Memorandum
Date: March 11, 2025
To: The Honorable E.J. Crandell, Chair, Lake County Board of Supervisors
From: Benjamin Rickelman, Deputy County Administrative Officer
Subject: 10:00 A.M. - Consideration of Presentation of the Tribal EcoRestoration Alliance's Training Facility
Executive Summary:
The Tribal EcoRestoration Alliance (TERA) is an intertribal nonprofit organization founded in 2019 and based in Upper Lake. A cross-cultural, multi-organizational collaborative, it seeks to revitalize ecology, economy and culture through Indigenous-led land stewardship. TERA has been operating community programs since 2021 designed to build capacity in Lake County to steward lands in a way that builds climate resilience, reduces risk of impact from catastrophic events such as wildfire and drought, improves wildlife habitat, and creates jobs with livable wages for community members.
TERA has been awarded $3.9 million through a Community Development Block Grant - Disaster Relief Program (CDBG-DR), in partnership with the Workforce Development Board of the North Bay. The project includes the acquisition of a 140-acre parcel of land on Highway 29 near Upper Lake. TERA intends to utilize this property as a training facility and homebase for administrative staff, its full-time stewardship crew, Native plant nursery, and an occasional training site to host groups to learn about wildfire resilience, prescribed fire, land stewardship, and tribal traditional ecological knowledge. Through this grant, it will also be offering wildfire resilience vocational training programs available at no cost to all Lake County low-income residents. Programs include a 4-week intensive, a 3-month on-the-job training, and National Wildfire Coordinating Group curriculum trainings which will prepare individuals for career pathways and create a pipeline to jobs with fire agencies, Tribes, and NGO’s.
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Estimated Cost: ___0_____ Amount Budgeted: ________ Additional Requested: ________ Future Annual Cost: ________
Purchasing Considerations (check all that apply): ☒ Not applicable
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☒ Well-being of Residents ☐ Public Safety ☒ Disaster Prevention, Preparedness, Recovery
☒ Economic Development ☐ Infrastructure ☐ County Workforce
☐ Community Collaboration ☐ Business Process Efficiency ☐ Clear Lake
Recommended Action: Presentation only, no action is required.