North County Multiple Species Conservation Plan 

Covered Species & Covered Activities

Virtual Public Workshops

Tuesday April 18, 2023 & Wednesday April 26, 2023
6:00 p.m.
Zoom

Introduction

The County of San Diego (County) will hold public workshops for key components of the North County Multiple Species Conservation Plan (North County Plan). These public workshops will occur at regular intervals to incorporate feedback and adjust the plan as needed.

On Tuesday April 18, 2023, and Wednesday April 26, 2023, the County held a virtual public workshop to discuss the draft Covered Species list and the anticipated Covered Activities. The events were promoted using e-blasts, social media posts, and emails to stakeholders. County staff also attended stakeholder meetings. Twenty-one participants joined the events. They represented environmental, economic, recreation, equity, and community organizations. This document will help provide a summary of the meetings. It will include the meeting objectives and format, how input was received, and what was learned from the participants.

Objectives

The meeting was organized to accomplish the following objectives: 

• The meeting was organized to accomplish the following objectives: 
  
• Create a comfortable environment where participants can provide input and share concerns.  
• Explain the following about the North County Plan:
  • How it addresses endangered species act compliance
  • How it seeks to transfer decision-making to the local level
  • How it utilizes a collaborative process for plan development
  • How it relates to other regional habitat conservation efforts
• Share information and get input on the covered species, the covered activities, and the anticipated benefits of the North County Plan. This input will be used to help develop a balanced and successful plan..  

Format

At the virtual meetings community members participated in a staff and consultant-led presentation. The presentation included interactive questions and a Q&A session at the end of the workshop. Participants were invited to share their opinions using these interactive questions and the Q&A feature. At the end of the workshops, any remaining questions were answered live. Members of the public also had an opportunity to have an open discussion with staff. There were three main topics that participants were asked to provide feedback on during the workshops. They were the overview and background, Covered Species, and Covered Activities.

Interpretation was available for attendees whose primary language is Spanish. Registrants could also request interpretation in the other 7 threshold languages. The meeting materials were provided in Spanish on the project website. A link to these materials was provided to attendees at the workshop in the chat.

Major Themes

The input received can be grouped into four major themes. These themes are below. The ordering does not reflect importance or frequency.

• Preservation of the natural environment
• Ensuring that the public has reasonable and well-managed access to open spaces and educational activities
• Agriculture and land management practices
• Impacts of wildfire preparedness and mitigation activities

Interactive Question Responses

Staff asked 9 questions during the workshops. Eighteen workshop participants responded. There were 3 questions asked during the Overview & Background segment. 2 questions were asked during the Covered Species segment. 4 questions were asked during the Covered Activities segment. Two workshop participants were unable to access the application to submit responses. They were instructed to submit their responses using the Zoom chat feature. Their responses were included in the summary below.

Overview & Background

Overview & Background was the first part of the workshop. Staff asked participants to share what comes to mind when they hear the term, “conservation”. The responses created a word cloud. There were 20 responses from 8 participants from the April 18 workshop. There were 21 responses from 5 participants from the April 26 workshop. So a total of 41 responses from 13 participants.

The word clouds are shown below. They show that “open space,” “no/anti-development,” and “protection” were the most common responses. Other themes rose to the top as shown in the table below. The word cloud from April 18 highlights the word “development” because of the responses “no development” and “anti-development”.

For the second question, staff asked, “What brought you here today? Please explain your interest in the Multiple Species Conservation Plan."

For the third question, a list of 10 anticipated benefits of the North County Plan. They included community benefits, economic benefits, and environmental benefits. Participants then selected the benefit that was most important to them.

The anticipated benefits are listed below with the results from the workshop.

Covered Species

Next staff presented the updates to the draft Covered Species list. After the presentation, staff asked participants whether the draft Covered Species list does a good job of capturing the ecological diversity of northern San Diego County.

Participants who answered “no” were asked how the list of Covered Species could be improved.

Staff then presented the private development activities that could be covered. Then participants were asked which of the private development activities are most important to them.

Staff then presented the County activities that could be covered. This included activities that are associated with the implementation of the conservation strategy. Then participants were asked which of the County’s activities is most important to them.

Finally, staff presented information on how activities on other public lands would be addressed in the North County Plan. Projects regulated by other Federal agencies were also covered in this section. Activities that are not be covered were also presented. Participants were asked to list any other activities that the County should cover.