HomeMy WebLinkAboutemergency mgmt April 2015GRANT COUNTY EMERGENCY DISASTER SERVICES COMMITTEE MEETING
GRANT COUNTY LAW ENFORCEMENT CENTER
Lancaster, WI 53813
April 13, 2015
The Grant County Emergency Disaster’s Services was called to order April 13, 2015 at 10:00 a.m. by
Chairman Bob Keeney. The following members and personnel were present:
EMERGENCY DISASTER SERVICES COMMITTEE: Lester Jantzen, Gary Ranum, Bob Scallon, Pat Schroeder,
Larry Wolf and John Patcle.
GUESTS: Steve Braun, Emergency Government, Tonya White, Recording Secretary, Joyce Roling, Grant
County Personnel Director, David Timmerman, Grant County Herald Independent.
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Steve Braun verified the agenda has been posted by Linda Gebhard and it was posted on the county
website. Lester second by Larry approved the agenda. Pat second by John approved the minutes. Pat
second by Bob S. approved the bills. All above motions carried.
Public Comments: None
Director’s Monthly Report: Severe weather awareness week is upon us this week. Our office will be
doing some social media releases along with public speaking about preparedness. The tornado drill will
be this week Thursday. The watch will be put out at 1:00 p.m. and the warning will be at 1:45 p.m. We
will be sounding the tornado sirens in the communities that have warning systems. Each year we do
find there is a few that do not work. There are a few tornado sirens that dispatch cannot set off.
Someone has to go to the fire station and push the button. Steve is hoping to reach out to the
communities and encourage them to look into changing the system so dispatch can set off the tornado
siren.
Our office has been doing outreach with the alert monitors and has had a few businesses purchase the
monitors. We do weekly testing on Wednesdays and will have those businesses and schools contact
our office so we know they are working properly. If we do not hear from them then we make a phone
call and try to troubleshoot the issue.
Weather spotter training was held last month in Fennimore and Platteville. The NWS trained about 250
people, so it was very well attended. We are thankful to have missed the weather last week. Beetown
area did have golf ball size hail.
Swiftwater training will be held in Pembine in June and we are hoping to have a few people attend.
Right now the team only has about 15 people and Steve feels the team could use more people so he has
been trying to recruit members.
Steve passed around a picture of the fire poster award banquet that was held at Lancaster Fire Station
this past Saturday. Each year the fire departments have schools do fire posters and there is an awards
banquet held for the winners.
Under Old Business Steve discussed the Railroad Training that we attended. Because of the positive
response the training was moved to Crawford County Administration Building in Prairie du Chien. The
majority of the attendees were from Grant County. It was a very informative training for not only crude
oil but also for other issues that can happen along a railway. There are more in depth classes that are
offered in Pueblo, CO that are paid for by the railroad. Our office would like to partner with Richland
County to do a railroad commodity study.
Steve showed the drone that was talked about last month. The unit was selected because of it's high
video quality and also its ability to feed live video. Hazmat team personnel will be training on the
drone's operation. It was suggested that Steve check in to insuring the unit.
Under Old Business Steve spoke about the communications upgrade. The upgrade has been going well
for the last five or six weeks. There are still a few intermittent bugs that do come up so a technician has
to be sent out to do the repairs. This is normal with any communications upgrade. Overall there is
much better coverage and deputies and fire chiefs report being happy with the improvements. The last
step of the upgrade has yet to be completed, which involves converting the old Sheriff's repeaters for
use on the statewide IFERN Fire/EMS Dispatch Frequency.
Under New Business Steve talked about the UW-Platteville student who is interested in being our intern
for the summer. His application was approved through the PACCE program. They will reimburse our
department for his wages. He will be paid $10.00/hour. Larry second by Gary made a motion to move
forward with the PACCE internship. Motion carried.
Lester moved second by Gary to go into closed session per state statue 19.85 (1) (c) regarding annual
employee performance appraisal for the position of Emergency Management Director. The closed
session included Larry, Bob K., Bob S., Pat, Lester, Gary, John, Steve and Joyce. Roll call vote resulted in
a carried motion.
Bob seconded by Pat moved to return to open session. Motion carried.
It was motioned by John and second by Lester to adjourn to May 11, 2015 at 10:00 a.m. Motion carried.
Respectfully Submitted,
Tonya White, Recording Secretary