April 26, 2022 - Editor, Mariposa needs a hard-working supervisor, a supervisor who is exceptionally well-informed, has broad leadership experience engaging with the local and state organizations so critically important to Mariposa, a supervisor who can bring stakeholders - often with seemingly competing interests - together to solve problems cooperatively and, simply, a supervisor who can get things done.
We need a supervisor who understands our often very complex challenges and issues and who already has experience identifying and implementing solutions.
Fortunately for District 1 and the county of Mariposa, we already have that supervisor: Rosemarie Smallcombe.
Rosemarie should be re-elected and allowed to continue her excellent service for our community.
Her track record speaks for itself: she brings people together, she is solution-oriented and she gets things done.
A few examples:
Responding to increased tree mortality, Rosemarie established the local Tree Mortality working group (now Mariposa County Fire Advisory Committee), she successfully petitioned the Governor to declare a State of Emergency and is now working on facilitating the clearing of evacuation routes and local roads of hazard trees. She brought partners together to accomplish $5.4 million worth of tree mitigation work in Mariposa County, funded through the California Disaster Assistance Act by securing a line item in the Governor’s budget.
With the threat of catastrophic wild-fires hanging over our heads (which my own community has barely escaped three times since 1990), Rosemarie has been working diligently with community members and associated stakeholders to enable Mariposa communities to systematically reduce fire-loads, to share best practices and to safe-guard our properties.
As we all know, Mariposa’s vulnerability to wildfire has not gone unnoticed by the insurance industry and many have had their insurance more than double or, worse, dropped. Fortunately, Rosemarie served as co-leader of the Insurance Sub Group of the state Forest Health Task Force, and through her network of partners has been working at the state level to promote regulations that require insurance companies to provide affordable policies to property owners that work to make their properties fire safe.
Rosemarie’s bringing people together was demonstrated just recently when, as a member of the Board of the Yosemite Gateway Partners, she reached out to folks from the business community outside Glacier National Park, inviting them to share at the quarterly YGP meeting how they worked with Glacier National Park to ensure that its reservation system would benefit their communities. At the meeting they shared with Yosemite National Park officials and members of the Yosemite gateway communities how, through clear and careful communication and messaging, all parties benefitted while welcoming more tourists, enhancing their visiting experience and increasing demand for tourist experiences outside Glacier National Park.
Mariposa already has a remarkably well-informed supervisor with an established track record of bringing people together to effectively address the challenges we all face and make a significant difference in our lives.
Re-elect Rosemarie Smallcombe.
Sigurd Meldal
Foresta, CA
