Marshall Fire Community Updates 
May 9, 2022
 
Community Foundation Wildfire Fund Updates
Last week, we heard from Tatiana Hernandez, CEO of the Boulder County Community Foundation about the Wild Fire Funds that were raised for the Marshall Fire. 
 
Community Foundation (CF) presented their proposed budget to a large group of fire survivors last week. They are currently planning to distribute $20M to underinsured fire survivors who are rebuilding. Fire survivors would apply for this money via the disaster navigators being coordinated by Boulder County and CF (hopefully available in late June). CF also proposed a $2.5M unmet needs fund that could be used to pay for a variety different needs fire survivors are facing. We plan to have more conversations with CF to share the feelings our community has expressed about the proposed budget.
 
The Colorado Department of Local Affairs will be dispersing federal HUD funds via Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) for rebuilding and disaster mitigation. The vast majority of CDBG funds will go to low and moderate income fire survivors. We do not know yet how much money this might add to fire survivors’ home rebuild budgets. There should be more information available in June.
 
SB22-206 and Marshall Fire Families
We are keeping our eyes on SB22-206, a Colorado bill that would provide millions of dollars in loans and grants that could be used, among other things, to “Subsidize costs to repair or rebuild a homeowner’s primary residence that are insufficiently covered by the homeowner’s insurance or by federal assistance programs . . .” SB22-206 would also provide money that could be used to build back in an energy efficient or more disaster resistant manner. It looks like there is a lot of flexibility in how the millions could be spent, so we may not know what this means for fire survivors immediately after it passes. We are eager to learn more.
 
Insurance Corner
Stay tuned: Marshall Together survey coming out in May as we finalize our findings.
 
From Slack: Lots of useful discussion on the Slack channel.  Some recent topics:
  • If you have 12 month ALE, DORA has said to call them around month 8 to get help. As a reminder, a $ limit on ALE coverage is against Colorado law.
  • If you bought (not renewed) your policy within 12 months before the fire, the Division of Insurance says they are treating these cases as a "bundle" and need you to contact them.
  • Lots of differences between adjusters for the same insurance company.  Some fire survivors are having success using other survivors' rebuild estimates (from a different adjuster) to rebut lowball estimates.  Reach out on your insurance company Slack channel.
  • Some survivors have heard from their insurance companies that Ordinance and Law coverage will not be difficult to claim, some as simple as a line item at the time of rebuild.
 
Division of Insurance releases report on underinsurance problem
Debris Removal Law Suit
Update on the CERES vs. Boulder County lawsuit to stop the debris cleanup - Marshall Together filed a Motion to Intervene yesterday, we are officially a party in the lawsuit! Thanks so much to Berg Hill for faithfully representing us again on this matter. Rudy Verner, Josh Mark, and Andrew Fischer have put in dozens of hours of their time pro bono to help our community move the fire recovery  forward.
 
What happens next? We are waiting for the Court to rule on Boulder County’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit. We will update you here when there is news.
City of LOUISVILLE
Lowering Permit Fees and Use Taxes on our minds
The city is still figuring out its finances with insurance reimbursement, FEMA, etc. The Planning department will put forth proposals to Council for additional expenditures to facilitate rapid reconstruction.  Example: There will be new painted lines on all the streets to facilitate traffic, storage, utilities, etc.  These will be an additional cost that building permit fees are expected to cover.
City council will have a better understanding of cost projections in the next 2-3 months — the goal is to only charge fees to cover costs and not make any profits. Half of the Use Tax collected is from Louisville and half from the County.  Louisville is still evaluating anticipated expenses before making formal decisions. More to come.
 
Having trouble joining our Slack community? If you're a Fire survivor, please hit reply to this email with your fire impacted home address and we'll invite you to join.
 
Until we all get home
Marshall Together Team

 

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