its waste.

That’s far too little, for sure. The city does not recycle from office buildings and multi-family.

On reason for the lack of progress: our backward legislature made is impossible for cities to require multi-family dwellings (apartments and condos) to recycle back in 2015.

So, if offices and multi-family dwellings don’t pay for pick-up themselves, it simply does not get done.

Yet, things have changed in a dramatic way with the announcement by China of its “National Sword” policy, in which it will no longer accept recyclable materials from other countries.

This is a big deal if you are concerned about the future of our life on this planet.

Since the US, Europe and many nations were sending their plastic, aluminum and paper to China for recycling, rather than developing their own domestic recycling facilities, we are up trash creek without a paddle.

According to PRI, “Every day, nearly 4,000 shipping containers full of recyclables leave US ports bound for China. China sends the US toys, clothes and electronics; in return, some of America’s largest exports back are paper, plastic and aluminum.”

As if it were not enough that our oceans and fish populations are chomping down on poisonous plastics every day, now our capacity to recycle is greatly reduced.

To that end, please listen to this podcast called 99% Invisible, which will help you understand the reasons for the crisis and what you can do about it. Listen while you are cleaning or taking a walk. It is worth 45 minutes of your life.

Here are some things that we can do to make a huge impact:

1. Find ways to buy less.
2. Countries and cities need to pressure manufacturers and designers to find ways to use less materials in their designs.
3. Countries and states need to invest in more domestic recycling facilities.
4. Look in to products that use less –such as toothbrushes with replaceable heads or toothpaste dispensers that are re-useable.
5. Let’s move past refusing straws and find ways to re-use the whole cup, which represents about 99% more plastic than just the straw.

99% Invisible said it best, “In the end, Operation National Sword Could be a wakeup call. But only if producers, consumers, and governments tune in and listen.”

Have you noticed the increase in homelessness in Phoenix over the last few years?

There are some very clear reasons for it –and it’s not just that the price of housing has gone up.

It is just as much about poor planning and poor funding, which has caught up with us.

Have a look at this video to learn more about why we’ve seen such a drastic increase in recent years, and what you can do about it.

This video was shot as part of an experiment with me and Marshall Shore. We are shooting videos about things you may not know about downtown, as well as public interest issues, like Homelessness.

You can see these videos pop up about every week on Facebook, “Get Your PHX” on Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.

House Bill 2701 (state parks; lottery; heritage fund) has made it out of two committees and is ready to go to the floor of the House.

HB 2701 would restore the Arizona State Parks Heritage Fund through the Arizona Lottery at $10 million per year as originally approved by Arizona voters in 1990.

Here’s what you should know. This is a “money bill.” That means that it appropriates money. Well, since the leadership of the House and Senate want all appropriations to be passed in the budget bills themselves, rather than in individual bills, they often let bills like this die. However, if the bills pass one chamber with lots of support, it increases the chances that the appropriations represented in the bill will make it in to the budget.

Got it?

The Arizona Preservation Foundation asks you to please continue your support of the Heritage Fund by submitting your position through the Legislature’s Request to Speak system or by contacting your legislator.

Over in the Arizona Senate, can voice your support for, Senate Bill 1241, the sister bill to the house version. It helps if they get support in both chambers.

Background. From the time Arizona voters approved the creation of the Fund to the Great Recession when it was defunded and removed from statute, the Fund served our state well (project list and map) with its dedication to parks, outdoor recreation, open space, non-motorized trails, outdoor and environmental education, and historic preservation. It is our hope that this Legislature restores the Fund after satisfying all other current encumbrances, and to bring the Fund back to effect in a responsible and deliberate manner.

Why the Fund is important. Arizona’s local, regional, and state parks and recreation facilities are economic development generators that encourage the spending of tourist dollars, attract businesses whose workforce choose jobs in locations with quality of life benefits, strengthen community cohesion, and increase property values. Historic preservation initiatives in our rural communities and urban areas promote economic development by creating jobs, revitalizing historic areas, increasing property values, and promoting heritage tourism.

As a big-ol sustainability, gardening and composting nerd, I’m concerned about the decline of bee populations in the United States.

I think we are closing in on a solution to the problem. In the meantime, I wanted to share some thoughts that I learned from my friend and entomologist, Chelsea, who studies bees, specifically.

Before I tell you what I learned from her, I encourage you to have a look at 12 Reasons Not to Be Afraid of Honeybees. While you may not want a bee colony in your shed, there are two things to keep in mind: you have to work hard to annoy them enough that you get stung and there are companies out there that will take those bees without killing them.

So, on to what I learned. First, we could do ourselves a great service by supporting native desert bees. One third of what you eat relies on bees.

It’s a little-known fact that the bees we commonly think of are not native to Arizona. Chelsea calls them “the chicken of the insect world” in that we have cultivated them to help us produce the honey that we want.

However, there are desert bees that could help replace the declining population of bees that we are hearing about. There’s one really great thing about those: while they do have stingers, they are very unlikely to sting sting. But they do pollinate the many plants that we rely on.

Second, there are things that you can do to encourage these bees to create homes, or “hotels” and other things that you can do to give them the food that they need. For instance, you can plant wildflowers in your yard. I’m particularly proud of mine, and they are visited by various types of bees every day.

It is notable that native bee species don’t make hives. They are generally solitary or subsocial – so they make “nests” where they line a hole in wood or twigs with mud (mason bees), leaves (leaf cutter bees), or wax (carpenter bees), then they lay one egg and provision it with a pollen ball. Then they fly away. – not often caring for their babies.

With the “bee hotel”, you are providing them “nesting spots” – not quite hives. But you can set out or hang wood with little holes in which for them to nest.

Lloyd Hardrick, a contributor to Urban Farm U, gives great insight in to keeping urban bees in this podcast. He handles honeybees, but he has some great insight to share.

My flowers are providing pollen for bee hives, and thus supporting their populations.

You are welcome, bees.

So, Chelsea and I are hatching an idea of setting up a native bee population in my back yard. Stay tuned. We may get this together with a little video to explain.

Stay tuned. Bee cool. Bees are our friends…

I’ve been impressed for years with Read Better Be Better (RBBB), a local non-profit education organization that partners older students (“bigs”) with younger students (“littles”) to help improve reading skills for each.

I watched them do their work at a local elementary school last year and I’ve been tracking their progress as they’ve grown.

So, as we celebrate what is working in education, here’s RBBB’s announcement that they are expanding in to even more schools.

Phoenix, Ariz. – Read Better Be Better (RBBB), a Phoenix nonprofit that helps children improve literacy skills and become better learners, has expanded to serve students in thirty-six sites throughout the greater Phoenix metro area, an increase from 26 sites in Fall 2018.

RBBB after school programs inspire and equip at-risk middlegraders through service-learning to assist struggling third graders by helping them build literacy skills. Third and middle grade students work one-on-one, in an after-school setting, following a preset lesson plan focused on reading comprehension.

RBBB was founded to address a serious problem in Arizona’s youth. Students not reading at grade level by the end of third grade are four times less likely to graduate high school; yet 85 percent of Arizona third graders from low-income families are not reading on grade level.

“Read Better Be Better is built on the belief that all children deserve the chance to succeed and the knowledge that literacy is a stepping stone to academic and life-long success,” said Sophie Etchart, founder and CEO. “If a child can read proficiently by the end of third grade, there is an 89% chance that student will graduate high school, regardless of poverty.”

“Our program empowers students to recognize their own potential, and the opportunity for older kids in the community to be part of the solution,” said Etchart. “The youth leaders commit our curriculum to memory and implement it at home with younger siblings; younger students speak up in the classroom to convince their peers of the importance of reading. That is how we effect lasting, societal change.”

Kick off for Read Better Be Better’s Spring 2019 semester began the week of January 28, 2019 and finished the week of February 11, 2019. Each after school program runs for 10 weeks and accommodates each location’s individual schedule.

