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As we have pointed out on our Breaking News page, it was announced at the last Council meeting that on Jan. 26th at 6:30 pm at City Hall, Public Works Management (PWM), the City's floodplain management contractor, will be providing the City with a plan for bringing the remaining properties from the 2001 FEMA inspections into compliance and begin the challenging project of inspecting all floodplain properties in the city and helping the property owners bring all those properties into compliance as well.
This is an enormous undertaking and will be costly for both property owners and the city, but it is part of the requirement imposed by FEMA to keep the city from being suspended from the National Flood Insurance Program. It will also ensure that our floodplain is safe and secure for all the people of Shady Cove.
We have heard nothing to date regarding the "Letter of Final Determination" (LFD) FEMA will be issuing to Shady Cove to kick off the six-month period provided for the City to adopt the new flood maps distributed last summer. If the City fails to meet the deadline, it could face sanctions more severe than we faced in 2007.
On the same subject, as part of the process to remove Shady Cove from probation in late 2008, FEMA required that the City submit a quarterly report showing how the floodplain ordinance enforcement is progressing. So the City's third quarterly report of the year was delivered to FEMA on Nov. 10, 2009. The total number of corrections to the properties found to be in violation in the floodplain in 2001 remain at 18 out of the original 26 with no improvement since the Q2 report was submitted in June. This, while the cost for services from PWM continue to escalate, currently standing at over $102,000. FEMA has asked the City to continue this quarterly reporting through 2010, so the costs to comply should continue as well, which only emphasizes how expensive a mistake former mayor, Tom Anderson, made in 2001 when he chose to ignore FEMA's initial warnings that the City's floodplain ordinance was not being properly enforced.
The riparian area at the end of Brophy (See Flywater-Gate "Park") is in the floodway, which is regulated by both the City and the Federal government. No floodplain development permit was taken out for the clearing of vegetation there, and the City's position is that Ordinance #118 doesn't apply. You may remember, lack of floodplain oversight is how our city got into trouble with FEMA in the first place (See City Hall Shenanigans), and now after all the money and effort expended to satisfy FEMA, it appears the City is falling back once again into irresponsible floodplain stewardship.
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