NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- A citizen implored the City Commission to reconsider the lay-off of the city emergency management coordinator whose position was eliminated last month as part of a $1 million cut in the 2009 budget that took effect Oct. 1.
That citizen, Kathy Wright, spoke of the firing of Randy Wright.
"A new fire station was built with tax dollars, to include an operational emergency operations center and the city then staffed with a position, euipped the EOC and paid for training for their EOC coordinator.
Your emergency management coordinator also trained all city employees in compliance with federally mandated national management system.
Under the direcon, a new CEMP was updated and improved to reflect our city's growing needs.
And has now been designated a storm ready commuyinty by the nationaL WEATHER SERVICE ONE OD F ONLY CITIES IN THE CISTATE OF FLORIDA. aND by the way Volusia County has just been named No. 8 of the top 10 disaster prone counties in the natuon
When not coordinating efforts yto bring to bear all the assets within the city of a crisis, your emergency management coordinator has many other functions,. One recent projevct is to begin wiork on lowering the community eating stystem to lower flood insurance opremiums dfor the citizens of new smyrna. This has the potential of not only saving the citizens millions of dollars over the next 10 years, but also to flood those monies back into our gging economy, boosting it from the inside out.
Finally, you should know that the position you voted to resolve in the beginninhg of your last meeting was the same individual who applied for wrote, received and presented you with a $1.5 million grant that very same night. So with one hand you brought down the guillotine, and with the other you accepted a large grant which would pay for the position and a slew of others, fort decades to come
And so I ask again, will you reconsider your decision on this position?
I am unsure if the citizens were made aware of which positions were being cut, and so i'd like to clarify tht position, which is the emergency management coordinator."