by Melinda Glazer

NLC?s Public Safety and Crime Prevention (PSCP) steering committee tentatively approved policy to recommend reforms to the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to ensure the nation?s emergency preparedness and response capabilities.

At the PSCP fall meeting, held Sept. 28-30 in Thousand Oaks, Calif., the steering committee strongly urged all levels of government to work together to ensure that cities can respond to and recover from natural or man-made disasters. PSCP Chair Marty Simonoff, mayor pro tem of Brea, Calif., hosted the meeting.

The steering committee also used its meeting to discuss and approve an amended resolution referred from NLC?s Human Development steering committee addressing the pandemic flu.

The committee heard from representatives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Department of Homeland Security, as well as from NLC Board of Directors Member Marcia Marcoux, council member, Rochester, Minn., on how local elected officials can prepare their municipalities for a pandemic.

PSCP will continue to focus on this priority issue and will work with NLC staff to determine how best to share information with local governments.

The steering committee also discussed hybrid vehicle safety. A representative from the McKinney, Texas, Fire Department briefed the committee on the potential risks to first responders posed by accidents involving hybrid vehicles.

Additional public safety resolutions submitted by member cities were also approved for further consideration, including supporting the use of electronic control devices, fighting the proliferation of illegal guns and calling for study on the public safety impacts of transportation of high-level nuclear waste.

The PSCP steering committee will bring its recommendations to the PSCP Policy and Advocacy Committee, which will meet at the Congress of Cities and Exposition, Dec. 5-9 in Reno, Nev.