DOES MOUNT HOLLY HAVE A COMPLIANT EMERGENCY OPERATIONS PLAN?
YEARS OF “ASSISTANCE” AND STILL NO “CERTIFICATION”
David Levinski is the Burlington County “Public Information Officer”. For months, the Mount Holly Reporter has attempted to get a single information factoid from Mr. Levinsky: “Does Mount Holly have a compliant Emergency Operations Plan?”. This would seem to be a Yes or No answer.
I attended the October 9, 2024 Board of County Commissioners meeting with the intent of getting that Yes or No answer. Instead, Mr. Levinsky told the Reporter that “the County is working with Mount Holly”. So does the fact that you still need to work on it mean the plan is not compliant with state rules? No, Mr. Levinsky insisted he did not say the plan was out of compliance. OK, then why are you still “working with” the town, what is wrong with the plan? He didn’t say anything was wrong with the plan. It seemed like deflections would go on forever when Mr. Levinsky said “there are issues” with the plan.
AH-HA! So the plan is therefore not compliant with state rules! NO, he didn’t say that. What DID he say? Eventually, the best answer I could obtain was “Please allow me to circle back and see what information I can release.”
I certainly was not asking for sensitive details, but my take is that the people of Mount Holly deserve to know, without equivocation, that their emergency management personnel have a plan that meets with the approval of the New Jersey Emergency Management Office. Impatient with a month's long run around, I wrote to the top Administrator of Burlington County, Eve Cullinan. Surely, I would get an answer from her. This was the answer that I received on November 12, 2024.
“The Burlington County Office of Emergency Management continues to try to work with Mount Holly to assist them in obtaining certification. That remains the case.”
Progress. Not the Yes or No answer I sought, but its as close as I have gotten to a description of what is wrong. We don’t have certification yet. What exactly is certification you ask? Good question.
Lets take a moment to review the recent tortured history of Mt. Holly’s Emergency Operations Plan and why it matters. By email dated February 23, 2022, the Burlington County Emergency Management office informed Mt Holly of the following:
This email is to inform you that your municipal Emergency Operation Plan expired on October 31, 2018. The Emergency Management Act, NJSA, Appendix A: 9-30, mandates the development and approval of Emergency Operations Plans for all municipalities, counties, and the State. Furthermore, State OEM Directive 101 states that each municipality shall submit a completed Emergency Operations Plan to the State Office of Emergency Management for re-certification every four (4) years. We asked that you review, make any necessary changes, and forward your plan to the County Office of Emergency Management (OEM). The County OEM will then review your EOP before submitting a request letter, along with a record of changes, to the South Regional Office for re-certification.
It’s the County Office of Emergency Management that reviews the Emergency Operation Plan every four years for a certification process involving the State “South Regional Office”. Hence, my insistence that the County could tell me whether the plan was compliant or not. Since at least 2018, the State of New Jersey was trying to get compliance from our township with regards to the plan, and The Mount Holly Reporter was informed earlier this year that our plan is still somehow not complete.
Having a compliant Emergency Operation Plan is not only a good idea from the perspective of readiness for whatever might come our way in terms of fires, floods or even cyber attacks… it also entitles Mount Holly to $10,000 a year in reimbursements for Emergency Management related costs, like training. You would think that just the reimbursement angle would dictate that our plan would be a priority.
The Mount Holly Reporter is pursuing more specific answers regarding plan compliance with the New Jersey State Police.