Impending Crisis discussed @ Supes
By ROB BURGESS
The Daily Journal
Mandated emergency training turned into a discussion of an impending water crisis at Tuesday’s Mendocino County Board of Supervisors meeting.
The timed item was added as an addendum to the board’s regular meeting and was meant as a refresher course for the board, which was missing 5th District Supervisor David Colfax.
“For elected and appointed officials, protecting the public during crisis situations is among their most important tasks, if it wasn’t a priority before, in the wake of devastating events such as Sept. 11, 2001 and Hurricane Katrina, it is now,” stated a portion of the item’s agenda summary. “The arrival of a disaster situation should ignite leadership to set in motion – through an understood chain of command – the actions necessary to ensure the safety and well-being of the area’s residents.”
Bill Woodworth, emergency services coordinator, said that Ordinance 4168, which controls the county’s emergency organization and functions, was instituted to establish guidelines for such emergency situations.
“The ordinance was created about three years ago after the joint powers agreement was dissolved,” he said. “Roles and responsibilities were assigned.”
Woodworth said that Sheriff Tom Allman and CEO Tom Mitchell would serve as the management section of the chain of command should an emergency arise.
“I am charged with the day-to-day activities making sure this county can respond to a major emergency,” he said. “When we have small emergencies, those are handled by the local emergency responders. It’s when they are either so many emergencies taking place at one time or one big event that involves the County of Mendocino and our resources are tapped.”
Woodworth said the concept of continuity of government was essential during times of crisis.
“The daily government business still has to go on,” he said. “It is something that is very important because it gives the public the confidence that things aren’t coming apart. We still have our county government doing its job.”
Several supervisors, including Board Chair and 3rd District Supervisor John Pinches, said the county should begin an investigation into what pre-emptive steps could be taken to combat the coming water shortage.
“This drought is going to affect people’s lives every day,” said Pinches. “You can’t just sit back and wait for the federal government to send money. That doesn’t get it. There are some things we can do now…Here we are in a situation where we need to bring water in to meet basic needs.”
First District Supervisor Carre Brown said they would review a board-mandated declaration of a drought to be prepared by staff and presented at their March 3 meeting.
“I’m extremely nervous about how we go forward,” she said. “We need to have plans. If you think back to the fires of last summer what if we get those dry lightning storms and we don’t have any water?…We have a pending crisis…Plans need to be made now so we can deal with what we’re going to have to deal with. It’s not a disaster happening and then planning. We need to get very serious about this. The county has to be a leader on this; has to.”
Brown said the board would also receive a staff report at its February 24 meeting “to get a clearer picture on county participation” in the drought preparedness efforts.
“I feel it’s very timely that you came here,” she said.
Second Distrsict Supervisor John McCowen said individuals needed to have their own emergency plans in place before disaster struck.
“People do need to assume personal responsibility for their own situation,” he said.
Sheriff Tom Allman said utilizing generators and other potentially useful equipment seized in asset forfeitures required a lengthy, complicated process.
“If it was legal to use seized generators for governmental purposes, we wouldn’t have bought a new one for the jail,” he said. “Don’t consider it as free assets…There are some ways and several fire departments use generators that have been seized through assets seizure process, but don’t think about it as something free we can use…I just don’t want to venture into waters where other agencies have had their assets seizures frozen.”
Rob Burgess can be reached at udjrb@pacific.net.