Agenda

Thursday, February 9, 2006

Fire Station #1 – Basement

2300 9^th Avenue North

1:30 p.m.

Introductions

Minutes

Quarterly Financial Report - – [Jim Kraft]

Reports will be presented quarterly in the months of March, June, September, and December.

Committee Reports

1) Exercise Design Committee Report [Jeff Ashworth]

2) Grants Subcommittee [Diane Lehm]

3) CAER / Citizens Corp Council Subcommittee/CERT [Pam Sanderson]

4) Unified Health Command & Medical Reserve Corps [Dr. Doug Moore]

5) Conference Subcommittee [Michael Smith]

6) Communications Subcommittee [Alan Riley]

1. Big Sky 11 Consortium [Jim Kraft]

7) Training Subcommittee [Charles Bonnett]

New Business

Old Business

1) Emergency Management Conference ~ Billings

2) WMD / EMS Training Sponsored by Texas A&M University

Other Business

1) Meeting Dates for 2006 [2^nd Thursday of each month @ 1:30 p.m.]

January 12, 2006	July 13, 2006
February 9, 2006	August 10, 2006
March 9, 2006	September 14, 2006
April 13, 2006	October 12, 2006
May 11, 2006	November 9, 2006
June 8, 2006	December 14, 2006

Minutes

January 12, 2006

Present: Jeff Ashworth, DXP-SafetyMaster; Chuck Bikle; Radio Club; Bill Facer, FBI; Kathy Gibson, Billings Fire Dept; Ron Glass, YARES; Craig Guelff, Brenntag West, Inc.; Lyndy Gurchiek, AMR; Charlie Hanson, MT District V DES Representative; Jim Kraft, Yellowstone County DES; Dianne Lehm, Big Sky EDA; Joe Marcotte, Deaconess Billings Clinic; Dr. Doug Moore, Yellowstone City/County Health; Duke Nieskens, County Water District-Billings Heights; John Puckett, Yellowstone City-County Health; Alan Riley, Lockwood Fire District; Ron Rosh, DPC; Richard Koehn, Lockwood Water & Sewer; Pam Sanderson, United Way Volunteer Center; Jim Scarlett, National Weather Service; Gary Workman, City of Billings Public Works-Water; Carl Zabrocki, Billings Fire Dept; Tony Marino, American Red Cross; Christopher Tanner, ARRL/Amateur Radio Club; Adene Hammond, American Red Cross.
Introductions:
Agenda Item	Discussion	Action Steps / Future Events
Minutes	Approved as distributed (Kraft/Bikle)
Financial Report	Jim Kraft reported that the current balance is: $13,080.76	Next report March 2006
Committee Reports	Exercise Design Committee: [Jeff Ashworth, Chair] January 24 is the next Design Committee meeting. Billings Clinic Annex, Room 3. ConocoPhillips full scale exercise is tentatively planned to occur sometime the week of September 10-11, 2006. As discussed previously it will be a 2-3 day exercise, with 75% of the exercise time being conducted by ConocoPhillips internally. LEPC will be participating in the planning stages, decontamination exercises. Also included will be the activation of the EOC as well as ConocoPhillips National Activation plan. Mass Immunization Exercise ~ Tentatively planned for October 24. Early planning stages indicate that the exercise could involve personnel from the following agencies or disciplines ~ EOC, Fire, Law Enforcement (Police/Sheriff/Highway Patrol) and City/County Health. Anyone wishing to assist with the planning of LEPC sponsored exercises should contact Jeff Ashworth @ jashworth@dxpe.com	Exercise Design Committee Meeting: Tuesday, January 24 ConocoPhillips Exercise Mass Immunization Plan Exercise ~ Tentatively scheduled for October 24^th
Committee Reports	Grants Committee [Dianne Lehm, Chair] Dianne reported that she is assisting Pam Sanderson on the Citizen Corps on a grant application. Nothing new to report regarding the when the Guidelines for FY05 funding plan from the State of Montana will be released. As reported at the December meeting, preliminary information still indicates that these funds will be to support local community emergency responders in the area of interoperability communications among agencies. Jim reported that the State will be meeting in the near future to discuss grant fund distributions.	FY04 Grant for Communication Equipment Update on Grant Application submission on behalf of Citizens Corp. State’s determination of how FY05 and future Grant funds will be distributed.
