Okay.

Let's call the Brattleboro Select Board meeting of Wednesday, October 1st, 2025 to order.

This is a special meeting at a special time, 4 p.m.

And the physical location for this meeting is the select board meeting room at the municipal center.

But many of us are joining from Zoom.

And the public is welcome to do so as well.

So this is a special meeting.

John, has it been properly warned?

Yes, it was properly warned.

Thank you.

And is there anyone either in the room or on Zoom who would like to participate?

Zoom, uh Seth, is there anyone?

Um seeing none.

Very good.

Then we will begin our regular business, which is the approval of the emergency management plan.

So John, would you like to introduce uh Jay and we'll begin?

Yep.

Um thank you, Liz.

So uh Chief Simons uh serves not only as our fire chief but also as our emergent emergency management director.

And in that capacity, he's put together this uh local emergency management plan and he will explain why we do this and what it's for and um and go through some of the components and then uh if you have any questions, we're happy to answer them.

That's wonderful, Jay.

Welcome.

Thank you.

And thank you, everybody, for having this special meeting.

Uh, as John says, I I put together the emergency management plan.

This this plan is vital.

Uh this plan is vital not only for our organization, our response posture, but also it you know allows us to get FEMA funding and state funding should we have an emergency in Brattleboro.

Um just to provide some kind of clarification on this document.

This is what's called a base document.

So this document is intended to be short and concise and not speak to specific emergencies.

As we build up this program, we'll build out incident response plans.

And the idea behind those is you know, those are hazard specific.

So our we might have an incident response plan for flooding.

We might have an incident response plan for wildfires.

And why those are specific plans is they sit on the shelf, and when that happens, we pull that specific plan off the shelf.

And that just keeps everything organized.

So rather than having a document with incident response plans in it that's like a thousand pages long, you have hazard-specific incident plans with a base document that just contains the vital information.

Um, base document is we have an emergency, we need a resource.

We pull this document out, we flip to our resources page, and we call that resource.

Uh, if we're concerned about uh some vulnerable uh people in the town, who are those groups of vulnerable people that's contained in this document?

Uh who sits on the emergency management team.

Should we activate an emergency operations center?

That's also contained in this document.

Um this document will be most of this information comes from our old emergency management plan uh that was approved in 2024.

A lot of this is carried over with that, and then some new information from some of the stakeholders that I've met with uh since my time here.

Uh so some of the things are new and fresh, and I went through and updated all the names and stuff.

So that's the document uh for your approval.

Great.

Um I'll open it up to the board if any board members have questions.

Thank you.

Please please begin.

I see the go for it, Isaac.

Well, actually, let me just make the note that Amanda, who I think was the one who wanted to pull it, says she's having computer issues and should be here in a minute.

Great.

Oscar, did you have any other comments?

Nope, that's it.

Okay, great.

Yes, and and I had spoken to Amanda about her concerns, and I believe from what I see that uh Jay has responded to them.

Um, but Isaac, did you have comments?

Yeah, well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us and of course for putting together this final document, Chief Simons.

I'm interested to hearing a little bit about the role of the select board in an emergency.

I did receive some communications, as did other board members when the fire at SIT happened, and just really appreciated the town staff's response and collaboration with that institution and in addressing the needs.

And just wanted to learn about how we can be supportive in those sorts of situations.

So the select board plays a vital role in all this for a multitude of reasons.

So some of the things that occur in an emergency response is immediate expenditures, emergency expenditures, which through our procurement policy, we have authorization to do.

But if the select board is involved, that gives you that situational awareness and that clear visibility of of why this is being spent.

So you know, some people are comfortable reaching out to Liz, some people are comfortable reaching out to Oxiger.

So the select board's involvement is a conduit to the emergency operations center to ensure that we all have all the accurate information because somebody that's you know, maybe we have a flood and the this person is trapped without supplies.

They might reach out to you rather than reaching out to the emergency operations center, and you would be that conduit information.

