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LOCAL EMERGENCY PLANNING COMMITTEE MINUTES

February 21, 2008

Don Button called the meeting to order at 12:02 in the basement of the Grant County Courthouse.  Fourteen members and one guest were present. Jeff Baier, Alfred Baker, Richard Banes Jr, Don Button, Vivian Button, John Crosby, Jerry Jo Deckert, Richard Everett, Ruben Flores, Roger Gardner, Alan Olson, Sharon Phelps, Frank Goldsby, Matt Mercer and Anita Alvarado.

Jeff Baier made a Motion to approve the minutes to the last meeting. Jerry Jo Deckert seconded. Motion carried.

We have received verbal approval of our HMEP (Hazardous Materials Emergency Planning) Grants for 4 people to take the Railcar Specialist Training at TTCI and 1 to take the 80 Hr HazMat Technician class at TTCI.  We have not received the paper work.

Angee Morgan, KDEM Senior Plans Officer/SCO, informed us by e-mail that our Local Emergency Operations Plan had been approved.  All departments need to look at their parts before we send it to the commissioners for approval

The Ulysses News is putting together an Emergency Medical Guide or Emergency Disaster Guide for 2008 for the Feb 28 issue.  They are selling ads and wanted to know if we wanted to purchase an ad.  The LEPC has no funds.  We had a lot of discussion about what they are going to put in and if it would be up to date information.  John Crosby and Roger Gardner recommended we ask them to hold off a week and let us look at their information and make sure it is up to date and correct.  Don will go talk to the Ulysses New.

The National Weather Service will be conducting Storm Identification and Spotter Training on March 18, 2008.  The first class is at 3:00 PM and the second class is at 7:00 PM in the Lawson Room at the Grant County Civic Center.  The public is welcome at these meeting.  If we do not have very many participants show up at the afternoon meeting we may only have one meeting next year.

A meeting was held in Salina to discuss additional EMPG Funds that could be used for Resource Typing and Credentialing for NIMS compliance.  Don Button attended this meeting. The state is developing excel spread sheets to help categorize equipment resources. This will be done for the county and city and we would like to see private industry also come on board.

Grant County had 5 people attend the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Training in Garden City.

The information meeting for the Community Emergency Response Team Training was held on February 18.  We had 11 people signup and two more have signed up since.  The dates for the CERT class are April 11 starting at 6 pm and April 12 starting at 8 AM April 25 starting at 6 pm and April 26 starting at 8 am.  All 4 classes need to be attended. This is open to the public if any one else would like to attend.

Incident Management Team training for the southwest region will be March 24 to 29.  This is being run thru the Kansas University Fire School.  Don attended the State wide IMT working group meeting.  They discussed Policy and Procedures and discussed making the IMT Teams 8 person.  Emergency Management Institute recommended basic Incident Management Teams consist of 8 people per team.  The southwest Region had already set up their teams with 8 people.

Alan Olson stated he thought it would be a good idea to meet and go over department policies for severe weather.

Roger Gardner asked if anything had been accomplished about the shelters at Bed Rock.  Not to our knowledge.  We will check into this.

Richard Everett demonstrated the satellite phone that belongs to the Health Department. Don asked the health department about some of their plans to add to our Local Emergency Plan.  Richard stated they are reviewing them and then he will get them to us.

John Crosby talked about their new trench rescue equipment and the training Paratech will be putting on. They do not have dates for the training set up at this time.  They used the BP funds they received to purchase the trench rescue equipment and 2 intercom systems.  The intercom system worked very well at the last fire.  John also talked about we need to do some planning for the city lake project. 

Jerry Jo Deckert stated the EMT class was going well. The class will finish in May and test in June.  She reminded everyone the Health Fair in March 15.  The Grant County Safety Committee is setting up CPR and First Aid classes for the county employees.

The dates are April 2, 8, 10 and 16.

Discussion was held on construction around the city and county.

Don recommended we hold the next LEPC meeting at the Fire Department so the committee could tour the hazmat trailer and the communications trailer. Roger Gardner made a motion to hold the next meeting at the Fire Department.  Al Baker seconded.  Motion carried. The next meeting will be March 20, 2008 at the Grant County Fire Department at Noon.

John Crosby made a motion to adjourn.  Richard Banes seconded.  Motion carried.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:59 PM.

Submitted by Vivian Button