Dear Mayor:

On January 13, 2003, my staff and I met with the New Jersey State League of Municipalities Hometown Security Task Force to address some of your concerns on a perceived lack of information sharing relative to emergency management functions, especially terrorism security issues. It proved to be an enlightening exchange, and a valuable forum to expose us to impressions from the field.

The sixteen months since the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center has been a watershed of activity at the federal and state level to raise the preparedness posture of this nation and focus our attention on homeland/hometown security. There is now a new federal department devoted to homeland security. New Jersey has organized a Domestic Security Preparedness Task Force and an Office of Counter-Terrorism. Initiatives have begun to bring the private sector into this partnership. There are invigorated planning, exercising and funding efforts and a Citizens Corps program to encourage volunteer involvement.

The pace of recent events has left precious little time for meaningful dialogue between elected officials and their emergency management coordinators and first responders. We need to close this information gap and rejuvenate the local relationship so critical to the public safety. A first step will be to share with you a series of pertinent publications with background information and checklists to bring you up to date on counter-terrorism planning. Nearly all of these publications are available on the Internet at the State of New Jersey, NJOEM, FEMA and New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services websites. They include:

The text of the New Jersey Domestic Security Preparedness Act, October 4, 2001
Governor McGreevey's Executive Order #33 creating the Office of Counter-Terrorism
The Checklist for a Municipal Terrorism Incident Annex to your Emergency Plan
The Standardized Text for the Municipal Terrorism Incident Annex
The Addendum format for the Terrorism Incident Annex (for those municipalities relying on another entity (county, adjacent community) to provide this function
The N.J. Department of Health & Senior Services Guidelines for Suspect Anthrax Incidents

The New Jersey League of Municipalities has put its shoulder to the wheel in this effort by organizing a Crisis Management Seminar to be conducted on Friday, April 11, 2003, from 8:30 a.m. to 1.00 p.m. at the PNC Arts Center in Holmdel. Your Hometown Security Task Force has taken the initiative to articulate your concerns with the Office of Counter-Terrorism and will serve as a conduit to ensure a continuous flow of information.

I encourage you to make use of the mechanism already in place for emergency management at the local level. Our Emergency Management Bureau Regional Units, North, Central and South, are in constant communication with your emergency management coordinators and their counterparts at the county level. These troopers are keenly interested in your plans, training and exercises. Your Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC) needs to be involved in the hometown security process and in the continuous revision and upgrading of your emergency plans.

Mayor Tim McDonough and the Hometown Security Task Force articulated a need for a series of regional conferences, similar to those we conducted prior to Y2K, to facilitate the widest possible dissemination of our message. The New Jersey Office of Emergency Management fully supports this initiative and we will begin scheduling these meetings after the Holmdel Seminar.

Keeping your concerns in mind, I will press into service every communications means available to NJOEM to keep you as well as your emergency coordinator informed of important developments. We have begun to utilize the Department of Community Affairs (DCA) GovConnect system for E-Mail and will continue to employ Enhanced Fax and the New Jersey Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (NJLETS) to provide redundant coverage.

I look forward to meeting you at Holdmel or one of our subsequent conferences. If you have any questions or require further assistance, please contact Captain Lou Mascioli, Chief of the Emergency Management Bureau, at (609) 538-6056.