Updates to city’s emergency management procedures get green light from Health and Safety Committee

TOMAHAWK – A City of Tomahawk committee gave its stamp of approval to updates regarding the city’s emergency management procedures this week.

During its meeting at City Hall on Tuesday, Sept. 29, the city’s Health and Safety Committee gave the green light to an ordinance that, if ultimately approved by the City of Tomahawk Common Council, would repeal a chapter from the municipal code titled “Civil Emergencies” and replace it with a chapter called “Emergency Management.”

The ordinance proposes procedures for emergencies ranging from “enemy action” to “natural or man-made disasters” and aims to establish a chain of command for such occurrences.

Under the ordinance approved by the committee last week, the Mayor would serve as Local Emergency Management Director and head of the City of Tomahawk Emergency Management Organization. The Chief of Police serves as the city’s designated Civil Defense Director under the current ordinance.

Police Chief Al Elvins told the committee during the meeting that in the event of an emergency, he and the fire chief would be “knee deep in the middle of it” and ultimately unable to coordinate the response effort, which is why the changes were proposed.

According to the ordinance, the Director would be responsible for the organization, administration and operation of the city’s Emergency Management Organization, subject to Common Council oversight. The Director would also have the “authority and duty” to coordinate all emergency management activities within the city, work with outside emergency management agencies and other municipalities, enter into mutual agreements with other municipalities, participate in state and county emergency activities upon request and issue all necessary proclamations, warnings and alerts in the event of an emergency.

The Director would also be tasked with preparing a comprehensive general plan for emergency management and presenting it to the city council for approval.

The authority to appoint Deputy and Assistant Directors would be granted to the Director, subject to approval from the council.

The ordinance also says the city would formally recognize and adopt the Incident Command System (ICS) and the National Incident Management Systems (NIMS) in order to ensure that all agencies responding to an emergency would be able to “operate in a coordinated manner, utilizing a recognized management process, incident management objectives, common terminology, common communication procedures and equipment designations.”

Following its approval by the Health and Safety Committee, the ordinance was set to be forwarded to the city council for final review. The council was scheduled to meet on Tuesday, Oct. 6.