From time to time New Governors are elected to office and some run for and are elected President. Their Homeland Security and Emergency Management staff, plans and operations should be fair game for the MSM and citizens of each state. A while back I wrote up the VLG technical note set forth below:
VLG Technical Note 2010-11-12
TOP DOZEN TOPICS AND QUESTIONS EACH NEW GOVERNOR
SHOULD ASK STAFF
1. I ask that each senior person in a management position provide a copy of the November 2010 Governor’s Guide to HS to his/her staff. Giving each person 10 working days to do so, please have each person provide a one page document [maximum length] expressing any concerns or disagreements with that documents information or suggestions and alternatives. These responses including your own one-pager should not be edited but collected and bound into a document for me personally and a copy of that bound document provided all other components involved in EM or HS in our state, and to each individual that provided comments. The one page document should bear the name of the individual but anonomus submissions may be submitted to me personally at _____________. These latter submissions should not duplicate anything in the attributed submissions.
2. Has the Attorney General of my state reviewed all mandatory and discretionary authority of the Governor [now me] for adequacy? If not adequate has proposed legislation been submitted to deal with defects? Can this be done this legislative term or is more drafting time necessary?
3. To what extent does HS and EM in my state rely on federal grants for EM and HS, or the National Guard when not federalized for emergency response, recovery, mitigation, prevention, protection, preparedness? I reverse the normal order of paradigms in case I must react immediately to some incident or event!
4. What open declared disasters and emergencies are now in existence and who declared them and when? What are total obligations by the federal government to date for those open incidents/events? What are total state obligations? Local obligations?
5. Are the NG units in our state up-to-date on CBRNE training? Logistics and operations? When and where was that training conducted? Who paid for it?
6. What is the total number of public safety personnel in my state and where and how are they dispersed? This includes, police, fire, EM, HS, public health, and EMT and HazMat!
7. Please have the most expert person on EMAC in our state government arrange a briefing that can be a webinar for all state employees and in that briefing indicate what our STATES obligations are, do we have that capability, and for adjacent states that are signatories what is their capability including fiscal to assist if EMAC activated? Also who activates EMAC for our state, am I the one?
8. Please prepare a letter to Secretary DHS and Administrator FEMA requesting permanent assignment of a liaison cell to our STATE EOC! Request documentation to accompany that request supporting the request?
9. What capacity does the private sector in our state have to assist in disaster ops including NGO’s and for profit sector?
10. Do we have any standby contracts for disaster ops and how are they funded, if at all?
11. ON a scale of 1-10 with 10 being fully operable, where do our STATE and our local governments stand on communications interoperability, redundancy, and robustness?
12. Who is the key expert in our state government on warning, notification, alerting, and mobilization and arrange to have that person or persons prepared a briefing for me and all state employees through webinar on those subjects including activation, prescripted messages, rumor control and other Emergency Public Information factors?
My guess is that when push comes to shove a sitting Governor or former Governor will lead the GOP ticket and perhaps even the VP nominee on that ticket will also be a current Governor or former Governor. Thus we (the USA) could have in essence a campaign between those who were once or still are Governors and the Current President and VP whose key elective office was as U.S. Senators. I am predicting that the DEMS will lose the Senate in the 2012 election but time will tell.
