Dallas County Emergency Management Commission - Regular Meeting

call me in order and first order business. We'll have uh introduction for everyone here for the record. I'll start it out. I'm Bob Aerman, chairman of the commission and represent the city of Adel. Uh Joe Studleberg, uh mayor of Minburn. Brett Maxwell, Chief Deputy Sheriff's Office. Tim Chapman, Dallas County Board of Supervisor. AJ Cely, Emergency Management Director. Steve Godwin, City Woodward, City B Robinson, Walking, Len Royer, Dallas County Emergency Management. Eric Klene, live city council.

Joseph Fox Granger. Uh Jim Arger, City of Perry, Perry Police Department. Craig Lou, City of West De Mo. Wry Redfield mayor.

Okay. Okay. Uh Grimes

Mike Cardwell Urbanddale Fire Chief I'm missing Dawson Dotto and Lyndon hearing none. Okay, we have a quorum. Uh, next item on the agenda is uh open forum. Anyone has something that's not on the agenda? Opportunity to uh speak. Hearing none, we'll move to approval of the agenda.

Any comments? All in favor say I. I. Opposed same sign. I. Next item is approval of minutes for the uh May 22nd meeting to approve them. Second. Any additions or corrections to the minutes? If not, uh all in favor say I. I. I. Same sign. Motion carried. uh discussion and action on policy updates.

So, uh we ended up getting a little bit behind in our normal like policy update review schedule just because of other things going on. So, I ended up uh basically going through all of our policies as a result of like about six months behind and changes in timeline and that sort of thing. So, um, what I did instead of having these as individual documents is basically just pull on the policy manual or policy book that's specific to our organization, uh, the things that used to be in these as standalone documents are separated out as what I wrote on the the communication form there. So, code of conduct will still remain its own, alert Iowa operations will remain own, and then public forum uh, remains its own. So what you'll see throughout the document is uh policy updates consistent generally with practice changes in laws federal regulation that sort of thing. I removed some of uh the excess verbage and verbage that was involved in that. And then you will see a couple new policies as well. One of them for example um we started recently using artificial intelligence to help support our operations. it really saves us ton of time and doing some of the maybe more mundane tasks that we otherwise would spend a lot of time doing. So that kind of just provides guidance uh for that as well. I guess my recommendation would be approval of the manual as it is attached and uh this would replace all of our prior policies with the exception of those that are listed.

Any questions for AJ? Is there a motion for approval? Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. I. I. I. Oppos. Same sign. Motion carried. Uh, next item is discussion and action on commission code of conduct.

All right. So, um, with the code of conduct, there were a couple of small tweaks that we made just based on our normal operations. But there's one thing specifically that requires um probably extended discussion and that is House File 706, which was signed into law earlier this year, effective July 1, 2025. It mandates uh it's related to open records and public meetings. It mandates that any newly appointed and the key is newly appointed member to a board uh which the commission would be qualifying as that and this would include both elected officials appointed officials basically anybody who's named to this commission would have to follow this rule. It requires at least one hour of training up to uh two hours of training within 90 days of assuming commission responsibilities. So, with the exception of a couple of new members that we just received as a result of retirement grimes, um, all of you should be existing and this wouldn't apply to you. But for any of our new members, specifically after city elections, for example, we generally have some turnover in the beginning of the year. Um, they're going to be required to take this training within 90 days of their appointment. If they do not, uh, they could be fined. This is a fined personally by code. I believe the amount is between $5,000 and $12,500. So, it's a sizable uh penalty if you do not comply and refuse to comply. They do give you a bit of a grace period as well. But all of that being said, um it creates an additional responsibility of the commission or the agency that we now have to track compliance with this chapter. So, it says specifically in the law we'll be required to basically gather everyone's certificates. The assumption based on the composition of the board is that most of the people here are going to be elected officials

or appointed and they already are doing this as a part of their role with their city or county, that sort of thing. Where we run into a potential issue uh that hoping that one of the provisions in here helps facilitate is a fire chief, for example, who isn't a member of a board. um we want to make it as easy as possible for them to become a member of this board and attend and be compliant. Um and so what I've written in here, it's under uh page three of three uh required training article four or section four. It says for members which only require training based on an appointment to the commission, the commission will fund up to $50 per person. So it's our intent if we pass this that we would provide training to do that. I don't expect that amount to be substantial. I put a just a brief calculation probably about $200 annually as a program impact. That's probably on the higher end. It's going to be very contingent upon who the appointees are and that sort of thing. So, um, welcome any feedback. Uh, certainly this can be changed, could be pulled out, that sort of thing. The current number is 15 of 43 of the commission and alternate appointees are not otherwise required to completed. So if we do offer the training proportionally 15 of 43 is about the amount that that potentially would need to be onboarded in the next uh several years as we replace and turnover effort.

