Safety committee on this 18th day of February 2026 to order at 45 p.m.

At this time our roll call uh to my right I have all the men alder menu bring you joy present thank you um older woman Daisha Conti is on her way and will be here shortly and um Karma O'Neill is present um next up on our agenda I have approval the agenda I'll entertain a motion for approval of today's agenda as I move to approve the agenda second all those in favor please say aye um we have um business and miscellaneous approval of um january twenty first two thousand twenty-six regular meeting minutes I'll entertain a motion to approve those minutes that's I'll move to approve those minutes all seconds all those in favor please say aye all right uh motion passes um very excited today um on our agenda we have our general discussion ID 1726 Office of Emergency Management uh Director Kevin Simmons and staff are you gonna be joined by all of your staff?

Eventually I am um welcome thank you Kevin Simmons the emergency manager for the city of Annapolis um so you all have a treat today you won't be hearing from me the whole time so uh brought the staff and we have a very robust presentation which we were going to give an overview of the Office of Emergency Management like you never seen it so our presentation objectives is we're gonna briefly introduce the the uh emergency management staff and highlight emergency management program and provide some of the key emergency management planning focus areas of focus and we're also going to talk about special events at your request and detailed preparedness response and recovery efforts for the recent uh winter storm which we're actually still compiling after action information so we may not have some of the answers but we're working on them so I'm gonna go ahead and start with our mission statement you've heard this before especially being on the finance committee the city of Annapolis Officer of Emergency Management provides strategic leadership coordination and subject matter expertise to effectively manage the city's all hazard prevention protection mitigation response and recovery efforts fostering a resilient community and a strong culture of safety so who are we let's go ahead and meet the team so you all know me and you all know Dave Mandel he's the deputy director Dave is a University of Maryland School of Law graduate with 16 or 15 years 16 16 years he's the longest tenured person in the Office of Emergency Management and you have MK Saborowski she's the senior emergency management planner of Millersville University Pennsylvania graduate with nine years tenure in OEM up on the right Andrew Wittakin Andrew is an emergency management planner one a university of New Hampshire graduate with one year tenure Patrick Kamar is a emergency management planner one Susquehanna University Pennsylvania graduate with one year tenure then we have Kyle Lepkowski EM grant specialist a new hampshire university graduate with one year tenure in OEM so we're stealing them from the University of New Hampshire love it and finally our most recent acquisition is Karina Rosenbaum she's a training and education and outreach public information for us to Lane University in Louisiana graduate with less than one year so this is this is my staff welcome thank you guys for coming today so just to talk about before we get into it just talk about the highlights we respond to emergencies of all kinds we manage plans and I say we have about 50 of them we conduct training and exercises especially you saw that in December when we did the citywide exercise that kind of led up to the storm people tell me that every time I do an exercise whatever the exercise is it plays out in real time so I got to be careful on what exercises I choose uh we do community engagement oversight and consequent management of special events from 2010 to uh 2024 OEM has brought in 23 million dollars in in grant funding which supports every department in the city of Annapolis it just does not go to us our staff is available

So I got to be careful on what exercises I choose.

We do community engagement, oversight, and consequent management of special events.

From 2010 to uh 2024, OEM has brought in 23 million dollars in grant funding, which supports every department in the city of Annapolis.

It just does not go to us.

Our staff is available 24-735.

We provide administrative oversight to a uh various special programs that'll be substance use disorder programs, which we we share with the fire department and the police department and the mayor's office, warm and relief program, which everybody's familiar with at Pitt Moyer, and the Food Friday program.

You might have heard about that, Madam Chair.

Um emergency management has a connection to every city function and community lifeline.

We work with all stakeholders, city department, share services, health department, department of social services, at all levels of government and community.

So what are our challenges?

So we we have the smallest budget of all the city departments.

Our budget is 762,000 uh dollars, where everybody else is in the millions.

I'm the only one with a K behind mine.

But my budget is supplemented by grants for the last 15 years.

And just the last FY23 and FY24, um, we brought in $624,000 of grants to supplement uh my budget.

And again, it doesn't all go to my budget, it goes to all of the departments.

FY24, 583,000 again.

And then uh, if you look at FY25, a big goose egg, zero.

Um that funding has been on hold, that funding has been delayed.

We don't know if we're going to receive that funding.

So our our um our budget ask is going to be to help supplement what we didn't receive in grant funding.

So expect to see see that coming soon.

Any questions so far.

No.

Okay, let's talk about some of our planning program highlights, and we're going to start with special events.

And I want to invite Patrick Kamar.

All right.

So I'll specifically be talking about special events and our role in it.

Uh good afternoon.

My name is Patrick Hammer.

I'm a planner, emergency management.

Uh so OEMs support special events that impact the city through resource through resource operations, residents and visitors, including events that have the potential to create cascading effects, and as well as those others identified by city leadership.

What we do is we provide enhanced technical planning for resources, operations, public safety, logistics, and deconfliction.

We develop and implement planning products such as incident action plans, EOC action plans, maps, weather forecasts, and et cetera.

We can activate our EOC if required and have necessary capabilities required for effective special event management.

We coordinate between city and any supporting agencies.

So we work very closely with uh Maryland State Police, Maryland Capitol Police, all the other state and local agencies that are in Annapolis.

We conduct and we provide resource management, so that's helping uh ordering things from different departments that goes through Ross if it's a large enough special event.

Uh we also handle the activation and oversight of our community emergency response team, also known as CERT, and the volunteers used for a special event.

So the most likely time you see them, there are parade marshals, so they help conduct a safe and effective parade.

They watch for you know people being Roth Fairer, not following the parade rules and things like that.

Uh so to go over the planning process, again, this is a really general look.

Every event's different.

Um we're also not involved in every event.

Um, as I noted on this previous slide, it's really the larger events are the ones that are identified by a city leadership.

That first starts with a permit that's submitted to either the city manager, special event coordinator, Felicia Nolan, or directly to Reckham Parks.

So there's a lot of events that happen on their property, which we help them with.

Um there are some events that don't require a city permit.

And in that case, we talk directly with the city organ with the organizer of the event.

Or like I noted earlier, if it's a partnering agency, so Maryland Capitol Police, if there's something on state grounds that still has effects that may impact the city, we still work with them and we can actually work see their permit.

So virtual or in person to discuss um specifics of the event, um issues that we might see arise and see if they have a solution, and if not, we can help them find one.

Um from those planning meetings, we form uh if needed a planning products.

So that's what I was talking about earlier: the incident action plan, an EOC action plan uh or other products, uh, and and the incident action plan is what's most common on these really large events.

It dictates what each city department agency and supporting agencies is going to have the role.

It's clearly written out.

Um we pull everyone together and have an operations briefing.

So we typically have that in person, but sometimes it's virtual, um, and we discuss everyone's roles and responsibilities.