Mineral County approves regional MOA for Emergency Management

MINERAL COUNTY- Mineral County Commissioners under the advisement of Mineral County Emergency Manager Terry Wetherill, signed a Valley-wide Memorandum of Agreement(MOA) to form the new Emergency Manager Coordination Committee Monday, Oct. 5.


According to Wetherill, the committee agreement has been a work in progress for the last year and was the result of a previous committee that was formed around the time of the West Fork Complex Fire. “We had a committee that consisted of about 11 people from all over the place. The purpose of this was to pare down the members and include more people who represent the six counties here in the Valley. This will allow us to have more opportunities for funding and to better represent the Valley as a whole,” said Wetherill.


The MOA is currently being signed by all six SLV counties, plus Hinsdale County and will be implemented in the new year. “We wanted to have equal representation from all of our counties so that we can better serve our communities and have the ability to help each other during times of emergency situations. This MOA will do that and will greatly aid in the main goal of protecting our rural counties to the best of our ability,” said Wetherill. In the MOA is outlined in the below explanation:


•The purpose of this Memorandum of Agreement is to establish a policy group for the purpose of governing a SLV Regional Emergency Coordination Group (ECG) that may manage any emergency that affects multiple or all counties in the region and whose management exceeds the designated local response authority’s capacity; and,
•The policy group will include one (1) County Commissioner from each political subdivision chosen by each counties Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) on an annual basis during the first regularly scheduled meeting in January during the formation of the Board; and,
NOTE: The Chair of the SLV Commissioners will serve as the Chair of the Policy Group while also representing their jurisdiction. The SLV Policy Group will include seven (7) members total and will convene as a 7-member policy group for regional incidents or partially if all counties are not involved/activated. EXAMPLE: Two counties affected by wildfire disaster; the two Policy Group Commissioners would be the extent of the activation.
•This policy group will activate within 24 hours of request made to the Chair of the San Luis Valley Commissioners and Chair of the Hinsdale BOCC; and,
•Within 48 hours, the policy group will identify a fiscal agent and Finance Lead (if applicable) for incident activation or develop a finance strategy and provide this guidance to ECG; and,
•The policy group will create a DELEGATION OF AUTHORITY as applicable for the ECG Incident Commander; and,
•The policy group may provide incident spending parameters to order and deploy needed resources from within the region and outside of the region; and,
•The policy group may provide incident situational awareness to their BOCC and county leadership including budgetary ramifications and the need to declare a local disaster to the State of Colorado; and,
•This MOA becomes effective on the date of execution and shall remain in effect unless terminated by written notification and thirty-day notice to all participating counties; and,
•This MOA may be amended by written mutual agreement and as approved by the Emergency Management supervising authorities.


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