The cities have formal training for elective like you said a fire chief would have to No, but the fire chief could attend it. So, currently as it stands, if you're a council member now and get reelected in November, will they still be grandfathered in or will they have to take the class?

They will be grandfathered because they're not new. Um, the Iowa Public Information Board is the one that controls the training. They are tasked by code to provide the training. They I think plan on providing like one a quarter which is like woefully insufficient uh to to train the number of people across the state. Uh I actually have talked with them. They have some sounds like funding challenges and other challenges that make their ability to give the training limited. U I talked about some alternatives like you know could we record their session and then host it here and they're not really open to that at this point. Um, so in the absence of their training, there are a few approved vendors. League of Cities uh is a is an approved vendor. I presume Iowa State Association of Counties will likely become one.

Does it?

Yeah. ISU extension office. I think Hopkins and law firm are the other entity that I may have but um any of those non-league of cities I Iowa State those are they require payment for I just I don't want there to be any excuse for our members to not receive the training. I recognize time schedules and everything's all different. So I think it will be I think there'll be more options too after the election. I think I think there'll be a bunch of like if you can go online and get a gun permit or take the class for one with online there's no reason you should and that kind of be like I I think option

I don't disagree my discussion with the executive director of public information board was that uh she's concerned basically that they can't verify someone actually attended and like sat through the training. Yeah, lot of continuing dispersed education in a lot of different fields. I'm sure we can figure it out. It's just a matter of uh

yeah, I don't have to beat a dead horse, but what the city of Walke did is they paid um drop, but it was like ISU for um it was like 200 bucks was all and we get higher city can do it. So all of our new So I don't know if the county someday look at something like that, but it streamlines it significantly. This would also apply to other county boards as well, township, boards, like township trustees and all. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's going to be a nightmare for them. It's it's big. So, yeah, hopefully as things come out there's there's opportunity to obviously cost maximize it.

There may be some more information out. This week is the Iowa League of Cities annual meeting. So, I'm sure there's something on the agenda for that. So may have some more information. Otherwise, uh we can certainly table the code of conduct uh if we want to. Uh regardless, the requirement will stand and we will be reaching out to to at least new members to get their certifications. Motion to approve in your funding. Yeah. Yeah. We can make it work this year. Want this push through motion? Second. Any more discussion? All in favor say I. I.

I. I. Same sign. Motion carried. And we'll get more information on how we're going to handle other Cathy's missions law.

Uh, next item is discussion and action on Alert Iowa. All right, I am going to share screen. I'm gonna share my screen. Attempt to draw this. Maybe a bad idea. Uh, but I think it will best depict kind of the share screen. I'm still there.

Yeah. Go to two. Sorry. having challenges.

Uh guess I'll start with the explanation. So essentially one of the key functions that we have that's uh by state law is that the commission's tasked with providing an information public and warning uh dissemination essentially. And so to do that one of our functions that we use is called alert Iowa. That's a blanket name for a program that consists of about four or five different programs. Uh that allows us to do subscriber text messages to people that signed up in specific communities. It also allows us to do reverse 911, so actual like reverse phone calling to landlines, which there are a few now, but still a few thousand. Uh it also allows us to do emails, a few other kind of messages. One of the key ones in there though is called wireless emergency alerts. And so most of you have probably received the tornado warning on your phone that says seek shelter immediately. There's usually a annoying blast that comes with it. Uh essentially we're allowed to do those and authorized by FEMA to do those u for more local emergencies. So we wouldn't be sending weather alerts for example because the weather service does that. But if there's a law enforcement alert that needs to be sent or a shelter in place for a hazmat incident or whatever need that public needs communicated with, we have the ability to do that. Um that said, that is a pretty great responsibility because it's we're pinging all of the phones in that specific geographical area. So uh we've actually used this uh once in our at least in my time here. So since 2018, I don't believe it had been used prior to that. Um, and this was for for a gas leak. Uh, but certainly the opportunity exists to use them and as we think have higher expectations of communication, it's potential we could use them more in the future. Uh that said, because we

