An ORDINANCE related to the City’s Emergency Management Program; adding Sections 10.02.045 and 10.02.047 to the Seattle Municipal Code (SMC) to refine the roles and responsibilities of the Office of Emergency Management; and amending Sections 10.02.050, 10.02.060, 10.02.070, 10.02.080, 10.02.090, 10.02.100, and 10.02.110 of the SMC to accommodate these refinements.
Agenda Item 29 Council Bill 118483 related to the city's emergency management program, adding sections 10.0 2.045 and 10.0 2.047 to the Seattle Municipal Code to refine the roles and responsibilities of the Office of Emergency Management Management and amending sections 10.0 2.050 through 10.0 2.110 of the Seattle Ms.. Code. To accommodate these refinements, the Committee recommends the Council bill pass. Thank you, Councilmember Harrell. Thank you very much. So the city's emergency management program has evolved in the last ten years from primarily first responder focused program to what can be only described now as a full fledged whole community program, including the roles, responsibilities, training and practice for nearly all city departments and dozens of community partners. So the Seattle Municipal Cole chapter describing this program as enacted in the seventies, with only minor departmental name change in the last 15 years and really no longer reflects the strength and breadth of our current program. And so since that time, national standards for emergency management accreditation have been developed. And so the suggested revisions are more in line with the national standards and the substantive changes. Substantive changes can really be categorized in four areas. Number one, the new OEM director will be appoint an appointed position as it is now. The OEM director will oversee an established program. The program abides by an incident command system, and the mayor's emergency executive board will act as the policy oversight body during these extenuating circumstances. And the current code is basically silent on these issues. Ten years ago, when the current OEM director was appointed, this appointment was not subject to council confirmation. And just by way of context, context, the director technically reports to the Chief of police, but in practice this OEM director is a captain position reports also to the mayor. So six different chiefs of police and the current OEM deck director has served under all strike that have all been supportive of this kind of arrangement. This legislation establishes the Office of Emergency Management. However, the office will remain a division within the police department unless the Mayor wishes to move it, which is currently under charters within the mayor's discretion. Again, on August 9th, on August 19th, the Public Safety, Civil Rights and Technology Committee made a recommendation, passed this legislation. I ask for your support. Questions or comments. Please call the role on the passage of the bill. Harrell I Lakota High O'Brien, Okamoto Rasmussen, Sergeant Bagshot Gordon and President Burgess. Hi nine in favor and opposed. The bill passes and the chair will sign it. Please read items through th4.