Yorba Linda signs pact for Orange County Conservation Corps members to aid in vegetation management; OC water district election results

Yorba Linda's City Council has signed a memorandum of understanding with the non-profit Orange County Conservation Corps that's estimated to save the city “thousands of dollars” annually by reducing the cost of vegetation management and other landscape-related services.

The corps will provide the services at no cost to the city through a state-funded grant. The agreement runs through December 2025, with extensions possible if state grant funding is renewed. The corps will pay insurance costs and indemnify the city.

City staff members are working with corps officials to identify project areas for corps workers, according to a report prepared for council members by Austin Postovoit, senior management analyst for the city.

Postovoit said corps officials contacted the city last year about corps members working on projects to “support sustainable land management, promote biodiversity protection, habitat restoration and wildfire resilient landscapes.”

Corps members are low-income, at-risk adults ages 18 to 30 in a program designed to build self-sufficiency with employment, training and educational programs, according to a mission statement. Founded in 1993, the corps has provided paid job training for 8,000 members.

According to a 26-page agreement with the city, the corps will provide a full-time crew Monday through Thursday from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. to work on projects involving brush clearing, fire-fuel and open-space management, general landscaping and other similarly scoped tasks.

The work crew, crew member transportation and tools are provided at no cost to the city, but the city is responsible for the disposal of trash and green waste generated by corps projects.

Postovoit's report noted that the Public Works and Parks and Recreation departments, using in-house personnel and outside contracted vendors, share responsibility for all landscape services.

“These divisions collectively ensure maintenance of a robust urban forest (and) hundreds of acres of landscaping, while also overseeing vegetation management for more rural areas in the city,” he said.

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Buena Park resident Roger Yoh won a sixth four-year term on the 10-member Orange County Water District board of directors over Yorba Linda resident Al Nederhood with about 48% of the vote. The district administers the county groundwater basin.

Nederhood, a current director of the seven-member county Municipal Water District board that administers imported water and a past Yorba Linda Water District director, won about 31%. Monique Davis won about 21%.

Nederhood maintains his seat on the municipal board. He was elected to an unexpired two- year term in 2020 and for four years in 2022. Yoh was first elected to the OC board in 2004.

Yoh topped the vote in Yorba Linda, Placentia and La Palma and the portions of Brea, Buena Park and Cypress in his service area.