share uh cities and county lines uh with with neighbors in really all directions, but specifically we've been having conversations with Pulk County is we want to make sure that when we send that alert, so typically you kind of pick a point and then you set like a radius boundary around it. If we were to send that alert somewhere near the county line today, it would essentially stop at the county line. So there would be some crossover as a result of just cell tower communication and location data. Uh but it would look like uh you know half of the circles cut off. So what we're trying to do um in partnership with Pulk County and hopefully other counties around us but primarily working on the Pulk because of the population is enter into an agreement essentially with them or anou that allows us to have each other's permissions to send those alerts in each other's counties. So that would allow us to send an alert just like we normally do and for the circle to be fully complete essentially. Um we've worked with them pretty extensively in developing a process where it happens in their county and it happens to cross over into ours, they're going to notify us of it before we actually trigger that alert so that the secondary implications of sending a wireless emergency alert can at least be managed on both sides of the line. And then vice versa, the process also happen the other way. So, uh, the reason it's being brought to the commission, uh, we have that the commission strictly controls wireless emergency alert access. We haven't granted anyone external to our agency alert access uh, really until this point. And they're not getting access to our system. They're keeping access within their system. Just getting an extra certificate, we'll say, to alert inside of our area. That being said, I think probably to a point where if there's questions, I can take those. U my recommendation would be to allow us to engage with PK County and

anou that is uh kind of controlled or defined by our set mutually agreed operating procedures. And then that way if if something were to happen, you know, we're not following them for some reason, there's an ability to terminate that at our control. Pulk County would be Pulk County Dispatch and Westcom. No. So this uh wireless emergency alerts for both Pulk and Dallas County, it's a great question. Is restricted to emergency management staff only. So we'll only be there handful of staff, let's say, however many. Okay. Would it be wise to approve it for all the neighboring counties so when you do get to that point, it's already taken care of?

Yeah, that is our intent. Uh but we basically have to enter into anou with every single county. Yeah. And it so this has really been a priority between Pulk and Dallas County because of the higher probability due to the population that sort of thing. But eventually yeah we do plan on approaching other counties around us and even like Warren for example if we had something in the Moffett Lake area it could potentially extend into three other counties. Shouldn't we approve it so you can do it with all of them or do you want to approve each one individually? You'll have to come back any

uh let's see the the way that I suggested the recommendation uh I think it well it's really up to the commission but uh it could allow me to enter into anou with other counties for cross jurisdictional alerting. Okay. So you're covered anywhere you go. I'll make a motion. Good idea.

So just so I read this correctly. So motion to authorize the director to engage in a memorandum of understanding with neighboring counties to enable the effective use wireless emergency alerts and other alerting methods cross jurisdictionally provided consistent alerting and required program engagement criteria are met.

Any more discussion? [Music] All in favor say I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. Next item is uh staff changes.

All right. So, no action on this item, but just want to let you know Alicia Scott is no longer with our agency. Um we have hired uh with approval from the executive committee uh a new replacement and that person will start October 21st. Um that's the best timeline for pay period and that sort of thing. So um when they are when they start I expect I'll send a uh welcome sort of personnel welcome to the entire commission and give you some background on that sort of thing at that point.

All right lives in Ellis County so correct. discussion action on outdoor warning siring grant.

All right. So, uh I need to preface the uh well I'll get to the preface later which makes it no longer a preface. Uh so essentially we've discussed that maybe a year ago um that we would like to apply for an outdoor warning siren grant to allow essentially communities that don't have functioning or well functioning sirens to be replaced. Uh that list is included in your packets on page 55. That includes Boutton, Dawson, Dexter, Granger, Perry 3, Fedfield, Van Beer 2, and then Woodward. uh we've been given initial kind of tentative approval from the state that it meets their program criteria. Essentially the next step is that the state will send it to FEMA and FEMA will uh essentially review it, ensure that it meets the criteria which typically they do at the time it gets to them. Uh and then approve it. Uh we expect that approval to be sometime around February 2026. Uh with the approval, we'll typically need to accept the grant within about two weeks. So that's a formal yes we're going to take the money. It's a formal allocation on their end. They're not giving us the money at that point. We are agreeing to take it uh to do this grant. Essentially we'll place the 12 sirens. Uh the emergency management agency will facilitate the procurement. Uh that means doing the RFP and then we'll enter into a 280 agreement with each of the cities um to basically facilitate the placement and then eventual handoff. So once the project is sirens are installed, it's our goal as emergency management to get these off of our plate and formally handed over to the city. Any future maintenance, all that stuff, city responsibility, uh cities will be responsible for a 15% cost share. The federal government will pay for 75% and then uh state government will pay for 10%. The total project cost and this is pending any inflation

