by Christine Becker
NLC Past President Karen Anderson, mayor of Minnetonka, Minn., represented the National League of Cities recently at two national homeland security strategy sessions dealing with information sharing related to preventing terrorism.
Anderson, who serves on the State and Local Senior Advisors Committee to the Homeland Security Advisory Council, will also serve as an official observer later this week at a large-scale homeland security exercise designed to test and strengthen the nation?s capacity to respond to and recover from terrorist attacks.
The first information sharing task force session focused broadly on what information should be shared to prevent terrorist attacks, with whom the information should be shared, and how to engage the media in the responsibility of sharing information with the public that is accurate, timely and doesn?t unnecessarily raise fears.
The group will prepare a final report on its findings and recommendation by June 2005.
Recently confirmed Home-land Security Secretary Michael Chertoff met with the task force and reiterated the Department?s focus on ?managing risk in terms of assessing threat, vulnerability and consequence.?
Other local officials who serve on the task force include Mayor Patrick McCorry of Charlotte, N.C., (chair), and Mayor Don Plusquellic of Akron, Ohio, president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
The second information sharing task force focused on mission, stakeholders, roles and responsibilities of agencies and levels of government potentially involved in gathering, sharing, analyzing and disseminating intelligence information.
This group?s mandate emerged from an earlier Homeland Security Advisory Council report that recommended that each state should establish an ?information center that serves as a 24/7 all source multi-disciplinary, information fusion center.?
Anderson has served as NLC?s point person on federal homeland security issues since the first advisory group was created in January 2002 after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
NLC President Anthony A. Williams serves on the Homeland Security Advisory Council and is co-chair of the State and Local Senior Advisors Committee.
Anderson said that participation in these diverse task forces and working groups ensures that local government has ?both a place at the table where key issues are discussed and a voice in shaping the long-term homeland security strategy.?
?The local government voice has gotten stronger over the years, and there is a growing recognition of the importance of listening to our perspective,? she added.
The invitation to observe the ?Top Officials Full-Scale Exercise? is a reflection of that growing voice of local officials in homeland security planning.
When the first full scale exercise was conduct two years ago, NLC expressed concern that representatives of the national organizations representing state and local government hadn?t been invited to serve as observers.
More than 200 organizations will participate in the exercise to carry out a realistic response to a complex terrorist campaign including simulated biological and chemical attacks. Concurrent exercises will be conducted by the United Kingdom, Canada and the U.S. Department of Defense.