Mendocino Redwood Co. is challenging a tiny fire protection district’s new parcel tax, calling it unlawful.
It’s one of two fronts on which the timber corporation is wrangling with the 44-square-mile Albion-Little River Fire Protection District, which has about 3,000 residents along the Mendocino County coast. The other battle is over the company’s practice of poisoning unwanted trees and leaving them to decompose in forests, which critics say creates a fire hazard.
The tax — approved by 83 percent of district voters last year and set to begin generating revenue in January — is aimed at keeping the struggling volunteer fire department afloat and spreading the cost of fire protection among residents and owners of timberland within the fire district’s boundaries.
“We have calls for both fire and injuries” on commercial timberland, said fire district board President Chris Skyhawk.
The tax, known as Measure M, is expected to generate about $105,000 annually, raising the district’s yearly budget to about $250,000, he said.
Of the anticipated new tax revenue, about $34,000 would be paid by the owners of industrial timberland in the district. Mendocino Redwood owns the majority of that land, followed closely by the nonprofit Conservation Fund, Skyhawk said.
But Mendocino Redwood Co. says the local tax is unlawful because timber properties fall under the jurisdiction of the state firefighting agency, Cal Fire, not local fire authorities. Mendocino Redwood, along with a sister business, owns 438,000 acres in Mendocino, Humboldt and Sonoma counties.