Um it's my belief that there should always be at least one uh select board member involved in the unified command, and your role in unified command is that that conduit to the rest of the select board members and to have a true so when I come to you in and say this is what we had to do during that disaster, you have a real-time understanding of what exactly occurred and why it occurred, and and just you really get those live updates.

Um those are some of the situations that that would really uh be vital to have the select board involved in.

Let me know that Amanda has joined us.

Um welcome, Amanda.

And I will just note that I was um I I did have the privilege of participating in the incident uh at the SIT fire, and it was wonderful to see our staff work together and work together with other agencies.

Um and I really uh was very impressed by that work and happy to see that you know, elements of that are presented in this space document.

Uh Amanda, I'm sorry that you missed uh Jay's brief presentation, but I I do I know that you asked for more information to be provided in this report.

And I wondered whether you've had a chance to look over the draft and and whether you had any comment to make about the draft before us now.

Um, first of all, I apologize for technical issues on my end.

My sorry about that.

Um yes, and actually all were um repaired.

The the what concerns I have were just uh all the contact um information.

Um the one thing that's missing is my cell phone number.

I'm happy to, I'm not sure how to put that in.

I see all the other select board members are in there, but otherwise it it feels a lot more complete, and that was um the only thing I had.

Great.

And then that anyone have has any uh information that they want to get to Jay, they can email him, and that'll be reflected in the final drawing, uh final document.

Um is there anyone else who would like to comment on this draft document that we have before us?

No, I looked it over, it all looks fine to me.

Great.

And I and so I see some other thumbs up, and I just want to comment that one of the things that I learned from witnessing the incident command structure and asked Jay said this is a living document, so it'll be updated and it also reflects the new relationships that Jay is making as he comes on board as our our fire chief with all of the parties involved.

So um again, the the coordination that I witnessed was really awesome, and I'm hoping that that continues and I'm sure it will.

Uh John, is there anything else that we need to discuss before we take a vote?

Um yeah, I was just gonna ask if if uh somebody would make a motion, we we we would be looking to approve, approve and accept this plan.

I'll motion that we approve and accept um Chief Simon's plan.

Great.

Um Peter has moved to approve the emergency management plan for uh the town of Brattleboro and in 2025.

And all select board members in favor, please.

Oh, did you have a comment, Isaac?

Or are you just approving?

No, I have a comment.

Okay, go ahead.

Yeah, I had a couple of questions for the chief, actually.

And I asked one about the select board role and really appreciate that response, um, chief.

The the other question was just about how organizations are added, and if you know, I I'm very supportive of this plan.

Um, just in terms of um if if we learn of a new other other new organization that's working with another vulnerable community that's not on that list, for instance, would it be appropriate to to reach out to you and and the town manager just to give you a heads up about that?

Or what are the what how best would you like for people to communicate?

So, yes, uh reach out to me is is perfect.

And then what my steps that I take is I go and meet with that that group or that organization to get the detailed information of you know what survival population, how many, what facilities do they have, what are their facility weaknesses or hazards involved with those facilities.

Uh, and then we move them into the plan.

And that just gives me that situational awareness to know that if they call, what are some of their potential uh needs gonna be when when we have an emergency?

Great, thank you so much.

Yep.

And I would just also mention I think it's important if we can identify if there's any people who live in like a vac a basement apartment if there might be a flood.

Those are good ones, yep.

Okay, so are we ready to vote?

Uh we've had uh a motion from Peter, and I'll reiterate that uh uh Peter's made a motion to approve the Brattleboro emergency management plan.

And all in favor, please raise your hand and say aye.

Aye.

And I count five hands up.

So uh Chief Simons, thank you very much.

Thank you.

John, thank you very much.

Seth also, thank you very much.

I'll take one more motion.

I'll motion to adjourn.

Great.

Peter has a motion to adjourn.

All in favor, please raise your hand and say aye.

Aye.

And here we are, five hands again.

Thank you all very much.

And uh we'll see you soon.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye.