City Parks Dept. Failed to Clear Dangerous Brush, Report Says

The city Recreation and Parks Department has failed to clear dangerous brush along 45 miles of streets and dirt roads despite Fire Department requests to do so, according to a city report.

The fire-prone brush remains uncleared in four dozen parcels of hillside parkland from the San Fernando Valley to Griffith Park, the report said.

In addition, the Recreation and Parks Department was cited this summer by the Fire Department for missing a May deadline for clearing brush around 68 structures. The work was eventually completed.

Although the fires that scorched thousands of acres throughout Southern California this week did not reach any city land, fire officials say the clearance around roads and dirt roads reduces the chance that a blaze can be sparked by a discarded cigarette or match.

“Cigarettes are a big concern,” said Capt. Paul Quagliata, head of the Fire Department’s brush clearance unit. “People walking, driving or riding horses can drop cigarettes and start a fire.”

Recreation and Parks officials concede that the brush in parkland poses a fire danger but attribute the problem to a limited budget and new, tougher brush clearance enforcement by the Fire Department.

George Stigile, a parks maintenance supervisor, said the parks department has already spent $300,000 to clear brush adjacent to structures.

But he said he believes the Fire Department has for the first time required recreation officials to clear brush along streets, fire roads and dirt roads, which will cost an additional $92,000.

“We have always placed priority on the residences,” he said. “But we are now looking at the Fire Department citing us to clear brush along roads . . . “

But Quagliata said fire officials have not changed the requirements for brush clearance, adding that the Recreation and Parks Department has had the same problems every year.

“Each year the problem compounds and the brush gets twice as thick when it hasn’t been done the year before,” he said.

The Fire Department requires private landowners and public agencies to clear a 10-foot width along streets and roadways and a 100-foot width around structures.

Fire officials issue notices by May, giving landowners 15 days to clear the brush. If the work is not done within the 15-day period, the city hires a contractor to do the work and then bills the landowner for the cost.

Although the Fire Department also cites city agencies that fail to clear brush, those agencies can hire their own contractors to do the work.

The parkland areas that have not been cleared are located along city streets and dirt roads in Porter Ranch, around O’Melveny Park, Griffith Park and in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Part of the problem can also be attributed to the city’s funding cycle, parks officials said. The Recreation and Parks Department receives its funding for brush clearance on July 1, at the start of the fiscal year--about two months after the Fire Department’s deadline for brush to be cleared.

Because the funding cycle provides the money months after the Fire Department’s deadline passes, Stigile said recreation officials are always “playing catch-up.”

In addition, Stigile said that the department has also taken over new parkland in the West Valley that wasn’t its responsibility in the past.

Recreation officials asked a City Council committee Monday for additional funding to pay for the brush clearance but they did not get a sympathetic ear.

Councilwoman Laura Chick, who chairs the Public Safety Committee, said she was angry that recreation officials did not notify her earlier about the shortfall and continued to leave many parcels uncleared.

“I’m a fanatic about applying rules equally,” she said. “Our own city family has to abide by the same rules that apply to citizens and businesses.”

Chick recommended that the council increase the department’s funding for brush clearance to $392,000 and provide the money earlier in the summer to meet the brush clearance deadline.

But she asked that the Recreation and Parks Department pay for the additional $92,000 needed for this year with department savings.

“We have got to get the department to do what they need to do,” Chick said.

Chick was tipped off to the brush clearance problem in July when West Hills resident Rhonda Kalan complained to her that she was cited for brush behind her house and yet saw parkland along a nearby wash that was never cleared.

“When I was cited, I took care of the problem,” Kalan said. “But it dawned on me that the city was not doing it; they were just passing the buck.”