During last year’s campaign a lot of campaign fodder was
made about the training in emergency management that I took while I was Mayor. Although it is true that I developed a
passion for this topic and for some people it might have seemed excessive, the
motivation was always to increase the preparedness of our community and develop
a strong emergency management program for our city. For the fact that much of this preparedness and
planning has been ignored by Mayor Sun and many of the staff members that were trained
no longer work for the city, it now appears we are back to square one, or are
we?
The reason I took so much training and did so much of the
work myself is to leverage the resources we had in our city. When we send staff
members to training we not only pay their wages, we pay all cost related to the
travel and training. We would also be impacted by taking them away from their
regular duties either by a drop in production or in paying overtime. It was much cheaper for me to go to the
training and bring the information back for application. As FEMA reimbursements and business donations
covered much of the cost it was done at little cost (if any) to our city. As a result we gained a Comprehensive
Emergency Management Plan, a training and exercise plan, staff and citizen
training, compliance with Federal and State requirements and qualified for a
$12,500 per year Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG). The first two years of this EMPG grant were
used to expand the CEMP, start the development volunteer plans and cover cost
of citizen training. The grants already awarded for 2012 and 2013 may now need
to be paid back as the city has not followed through with the requirements of
the grant money.
All of my training and related travel was paid for out of a
line item in each year’s budget known as the Mayor’s travel fund. Most years we included a place holder in the
expense side of the budget of up to $5000 with a corresponding entry in the revenue
side that balanced this expense out.
Donations made by local businesses were deposited with the city in this
account as well as reimbursements made by FEMA for travel cost. This was done so everything was right out
front, completely transparent and subject to audit by the State Auditor’s
office. Contrary to claims made for
political reasons during the campaign and now continued by the current Mayor
and his supporters, this was not corruption but efforts to make sure there was
an open and transparent process and paper trail.
As for claims that I plan on using this training for a new
career, it is true that I plan on retiring soon as an electrician and pursuing
a new career in this field. It is also
true that I have been paid by FEMA to teach classes that took as Mayor. But my new career will be a result of my
going back to school to unite some of this training I have taken under a
professional degree. My training taken
while I was Mayor inspired me and allowed me to develop a passion for the subject;
it was not abuse of public resources or evidence of corruption.
For many people around this nation, including many of those
working as emergency management professionals my dedication for gaining the
knowledge to move our city forward was inspirational. FEMA itself included my story in their blog
as well as we received national recognition in professional and civic journals
and magazines. This was something that
many people in our city looked at a source of pride. It is a shame that politics was allowed to
tarnish the progress we made and call into question the benefits of what we
were accomplishing.