increases is $621,581. So substantial amount of money. Uh where we're kind of at in terms of discussion because I think we're on the same page in terms of the we should move this project forward is when it comes to actually spending that money. Uh there's a couple different ways that we could do it. And the preface here is uh this is all contingent upon one of my potential opportunities or recommendations is contingent upon the board of supervisors being able to provide uh funding to help support the project. Uh but essentially we could ask for money in advance. It's called an advance uh request for reimbursement. Uh by doing that it creates a significant amount of additional administrative burden uh for us. Uh basically we're going to have to every time we do something we have to engage FEMA whereas typically projects complete on a on a grant we'll actually submit for reimbursement and then provide a closeout report. Um the potential uh opportunity that I I thought about is if the board is able, board of supervisors is able to provide us $500,000 approximately to float uh us basically we can make the payment and then once we receive reimbursement from FEMA, we provide that check uh basically back to them in full. Again, haven't discussed this with the board, but um wanted to bring it up here given that we don't meet very often and it's likely that um between now and our next meeting, I'll need to do some work on some sort of 28D agreement, figure out what that looks like with both cities and also the board. So, um if that's uh I guess I think consensus is probably appropriate. How does the city portion of that play in or the plan for and they pay and how they pay and who they pay?

Uh if they would pay the so the commission would make the payment in full to the vendor the 620,000. Uh we would then I presume after the install is done we would then ask the cities for their portion and in the 280 we would give them a set number of days. I don't know what that looks like at this point. probably 45 to 60 days provide payment. Um so split up equally per siren or depending on the installation varies for per city.

Yep. It varies based on the actual cost to the city. So like Perry's sirens for example I think they currently have six uh they can be replaced with three much larger sirens and that's more cost effective in several ways than replacing six smaller. for a reason like Pinburn and I think there's a couple other cities that aren't on there anymore list. Um that is potentially my failure to type them. Okay. They are still on the list. I thought there was more but I knew I thought we were on the list. You guys you are on the list and I can sorry I might not.

Great shame. Yeah. I thought the initial uh information that came out with that was the cities had to pay for it up front. Did that change or? Uh, I mean I I have not actually done a lot of work in figuring out that looks like I it probably would be valuable again this is kind of spitballing here. It probably be valuable for us to get the 15% from the cities ahead of time because if they don't pay, we don't want to install a siren and then have to go after. I thought the initial information come out said that's what everybody had to do because I know when I had a conversation with the rest of the council and the mayor that we were going to move forward with it. I can't remember. I think ours was like 9600 or

Yeah. something on the initial group though because you expanded the group from the first group. We've actually done this grant like four times. Yeah.

Yeah. So, um Biden administration, we submitted the grant. It got dep prioritized because of some of their priorities and then when Trump took office, the priorities that were Biden administration basically got cancelled. So, we got kind of put back up in the the funded category. So, we're back to the full amount. Um all the sirens that were initially on the table is what's pending approval essentially. So, Was there any other I don't I guess I don't know maybe do you know what each like uh I can tell you at some point

I'll need words too and then when when ballpark we're going to need that if they're looking at February 26 for approval from FEMA. Will it be within a few months of that? Because it makes a difference whether it's going to be in which Yep. which fiscal year. Right.

Yeah. And I wish I knew. Uh yeah, because that's a question for us too. We'll have to amend our budget here. Um I think most likely if we if we get approval in February, we do the RFP process, call that 45 days, that puts us in mid-Marchch. Depending on what the vendor's payment terms are in terms of down payment. Um we may may have to pay some initially upfront. Uh if we have to do that, we'll have to amend our budget here as well. [Music] like about in the fireman's association city. We just keep that in the bank. Does the price change much since the beginning of tariffs started?

Uh no. Okay. There's been quite a time in the way everything else is wouldn't surprise. You go to EMA screencast. Then if you can share it to the what I wanted the first time. So apologies for the spreadsheet here. So

yeah, city matches be in column G. Uh and again depending on how the RFP and actual quotes come out at the time of February. Could change a little bit. Could change a bit. Yeah. But men is included. Be happy to Yeah. Thanks for pointing that out. ours has one part break. We were told that yeah, literally can't fix it.

So, I think at this point uh I'm looking for consensus really to approach the board of supervisors to ask for essentially the $500 $500,000 uh loan loan. Yeah. And I I'm okay with consensus um and uh obviously happens be a surprise. Yeah, he he knows it's coming. I'm good with it.

And uh worst case scenario, if if they can't make it work, like I said, we can facilitate on our end, it's just burden that we were hoping. Next item uh for discussion and joint and action is joint hazard hazard mitigation plan.

