City Council: City’s emergency preparedness efforts talk of the county
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula City Council
Published: September 26, 2008
The City Council praised the aggressive public safety programming being offered by the Santa Paula Fire Department throughout September, designated national Disaster Preparedness Month, and learned the city’s preparedness efforts are the talk of Ventura County.
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula Times
The City Council praised the aggressive public safety programming being offered by the Santa Paula Fire Department throughout September, designated national Disaster Preparedness Month, and learned the city’s preparedness efforts are the talk of Ventura County.
After a September 15 discussion centered on an October 4 Emergency Preparedness event targeting businesses, churches, niche providers and others, Mayor Bob Gonzales asked if the forum could be recorded and later televised on Time Warner Cable Channel 10.
Much of the material will be suitable for broadcast, said Santa Paula Fire Chief Rick Araiza, who noted that September has featured several emergency preparedness programs on the city’s government access channel that has garnered “an overwhelmingly” positive reaction from residents for the child-focused Rainbow Fire Department and “People Like You” featuring SPFD Captain Steve Lazenby - who gives an abbreviated version of the CERT program - and “The Plan.”
“My compliments to Steve,” said Gonzales. “I’m really excited that the programming is showing the public basic steps” to take in the case of emergency or disaster, and Gonzales was pleased the SPFD is “taking a lead role on this so that members of the community, if faced with a crisis, know what to do.”
Araiza said an example of citizen involvement in emergency response is the September 12 Metrolink 111 crash, where “at first there weren’t enough public safety responders,” and area residents were pressed into emergency service.
The programming that has been broadcast is “fabulous,” said Vice Mayor Ralph Fernandez, who noted he appreciates the heavy rerun schedule. “If you say someone once people put it out of their mind, but when it’s repetitious” information sticks, as people hear it “over and over again.”
Overall, the city’s emergency preparedness is “fabulous” and Lazenby’s work is “fabulous, it’s an amazing program. I’m glad for the work you’re doing, I can’t say enough” about its value and effectiveness. Watching the programming “over and over again reminds me” that absorbing the information is important, and “reinforcing, reinforcing is fabulous.”
Comments Araiza said he has received at Ventura County Fire Chiefs meetings include that Santa Paula is “shaming them” into emergency preparedness action. “They have all the money and we’re scraping by,” but the city’s efforts to ensure citizens are prepared for disaster or emergency is causing Araiza to “get a ribbing from the other chiefs. The same thing with our CERT program... Santa Paula was first, and now we see the entire county” implementing CERT programs.
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