Public Safety Sub Committee Meeting 11/15/2012

PUBLIC SAFETY SUBCOMMITTEE - ADOPTED MINUTES
REGULAR MEETING - NOVEMBER 15, 2012

CALL TO ORDER
Mr. John Hampton, Chairman, called the regular meeting of the Public Safety Subcommittee to order on Thursday, November 15, at 7:00 a.m., in the Main Meeting Room at the Town Offices. The following members were also present: Chief Ingvertsen; Simsbury Police Department, Kevin Kowalski; Emergency Management Director, Chief James Baldis; Simsbury Volunteer Fire Department, Mickey Lecours-Beck; Social Services, Tom Cooke; Director of Administrative Services Lucille G. Bowman; Simsbury Volunteer Ambulance Association, Michael Delehanty; Simsbury Volunteer Ambulance Association, Geoffrey A. Giddings; Civil Defense, William Ketchabaw; Simsbury Volunteer Fire Department, and Sean Askham; Board of Selectmen.  Jeff Cochran, CL&P and CT State Senator Kevin Witkos were also in attendance.

PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
Everyone stood for the Pledge of Allegiance.

PUBLIC AUDIENCE
Mr. Hampton began the meeting by thanking Senator Kevin Witkos for attending the meeting and asked him if he would like to speak during Public Audience. Senator Witkos said he was in attendance at the meeting today in his other role, as an employee of CL&P.  He said CL&P has developed a group, Community Relations, resulting from feedback after last year’s series of storms. He continued by saying he is based out of Simsbury and will act as a liaison for the towns that operate out of the Simsbury Work Zone. 

APPROVAL OF MINUTES - SEPTEMBER 20, 2012 (REGULAR MEETING)
Mr. Askham made a motion to approve the September 20, 2012 Regular Meeting minutes as presented. The motion was seconded by Chief Baldis and was passed unanimously.

REPORTS
Michael Delehanty, Simsbury Volunteer Ambulance Association -  Mr. Delehanty thanked Mr. Kowalski and everyone involved with the EOC for their response to Hurricane Sandy. He asked Mr. Hampton where they stand with regards to the HeartSafe proposal. Mr. Hampton said he would follow up on that issue.

Kevin Kowalski, Civil Preparedness - Mr. Kowalski said he wanted to cover a few key points with regards to Hurricane Sandy. Mr. Kowalski began by saying, although not all of the facts are in yet, he does not think the “new program” has made a big difference in terms of response. He said the big break in communication is a result of the fact that Simsbury is not assigned one consistent work crew. Mr. Kowalski continued by saying he also thinks it was an unfair use of resources, and not efficient, to have to get a crew into the community pre-storm. Mr. Kowalski said this needs to be looked at more closely because he did not see any major changes from the last storm and he thinks the communication needs to improve.  Chief Baldis said they all can help CL&P by prioritizing areas of need during these situations and communication is key.

Mr. Cochran said the objective was to first resolve all road clearing issues and once that was addressed, the crews could be redirected to other work.  He went on to say power restoration is prioritized by “critical customers”. Mr. Cochran then reviewed the restoration process used when getting customers back online as quickly as possible. Mr. Kowalski spoke to Mr. Cochran about initial response and the priority system.  Mr. Kowalski then said he was confused and annoyed that it took 16 hours to get our number one priority even looked at. Mr. Kowalski said there was a failure on the part of the crew that came up for that assignment. Continuing, Mr. Kowalski said while he does not want control of restoration crews, he just wants to help work the priorities. Mr. Cochran said there will be an internal meeting to discuss feedback and he will bring Mr. Kowalski’s comments back for discussion. Chief Ingvertsen added by saying that issue took staff away from him and cost him a significant amount of money, which he cannot recover from FEMA. Mr. Cochran said they were stretched on their work crews due to the fact that extra crews were sent down to the coasts to deal with the devastation in that area.

Mr. Kowalski then reviewed the water and food that was handed out and said they did not open a shelter, which he still believes was the right decision. He said they are currently reviewing the output of communication during and after Hurricane Sandy. Mr. Kowalski said while Rick Bazzano did a great job with regards to the EOC, and he thinks they should take a look at the connectivity infrastructure in order to ensure they do not go down in the future. He said there are still issues with the web EOC, but Mr. Bazzano has done a great job with that as well. Mr. Kowalski said we did not meet the monetary threshold of damage in order to qualify for FEMA assistance. He then thanked the Health District for their work as well. Mr. Kowalski said they will be creating and maintaining a Facebook page solely for emergency information purposes. Mr. Hampton spoke about the plan to hire a part-time position and one responsibility of that new hire would include the organizing of online communication during these types of events.

Lastly Mr. Kowalski said he thinks they need to reevaluate the number of people admitted in the EOC during these emergency situations. He said the operations in the EOC are mission oriented, not information oriented. He suggested the creation of a list, authorized by the First Selectmen, that is posted outside the EOC and if someone is not on the list, they are not allowed in. This was discussed further.

Chief James Baldis, Simsbury Volunteer Fire Department - Chief Baldis briefed the subcommittee members on his storm response. He spoke of efforts taken to support other towns in Connecticut and how those efforts are funded. Chief Baldis said the traffic light in front of the main station is in the process of being repaired and should be operational soon. Chief Baldis said there were some recent rescues on Talcott Mountain and Stratton Brook State Park, as well as assisting one in Bloomfield.  He concluded his remarks by reminding everyone that Simsbury Celebrates! will be held this coming Saturday, November 24th.

Chief  Ingvertsen, Police Department - Chief Ingvertsen said renovations are underway at the dispatch center and they expect the radio system to be replaced by the end of December. He then spoke of the three (3) new all-wheel drive vehicles that will be on the road shortly.

Mickey Lecours-Beck, Social Services - Ms. Lecours-Beck began by saying she supported the decision to not open the shelter after Hurricane Sandy. She did say there was hot soup going all week at Eno Hall, once power was back on. They did bring some meals out to those who did not have power, a lot of which were at Belden Forest. She also said there were a number of places offering to shelter those in need, but there was really no need. Ms. Lecours-Beck spoke of the meals distributed and the success of the neighbor-to-neighbor program.

Mr. Kowalski spoke about plans to speak with the Chamber of Commerce in the near future regarding communication during an emergency event.

NEW BUSINESS
a) Approve 2013 Calendar of meetings
Chief Ingvertsen proposed going back to meeting quarterly and if there needs to be another meeting, it can be scheduled. This topic was discussed and it was pointed out that it is easier to cancel rather than add meetings, so it could be assessed on a case-by-case basis.  It was suggested that when agenda items are solicited, if there are no pertinent items submitted from the subcommittee members, the meeting will then be cancelled.

Ms. Lecours-Beck made a motion to approve the 2013 Meeting Calendar. The motion was seconded by Mr. _____ (I think Mr. Askham) and passed unanimously.

ADJOURNMENT
Mr. Bowman made a motion to adjourn the November 15th regular meeting of the Public Safety Subcommittee at 8:02AM. The motion was seconded by ______ and passed unanimously.

Respectfully submitted,

____________________________________  ______________________________
Mr. John Hampton, Chairman    Leslie U. Faraci, Clerk