All right. Um we have discussed this as well in the past. So I'll try to be brief here. Essentially for the last year or so Pulk and Dallas have been looking at joining our P or our joint hazard mitigation plan. So that's the plan that's due every five years that FEMA requires us to review essentially the threats and hazards to our jurisdiction. It also makes us eligible for things like hazard mitigation funding like the last project we just discussed. Um so generally kind of an expensive plan. Vendors are are usually the ones that complete it because it's exhaustive. I mean I think our plan's maybe 300 pagesish. Uh it it really requires a ton of data collection time. So what we're looking to do going forward with this plan is to join forces with PK County. This would allow us specific to the cities that we share and the populations that we share to be more kind of clear and concise. It would result in a less of a duplication of effort. So right now we're conducting this process and like Urbandale for example participates in ours and then they also participate in Pan. So there there gets to be a bit of uh kind of crossover that's just kind of unnatural uh to the program and really to mitigation. So what we've looked at um we have we are in the pipeline to receive a grant on this project of u about 60,000 uh or excuse me 51,000 with 9,000 being our share. Essentially what this would allow is uh we conduct the plan with PK county and we have one hazard mitigation plan from the county. We we did talk pretty exhaustively about how usable that plan becomes for entities under each of those uh counties and we talked and I think we're pretty in favor of a we have now as a community appendicy for each

community. So we have kind of an upfront section that's pretty bulky. Talks about a lot of administrative kind of threat profile stuff and then when it gets to the actual plan content for each city, we're down to like 20 pages or less. So I think we're we're on the same page in terms of that approach. So it would would remain usable, which obviously is the goal when we want to talk about mitigation. Uh what I've proposed uh to PULK is essentially they're burning about a year off of their plan. So they have an active plan. it expires about a year after ours. Uh they don't necessarily have to move forward with us, but they're interested in it based on our kind of shared partnership with the the communities. Um, and so what I ended up looking at is if we could, and the grant, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to explain this well enough, but the way that the grant works is if we provide an additional $1,500 towards the project compared to what would otherwise be just a like an equal share based on jurisdictions, uh, it can actually result in pretty significant savings county, like six times that amount. Uh, so given that, I think it's appropriate. can since they're kind of uh they're leaning forward to help us accomplish kind of this joint joint plan. Um

then after that we'd be on the same time frame.

Same time frame. Yep. So then every plan going forward is a bit cleaner. Uh there there are some weird contingencies upon this. So our grant is submitted. It's basically in the same package as our aqua warning siren grant for approval. Uh Pulks is staggered right behind us. So they may not get approved under the same grant um with what's going on at FEMA too. Like there's always some question there. So if we get the grant and they do not, they're not going to move forward into this joint project. U they would just go back to their single county plan and then likewise we would we would still proceed and do our single county plan. Uh but essentially at this point I'm looking for uh commission to authorize the chair to accept the grant award and regardless of what that ends up being we would either work the single county option or the county

we can use the grant free the war correct motion any discussion if not all in favor say I I I post the same sign motion carried future budget workshops

right towards the end. Um so this is really just I bring this up annually before budget workshop. So our next meeting will be budget workshop that's a December meeting I will wait momentarily. Um I put the strategic plan out there just as a this is kind of the direction that we're still on. Our strategic plan has about a year of life left on it. I still think we're tracking towards the objective. I don't see any substantial shift in budget. So, one thing that potentially will be different than years past is uh we may need to look at our own legal fees. Right now, um we get five hours of free support from our insurance provider. They're able to review agreements and that sort of thing for us, but when it comes to some of the other stuff, obviously that has a limit. So we potentially need to hire our own attorney. Years past we have used the county attorneys and they've been gracious to offer that combination of capacity and otherwise that's not the case moving forward. So still got to look at what that looks like but just kind of want to put that primer there. the uh meeting

the insurance company's not going to give us they give us five hours but fairly quickly consumed when and so this wouldn't cover what I'm talking about for legal fees would not cover to a lawsuit it would be like plan, not plan review, but agreement review. Looking at a 280E on behalf of the county, right? If I put together a 280E between the commission and the county, the county attorney reviews it on behalf of the county, not on behalf of the commission. So, want to make sure that we are both represented in that process. Not that I think there'd be any issue that it's

What do you think our future legal fees would be then?

I have no idea. got the next three months to figure that out. Otherwise, if there's any other things that uh you want to see our program do that we are not currently doing, please send me an email or some sort of connection in the uh the off time and get the budget workshop. And the last page of the packet posts the uh meeting schedules for 2026. Anything else for the good of the committee? If not a motion to adjourn and moved and second to adjurnn. All in favor say I.

I. I. same sign. We arejourned. Thank you for your time.