Read Better Be Better Spring 2019 Participating Schools (by order of program launch week):

ESTRELLA VISTA ELEMENTARY

COUNTRY PLACE LEADERSHIP ACADEMY

BUCKEYE ELEMENTARY

BALES ELEMENTARY

BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB, BOB & RENEE PARSONS BRANCH

CENTERRA MIRAGE STEM ACADEMY

BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB, WARNER A. GABEL BRANCH

WHITTIER ELEMENTARY

ENCANTO ELEMENTARY

CAROL G PECK ELEMENTARY

SUNDANCE ELEMENTARY

WESTPARK ELEMENTARY

MICHAEL ANDERSON ELEMENTARY

DESERT THUNDER SCHOOL

BARCELONA ELEMENTARY

SHEELY FARMS ELEMENTARY

COLLIER ELEMENTARY

WILDFLOWER SCHOOL

INCA ELEMENTARY

MARIONNEAUX ELEMENTARY

STEVEN R. JASKINSKI ELEMENTARY

TRES RIOS SERVICE ACADEMY

FINE ARTS ACADEMY

LITTLETON ELEMENTARY

QUENTIN ELEMENTARY

LONGVIEW ELEMENTARY

ARIZONA DESERT ELEMENTARY

BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB, HARRY & SANDY ROSENZWEIG BRANCH

COPPER TRAILS SCHOOL

DESERT STAR SCHOOL

ELISEO C. FELIX SCHOOL

SOLANO ELEMENTRY

BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB, I.G. HOLMES BRANCH

AUGUSTUS H SHAW JR. MONTESSORI

CORDOVA ELEMENTARY

P.H. GONZALES ELEMENTARY

For more information about Read Better Be Better, visit www.readbetterbebetter.org.

This alert comes to us from the Arizona Preservation Foundation. As realtors who spend much of our time in historic homes (and who live in them), we believe that our lives in Arizona are enriched when we preserve our state’s historic treasures.

However, over the last fifteen years, the Legislature has reduced funding for historic preservation efforts to nothing. There is an effort afoot to increase that funding back to normal levels. See below for the alert and important links.

See the original alert with legislators’ contact information at this link.

Preservation Alert! Help Restore the Arizona State Parks Heritage Fund

We are excited to let you know that a bipartisan group of Arizona state senators has introduced Senate Bill 1241 (“SB1241”) to restore the Arizona State Parks Heritage Fund (“Fund”).

From the time Arizona voters approved the creation of the Fund to the Great Recession when it was de-funded and removed from statute, the Fund served our state well with its dedication to parks, outdoor recreation, open space, non-motorized trails, outdoor and environmental education, and historic preservation. It is our hope that this Legislature restores the Fund after satisfying all other current encumbrances, and to bring the Fund back to effect in a responsible and deliberate manner.

 Why the Fund is important. Arizona’s local, regional, and state parks and recreation facilities are economic development generators that encourage the spending of tourist dollars, attract businesses whose workforce choose jobs in locations with quality of life benefits, strengthen community cohesion, and increase property values. Historic preservation initiatives in our rural communities and urban areas promote economic development by creating jobs, revitalizing historic areas, increasing property values, and promoting heritage tourism.

 For preservation advocates, SB1241 increases the percentage of funds devoted to historic preservation matching grants from 17% (outlined in the original 1990 Heritage Fund citizens initiative) to 30%. What you can do. 

SB1241 has been assigned to the Senate Natural Resources & Energy Committee and is on the agenda to be heard on Wednesday, February 6 at 2 p.m. in Senate Room 109, Arizona Capitol, 1700 W. Washington St.Read the bill language here and review the projects and communities that benefitted from the Fund in the past here.

Please submit your position through the Legislature’s “Request to Speak (RTS)” system. If you don’t have an account for the Legislature’s RTS System, review the steps below.

In the meantime, you can call or email the following members of the Senate Natural Resources & Energy Committee to let them know of your support for SB1241.

As you know, we are big fans of locally-owned businesses and we have mad respect for people taking a risk on a new business. This month, we profile BellaVet, a mobile veterinary clinic run by Maya Bellapiante.

About three years ago, Maya Bellapainta took a big risk. She started a mobile veterinary business.

When she first started she was making house calls in her little Toyota Yaris.

That was workable for minor pet ailments. But she relied on renting surgery rooms from other vets for major procedures. However, leasing those rooms ate up all of her profits and she was not making money.

About a year ago, she stumbled upon a company in Deer Valley that made mobile vehicles that were sufficiently large and equipped to do most surgeries, such as spaying, neutering, mass removals, GI surgeries, foreign body removals, acupuncture and laser therapy for arthritis.

She can’t do orthopedic surgeries in the van, but the equipment that she carries in the van is mobile. So, she can handle larger animals that can’t move or who won’t come out of the house.