	CAER/Citizens Corps [Pam Sanderson, Chair] Pam distributed copies of the Citizens Corp Council Committee Plan. The vision and purpose of the plan is to promote and encourage citizen participation and awareness to make Yellowstone County safer and secure through personal preparedness, volunteer training and volunteer service. Four goals are included in the plan, stated briefly they are: To engage and encourage more citizens to take personal responsibility, be trained and volunteer their services. To increase public and media awareness and exposure of disaster / homeland security-related issues and activities making connections to LEPC. To increase coordination and support among national CCC programs, i.e. Neighborhood Watch; CERT; VIPS; MRC. To build the capacity of the CCC / CAER Committee to guide the accomplishment of the CCC / CAER mission and purpose on behalf of the LEPC. At the December meeting Pam reported that the FY05 Citizens Corp packets had been received and that the Grant applications were due the end of January. A total of $87,000 is available state-wide. The grant application is complete and needs signatures by the LEPC Board. The following MOTION was made and approved Approval of the CAER / Citizens Corp Plan and to move forward with submission of the grant application. [Moore / Kraft] Unanimous	Citizen Corp Council Committee Plan draft. Citizens Corp grant application FY05 ~ approval of the Motion to move forward with submission of the grant application.
Committee Reports [cont]	Unified Health Command [Dr. Doug Moore] Dr. Moore reported that the Yellowstone County Disaster Plan has been completed and John has obtained all the signatures necessary to have it ready for signatures by the Yellowstone County Commissioners. The BT grant ~ St. Vincent Healthcare ~ listing of I.D. (infectious disease) physicians should be up and running within the next 6 months. Also in the works is a plan to have mutual aid agreements among healthcare facilities state-wide. Mass Immunization Exercise is still in the preliminary planning stages. Dr. Moore reported that Pat Bellinghausen, Opinion Page Editor, Billings Gazette will be attending the next UHC meeting.	Yellowstone County Disaster Plan presented to County Commission. BT Grant update Mutual Agreement update Mass Immunization Exercise planning update. Bio-detection and Pandemic Flu Plan status Disaster Plan templates on County Web Site
	Conference Committee [Michael Smith, Chair] Joe gave a brief report on the status of Conference. The majority of the speakers are confirmed and all LEPC member agencies are invited to attend. Conference Location: Holiday Inn Grand Montana Dates: March 16-17, 2006 Theme: Luck of the Irish	Anyone interested in assisting with the conference or becoming a corporate sponsor, please contact Michael Smith at MSSC. msmith@mssc.org
	Communications Committee [Alan Riley, Chair] Alan Riley reported that the Cross-Banding equipment is being installed and a working test of the equipment is being performed. Funding for the equipment was made possible through the Homeland Security Grant.	Status of cross-banding project.
	Big Sky Consortium [Jim Kraft] Jim reported that the Consortium has received $30,000 from the State to conduct site surveys of radio / communication towers under the jurisdiction of the members of the Big Sky 11 Consortium.	Status of tower site survey.
Committee Reports [cont]	Training Subcommittee [Charles Bonnett] No report.	I’ll contact Chuck regarding current news from the Training Subcommittee
Old Business	By-Law Review The following MOTION was made and approved. Adoption of the By-Laws of the Local Emergency Planning Committee [LEPC] for 2006. [Kraft/Ashworth] Unanimous	A copy of the By-Laws will be included in the email of the January meeting minutes as a separate attachment.
Other Business	Spring Emergency Management Conference - Billings Dates and times TBA [Joe / Jim ?? When you have this information can you forward it to me and I will get it out to the members. J Thanks keg	Dates / Times TBA
	WMD / EMS Training Workshop ~ Billings Three-day workshop, sponsored by Texas A&M University. Dates and times TBA [Joe / Jim ?? When you have this information can you forward it to me and I will get it out to the members. J Thanks keg	Dates / Times TBA

There being no other business, the meeting was adjourned.

The next meeting of the Yellowstone County LEPC is February 9, 2006 @ 1:30 p.m., Basement Training Room, Headquarters Fire Station; use the 2300 9^th Avenue North entrance.

Kathy E. Gibson

Recording Secretary/LEPC

gibsonk@ci.billings.mt.us