Wednesday, January 25, 2012
GENTRY — GENTRY - An emergency management group could be formed in Gentry to assist in the event of critical incidents, disasters and other events if a proposal made by Gentry Police Chief Keith Smith to the Police and Safety Committees on Jan. 17 becomes reality.
Smith said the city used to have a civil defense group to help and organize responses to natural disasters, acts of war or terrorism and other emergencies. He showed committee members a portion of city code defining and outlining the duties and responsibilities of such a group.
He also said the city has often received assistance from Siloam Springs’ Department of Emergency Management volunteers in matters like traffic control at accidents and events, and weather spotting.
Smith’s proposal is to rework the existing ordinance to redefine the group, its duties and a chain of command.
Smith suggested the group begin with about five trained and experienced volunteers, increasing to about 10 over time. He said the group’s purposes would include weather spotting, assisting in large critical events, organizing civilian relief efforts, helping with traffic and crowd control at city activities, and possibly developing a neighborhood watch program and helping to supervise community service workers.
Smith also said the group would work together with other local and state DEM groups and could be called upon to assist in other jurisdictions.
Smith said the cost to the city would be minimal - providing safety vests and caps with a citydesigned insignia and possibly some radios. He said, in most cases, the volunteers would use their own vehicles and purchase their own equipment.
He said communication with police and fire departmentswould probably be by radio or cell phone, and discussed the use of radio frequencies which might be an option for use, adding that a new trunking system which is proposed to go into use in 2013 may make many of the radios and frequencies obsolete.
Smith said he thought the group needed to be subordinate to the police department and under police supervision. He suggested having one of
his sergeants oversee the
group and allowing the
group to elect its own of
ficers (subject to police
department veto) to estab
lish a chain of command
within the group.
Committee members
voiced their approval of
the proposal and said
they saw the benefits of
restarting such a group in
Gentry.
Allowing time for study,
planning and ordinance
changes, Smith antici
pated such a group could
be formed in about a year’s
time. He said he already
has some interested in be
ing a part of the group.
News, Pages 1 on 01/25/2012