“Also, there are many times that a dog can’t go in to a vet’s office, but I can help in those situations.”

“We also do a lot of hospice and palliative care as well as euthanasia. It’s a sad topic, but when I come to the house we can make the passing as kind and as gentle as we can.”

There are, of course some surgeries that she can’t do in the house.

It was a huge risk for her, but she could not afford a full clinic and she could not continue to rent space from other vets. She had no choice.

But, once she took the plunge, she has seen the rewards. She drives all over the valley, typically within 45 minutes of her home base in Scottsdale. She says she puts about 100,000 miles on her car annually.

Her veterinary technician is also her driver. So, they are like a kind of a veterinary Batman and Robin, going to where the action is.

The problem is that they can never take the day off. Or, if either of them must to due to illness, they have to reschedule.

“That’s a hard part of running my own business,” she says.

“It was hard finding a vet tech who was comfortable working in a small space, but who was also comfortable driving a larger vehicle.”

I asked her what challenges she faces as a minority, female business owner.

She points to three things.

First, dealing with vendors who are trying to take advantage of her.

Second, predatory lending practices from vendors who want to charge you more for equipment. “Luckily, I have a good friend who is a lawyer and who looks out for me.”

Third, she says, “People are sometimes ridiculous. They don’t think that I am the doctor when I show up because I’m not white.”

When it comes to generating new business while she’s caring for pets, she runs in to the same problem that we realtors do: when its busy, there is little time to “feed the sales pipeline”.

“It seems that many animals are sick all at once, but then all of the sudden all of the dogs are healthy.”

During downtime, she is marketing. Trying to branch in to phone consultations. Trying to remind people about preventive services and to come in at the right time for scheduling.

What inspires her to keep going?

“Just getting to heal animals that can’t tell us what’s wrong. A lot of other doctors ignore odd behavior. But if you notice your animal acting out of sorts, you know best. If it’s not medical, I can help them too because I’m a behaviorist.”

For those of you new to seeing policy analysis in this otherwise community and real estate newsletter, here’s the deal. Since yours truly (Ken) is a policy nerd who believes that the real estate market is directly impacted by public policy, I’m going to choose topics of general interest having to do with policy once per month for a deeper dive.

I’ve been thinking about forest health for many years. Both when I was a legislator, and after. The Rodeo-Chediski fire happened around the time that I was in office the first time, in 2002.

Why is this important? Well, excessive forest fires add to the global warming problem. They can contaminate water that we rely on to live. They damage property and kill people and wildlife.

And if you want the real estate tie-in, just think what your property in Phoenix would be worth if we can’t attract tourists because our forests are decimated, or if we can’t depend on water from higher elevations.

The number one take-away of this story is this: our shared inability to maintain forest health has cost us much more than it would have cost to, you know, maintain forest health!

I’ve noticed over the years that there are talking points on both sides that stand like stone walls in the way of true, long-term planning.

Republican members often declare that all forest fires were the fault of environmentalists. Democrats, usually from urban areas, don’t pay enough attention to the issue. Neither approach is helpful.

So, I thought it would be worth talking with somebody who could bust some myths. I called recently-retired ASU professor Stephen Pyne to help me.

You may have heard Dr. Pyne on KJZZ late last year talking about the California fires. Pyne is well-regarded on all sides when it comes to forest health. He has published over 30 books on various topics related to the environment.

I asked him to talk about the biggest myths in forest health. We covered the big ones in a conversation last month.

Use these to impress somebody at your next cocktail party, or you know, myth bust the next politician who wants you to scapegoat their political foes when it comes to forest health issues.

To summarize, Pyne says of the political debate that, “it’s like everybody is standing around a camp fire, with their back to it, trying to describe how to manage it.”

The biggest problem, he says, is that most people want to use fire to animate some other message that they have. They don’t want to use fire to talk about the fire problem.

President Trump’s claim that the recent California fires were the fault of regulations was a perfect example. One percent of what he said, according to Pyne, had a kernel of truth and 99% was dead wrong.

Trump also spoke about a kind of “clean the forest floor” approach, which is a European model of managing forest, almost like managing a big garden.

However, they have different landscapes there with much different human populations. Plus it is incredibly costly to do.

