Seward County Emergency Management Director Gary Petersen and 13 of his regional peers are renewing their collaborative arrangement to better protect and serve residents in times of natural, manmade or civic emergencies.
The Seward County Board of Commissioners on Jan. 30 unanimously endorsed plans for Seward County to join emergency directors from Cass, Gage, Fillmore, Jefferson, Johnson, Lancaster, Nemaha, Otoe, Pawnee, Richardson, Saline, Thayer and York counties to better plan and train for emergencies, provide mutual aid and obtain and manage Federal Homeland Security grants.
The agreement continues a program that has helped Seward County and other participants over the years.
“It just helps us all work together,” Petersen said.
In recent years, southwest Seward County residents saw the impact first hand when equipment and disaster volunteers from other counties assisted after the Beaver Crossing area was hit by a tornado. Petersen also cited recent examples where equipment and volunteers from Seward County and others were dispatched to Lancaster, Saline and Jefferson counties to combat wildfires.
The Southeast Planning Exercise Training Region for Cooperative Public Safety Services, which was originally formed in 2017, has expired, and in its place the group is creating the 2024 Local Emergency Operations Plan for reciprocal emergency management, collaborating on planning, training, communications, grant administration and other mutual aid arrangements.
As outlined in meeting materials, the new five-year arrangement establishes the Southeast PET Region as a separate legal entity to facilitate regional emergency management coordination and services, as well as coordinate grant applications and fiscal management.
The emergency managers from each of the counties will form the entity’s governing board, which will be subject to Nebraska’s Open Meetings Law but has no taxing authority. The designated fiscal agent will rotate among counties every three years, with Otoe County now serving in that role.
Also at the Jan. 30 meeting, the commissioners:
• Approved the use of commissary funds for optional anger management classes for inmates that the previous director of the detention center had worked on with Four Corners Health Department.
• Asked the county attorney’s office to review how the board might implement a consent agenda consolidating more routine business items into a single voting item after questions were raised about business to be included.
• Approved plans to purchase $110,360 in Wetlands Mitigation Credits with funds from the county’s Inheritance Fund, with plans to reimburse that fund when federal reimbursements are received for the Beaver Crossing South Bridge project on Pioneers Road.
• Approved the $11,319 quote from Shaffer Communications, Inc., to upgrade the Missile Base Shop tower base, to be funded by the Inheritance Fund, and set a reimbursement rate of $35 per month for road department employees using their cell phones for county business after doing a cost-comparison with other options.
• Appointed Don Olson, Jean Eggleston, Kathy Stych, Greg Holloway, Mary Reetz, Shawna Agena, Steph Meyer, Donna Havener, Susan Burkey, Kelly Burianek and Glenda Dobbertein and Commissioner Raegan Hain to the Seward County Aging Advisory Board.
• Discussed and approved maintenance projects and contracts with Building and Grounds Superintendent Eric Hofer including installation of a handicap door actuator at the West Wing Building, approving a service agreement with Engineered Controls and replacement of the HVAC controller at the justice center.
• Approved a short form plat for a homestead subdivision in K Precinct as recommended by the Seward County Planning Commission.
• Accepted the sheriff’s fee and mileage reports for November.
