Cottonwood County

Cottonwood County Emergency Services Association Meeting Minutes for Thursday September 12th, 2013 Storden Community Center – 7:00pm

Meeting called to Order by President Madson at 1912 hours.

Members Present: Tim Janzen (Mt. Lake Amb/Fire), Kim Hall (Cottonwood County Emergency Management), Jason Purrington (Cottonwood County Sheriff), Dan Benz (Jeffers Fire), Dan Ortmann (Windom Fire), Mark Stevens (Windom Fire), Mark O. Warner (Comfrey Fire), Russ Fay (Storden Fire), Jim Polk (Storden First Responders), Sandy Engen (Jeffers Amb), Curtis Madsen (Westbrook Amb/Fire), Alan Wahl (Westbrook PD)

New Business:  Site Trunking: o Jason Purrington reported that on Tuesday our ARMER system will be getting a software upgrade which should hopefully resolve the site trunking issues.  Jeffers Wind Tower exercise: o Kim reported that for the most part it went well. An employee dialed 9-1-1 from inside the tower and it went to Redwood county, but got dropped. They called again and it went back to Redwood county, they transferred it to Cottonwood and dispatched paged it out. Response times by Jeffers and Storden were good. Several take-aways from the exercise are as follows: . Helicopters- Wind tower employees will have to make the call as to whether or not to call one in. . Hard Hats MUST be worn while on scene, remember there is a risk of falling tools/debris from up tower. (Jeffers will be getting 6 from the wind tower company by Jeffers) . Fires- set up a perimeter and let them burn, all towers are insured by the owner(s). . Best case scenario for an emergency up tower is that there will be 2 workers with the injured party and one worker at the base of the tower to facilitate communication. . As a general rule only wind tower employees are allowed to enter the tower.  Livestock rollover training: o Kim reported that there were 43 people in attendance. It was a good training, Kim has a .PDF of the presentation and she is willing to send it to departments that were unable to attend. Our region (region 5) has 3 “livestock response trailers” each trailer is equipped with gating and panels to facilitate roundup or loose livestock. The trailers are located in Fairmont, Worthington, and New Ulm. Mark Stevens also commented that the Arena in Windom has roughly 200 portable gates that we could get ahold of also.  Communication Exercise is Tuesday October 22nd at 17:30 hours. For more information please contact Kim Hall  NIMS: o Tuesday the 10th the county board adopted a resolution requiring all county employees to take the courses listed for their job description. If not taken in 2013 employees must refresh, and then every 3 years. . Kim recommended to the association that we adopt the same training guidelines as the county. . Kim handed out the guidelines and stated the she needs Apendix 2 filled out and returned to her so she can update her NIMS reporting paperwork so the county can continue to be awarded Federal grant dollars. . She requested that if members of each towns departments have either never taken the NIMS training or haven’t taken it within 3 years go through it again and have it completed by September 1st, 2014. o There was a motion by Alan Wahl and a second by Dan Ortmann to adopt a resolution to adhere to Emergency Management’s recommendation, unanimous vote (resolution will be on file at the Emergency Management office by November 15, 2013).  Motion to adjourn at 1957 by Russ Fay, Second by Mark Stevens  Next Meeting will be at 1900 hours in Jeffers on November 14, 2013.

Old Business:  Regional Communications Exercise will be held Saturday October 26th, 2013. Cottonwood County will be participating and the exercise will be done by VCT (Video Conference) from the Cottonwood County Law Enforcement Center, so no one has to go to Marshall. More information to come as the Planners develope the exercise.

 AMEM (Association of MN Emergency Managers) Conference @ Breezy Point September 15-18, 2013

 Medical Director’s Conference @ Arrowwood Conference Center in Alexandria, September 13-15, 2013. Kim sent an email out to Ambulance Directors regarding the SW EMS Region will pay up to $500.00 for Medical Directors and also Ambulance Directors if anyone is interested in attending.

 AHA Mission Lifeline – 12 Lead EKG – Upcoming Grant

 EMS - SW Region is looking for instructors for the Jackson/Cottonwood Area. We have no one assigned to this area. If anyone is interested contact Kim, she will get you in contact with the Director.

 Programming ARMER radios with new State Talkgroups… rough estimate from Alpha Wireless use $50 per radio for budget purposes. This will change (lower) if we can coordinate and get all radios to one location for programming (per city) as it will cut down on time and mileage.

 Site Trunking… issues have been minimal, fades lasting 20-30 seconds now and then.  Any ARMER issues contact the Local System Administrator (Kim 1st and Jason 2nd if Kim is Unavailable) do not call Lance direct. If its radio or pager issues and you are going to be sending equipment in for maintenance then do as you normally would. Alpha Wireless is finding that a lot of issues are user error, therefore they have requested that the LSA be called first, if it’s not something that we can fix or solve then Kim and/or Jason would advise to contact Alpha Wireless.

 The State has been going around doing ARMER equipment audits. Kim is going to send out equipment lists/radio assignment to all departments, please look through them and make corrections if need be. Remember as part of the Grant Agreement if you have personnel changes of an assigned radio you need to let Kim know.

 Dispatch has the ability to patch talkgroups… if you are called out and on an OPS and you find that you need mutual aid, if it is coming from outside the county dispatch would assign a Regional Talkgroup and could patch our OPS to that Regional Talkgroup instead of trying to get everyone to change their channel.

Example: If an agency is on a call and needs to talk to Law Enforcement briefly the Chief or Ambulance Director or whoever is in charge of the scene can request a patch: example was the Fatal on Hwy 62, Windom Fire needed to get ahold of Jackson County Law Enforcement… those two talkgroups could have been patched vs. making phone calls or waiting for Law Enforcement to arrive on scene. Just remember the capability is there.

Watonwan County gets a call for a medical in Butterfield; they have now been automatically assigning a South Central Regional Talkgroup (SR Zone). When dispatch pages Mt Lake Ambulance our dispatch will advise them in the page to turn to whichever SR was assigned. Watonwan County has also been patching the assigned SR Talkgroup with the St James Hospital Talkgroup so Mt Lake Ambulance can communicate with them.

 Kim is working with Jeffers EMS, trying to get “Go Bags” or “Emergency Response Bags” together for their EMT’s.

 Reminder: Sept 11 Cottonwood County Livestock Rollover Training 8-12pm, classroom portion, afternoon is supposed to be livestock rollover demo but we have not found trailers yet… Cottonwood County is looking to help pay for this for Fire/First Responders/Law Enforcement $10 per person.

 Sept 12 Brown County Livestock Rollover Training 8-12pm, and as above with the exception of the $10 fee, Brown County EM isn’t covering??

Meeting was adjourned at approximately 2000 hours.

Respectfully submitted, Tim Janzen (Secretary)