Monday, February 18, 2013

Councilman Pessina Calls For Report On Blizzard Response

From Councilman Pessina
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As I have been reviewing all of the posts from our city residents stranded and paralyzed by this Blizzard Event, which as others I have personally experienced, as the Council Minority Leader and member of the Public Safety Commission and Finance and Government Committees I am calling for the following information to be presented to both of these commissions at both of our meetings scheduled for later this month:

1. That Mayor Drew present the results of his Emergency Management After Action Report, which will detail department by department the challenges that they were presented with, as well as their successes in keeping our community safe and accessible; the caveat of course are those residents who's streets were not open in a timely fashion; we need to identify them and ensure that in the future we can galvanize private & public collaboration to prevent this from occurring in the future.



2. The financial impact on the departments and to the Budget, including the emergency expenditures, repairs to include the private costs for outside contractors support. This impact report should include a review of our Emergency Vehicle fleet to assess their capability to traverse these types of severe weather events.

3. The impact on our dedicated city employees covering their availability, food and rest periods which they all needed and continue to need. A Review of alternate shift schedules with our Labor Union Presidents, where possibly all of our essential employees can have similar emergency shift scheduling to ensure rest, feeding and shelter capabilities.

4. The infrastructure prioritization utilized to identify major routes, street clearing and the identity of transportation modes for picking up and transporting hospital critical employees, fire and police personnel ho may have been stranded during the storm. Also, route clearing to our city's Emergency Shelter (MHS).

5. Have our I.T. Department propose a frame work on our city's Webpage an area for Emergency Information,which would continued to be update to better inform our resdients of the particular storm impact throughout a weather event; or other infrastructure, emergency events which our city may encounter.

6. Any other pertinent information Mayor Drew develops from his meetings with his directors.
Sent from my iPad. In addition, past Mayors should be contacted for their response suggestions and contributions to assist Mayor Drew.

THESE SUGGESTIONS AND FOLLOW UP REVIEWS BY THESE TWO IMPORTANT CITY COMMITTEES, ARE BEING MADE RESPECTFULLY TO THE MAYOR, OUR CITY DIRECTORS AND EMPLOYEES WHO HAVE WORKED TIRELESSLY THROUGH THIS EVENT FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE TO DEVELOP AN ADDENDUM TO OUR CITY'S EMERGENCY OPERATIONS PLAN FOR RESPONSE GUIDELINES, INFRASTRUCTURE IDENTIFICATION A PERSONNEL PLAN, EQUIPMENT AND COSTS FUNDING ANALYSIS FOR FUTURE MAYORS TO UTILIZE DURING THESE TYPES OF EVENTS!

WE ALL NEED TO BE PART OF THE SOLUTION AND REPRESENT THE TYPE OF MIDDLETOWN RESIDENTS WE ALL ARE; MOVING TOWARDS ASSISTING EACH OTHER AND HELPING WHEN AND WHERE WE CAN.

Thank you and keep safe!

Councilman Phil Pessina

7 comments:

G. Keating said...

I fully understand the storms strength and size, and the great amount of snow it produced over short periods of time. It was a storm of unusual proportions, but still similar to others in my lifetime that were "almost as big or bigger". We also had prior warning of this storms wrath.

What I noticed early on when sitting at home watching the storm develop was a city plow come down my street (Schuyler
Ave) around 4-5:00 to make its first pass. What I also noticed later on was that a plow never returned to make similar passes down the street to keep it open as was the standard procedure in every past storm I have been witness to, large and small. I remember times when I asked my self why they even bothered to make passes so often when the snow was light. I would like to know why in "Charlotte", a storm everyone had prior warning of concerning its size and ability to produce large amounts of snow, my street had only one pass from a city plow early on, then no more throughout the storms run.

As a side note, we did get a "front loader" Sunday at midnight to make a single passable lane for us. By that time, everyone on the street had worked hard clearing their driveways and walkways to the snow dam in the street. I would like to personally thank this loader driver for his courtesy and professionalism as he made every effort to not plug up the cleared areas of driveway and walkway with the large pieces of hard snow he was pushing. He actually made special passes to clear the snow debris at the front of driveways where he could which helped us in our cleaning up again. I can also say the same thing for the plow driver who came Monday to widen the street a bit. He showed the same concern and courtesy in his efforts to get the street open. I for one would like to thank these men for their dedication and thoughtfulness during this time. A lot of people have been bad mouthing these workers and I don't think its warranted or fair to them.

Perhaps these "reports" will have some answers for me as to why plows just seemed to vanish during this blizzard, and why prior protocol that had plows making periodic passes down streets to help keep them clear of falling snow didn't appear to be in place.

Than kyou,
Gary

Anonymous said...

The 2013 Campaign for Mayor has officially begun. The GOP are already taking swipes at Mayor Drew over the handling of the recent storm. You will probably hear more comments from the Middletown GOP about this matter so they could make the Mayor look bad in an election year. Stay Tuned!

Anonymous said...

I agree with 344pm. Purely political, waste of time

Anonymous said...

I could care less about being political. I just want basic services including having my street plowed when it snows. Is that too much to ask for?

Anonymous said...

I don't recall Councilman Pessina calling for a report after Tropical Storm Irene in August 2011 or after the October 2011 freak halloween snowstorm when people lost their power for a week. Was it because former Mayor Giuliano was in office at the time? Now all of sudden Councilman Pessina in an election year in which is party is out of the Mayor's office is calling for a report? This is politics as usual for the GOP. I thought the GOP always campaigns for less government not more? Isn't this more government that Pessina is asking for? The GOP is still sore after their election defeats in 2012, 2011, 2010 & 2008 after the voters solidly rejected them at the polls.

Anonymous said...

If that anon comment was anti Dem it would not be published. Subversive censoring. This is a non political issue.

Bill Wilson said...

Why is this purely political. I think communication could have been better to let folks know they would get plowed out or at least make the road passable. The mayor stated that all roads would be passable by Sunday night and yet I saw roads not touched until Tuesday for the first time.
We have an City website that could have told people of the progress instead of people wondering what was going on.
I hope there is no next time but if there is I hope we are better informed than this time.