The one kernel that Pyne says is correct is that we should open up some forests to logging. But, and this is a big “but”, it can’t be the clear-cutting methods that logging use to implement.

According to Pyne, clear cutting used to take the big trees and left the little trees. But healthy forest fires take the little material and leaves the big trees.

Alternatively, he says, “if you want to treat the fire problem, you need to take the small stuff. How do you want to do that? Goats? Wood Chippers? How is that financially feasible for a logging company? Plus, we need to match the type of management to the character of each type of forest terrain that we have in Arizona. All of that takes money.”

I remember that we passed legislation in my first term in office (2003-2005) that gave tax credits for fuel so that logging companies could afford to drive around and harvest small-diameter trees.

Unfortunately, that was insufficient to re-ignite the timber industry.

Basically, we have a “tragedy of the commons” situation, in which industry can’t afford to operate unless they take larger trees. But we can’t let them do that if we want to keep our forests (and ourselves) healthy.

As such, the most logical player to resolve the tragedy of the commons dilemma is the government. Yet federal funds for forest management are insufficient and there is not nearly enough at the state level.

The other myth that Pyne spoke about was the myth that forests are not healthy because the environmentalists made it impossible to log.

This is false for several reasons, and only serves to create a bugaboo for rural voters, rather than solutions.

First, forest health was undermined because both logging interests and environmentalists from the 1920s to the 1970s thought that the best approach was to suppress every fire.

According to Payne, “At the time, that made sense because the forests were over-logged by the previous century of clear-cutting and over-burning. The 1970s saw a change in policies, but getting that operational on the ground has been spotty. Further, they were not nuanced in how they prescribed burns. Basically, we operated for 50 years in the old policy and we’ve spend the 40 years since trying to correct it. You can’t blame environmentalists for that.”

He does say, however, that the current National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) regulations need to be modernized and adapted to allow for better management.

NEPA, he says, was not designed for fire management. We shouldn’t discard public accountability, but we should reform the system. We should not give up safeguards just because we allow logging, but it needs to be more responsive. He points to the Nature Conservancy’s conservation model as something to be emulated.

Of course you can see the problem here. Just try to ask the same Congress that can’t keep the government open consistently to agree new NEPA regulations and see how that goes.

Another myth: this is a problem that state and federal governments should solve unilaterally. Actually, no. We need to look ourselves to see how we, the public, have contributed to the problem and how we can solve it. It is the public, after all, that fails to build their forest homes with fire-resistant materials and defensible spaces.

As a result, homes burn and fire fighters spend precious time trying to defend homes that should not be nestled so closely to the trees.

Well, I don’t own a cabin in the woods, but we are all “the public” and we should be looking at our own behavior, just as we should with any environmental problem.

Pyne says that we need to bring, “urban expectations to an ex-urban setting.”

To put it another way, county governments need to enact and enforce laws about how to build homes in forest lands.

Just as cities enforced fire codes over 100 years ago to prevent massive urban fires, government needs to enforce laws that are appropriate for the urban-forest interface.

“We manage building materials in cities, but not in these ex-urban areas. Why not? Our cities used to burn this much, but we solved that. Instead of thinking of them as woodland fires, think of them as urban fires with funny landscaping.”

Specifically, that means choosing metal roof materials and clearing smaller trees and brush away from the house to create a defensible space. Pyne did these things to his property near Alpine and his property survived the Wallow fire.

I asked him where we should start first and what it would cost.

According to Pyne, we need to target the areas that matter the most: woodland-interface communities, water sheds and particularly sensitive lands.

I have made the recommendation to other government officials over the years that we treat forest health like cities treat recycling. The government should pay the cost of healthy forest management and should manage the sale of materials to the highest bidders.

This won’t make money for the city or state, but we can defray the cost, support new forest industries, improve forest health and prevent massive wildfires.

14-inch diameter Ponderosa pine is perfect for 2x4s, we can get mulch from bark and press board from excess shavings.

Pyne points to the Ecological Restoration Institute at NAU, which has been thinning for 25 years, as it looks for various ways to pay for itself. Naturally, it has not yet.

As for the cost, that’s just an issue of priorities. “We subsidize everything, anyway: high fructose corn syrup, fossil fuels. Subsidies are much cheaper than forest fires. It’s already costing us money.”