OLDS — Two deputy directors of emergency management who no longer work for the Town of Olds have been dropped from those posts and replaced by two others.
Municipal councillors made that decision during their May 24 meeting at the recommendation of director of emergency management Brian Powell. The changes took effect immediately.
Former community facilitator Jennifer Lutz and former director of operations Scott Chant were dropped from the role of deputy director of emergency management.
They were replaced by firefighters Jamie Vasseur and Cody Maetche.
All municipalities are required to create an incident command system (ICS). Olds did so back in 2020 to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Powell told councillors that ideally the Olds emergency management system operates on a three-deep model, which means having three people capable of doing every position.
As a result of staff turnover lately, that hasn’t been possible. Powell expressed hope they can get back to that system.
“That's been a bit of a challenge with this attrition,” he said. “Part of the reason to hold off on that was everyone needed a bit of time to relax and exhale from COVID and now it’s time to focus on that direction.”
Powell said the plan is to reach out to town managers to take on those roles before asking staff to do so.
Emergency management officials are required to conduct a tabletop exercise annually. Powell said emergency management agency leaders will conduct a “low priority” tabletop exercise in September.
He said a large-scale mock incident will be scheduled for some time in 2023.
Olds is a member of the Central Region All-hazard Incident Management Team (CRAHIMT).
It provides support to an incident commander. Personnel are trained and qualified for various ICS positions. Maetche is the Town of Olds’ liaison for that.
Powell said he’s currently completing training to become an upgraded ICS instructor. There are plans to train other staff for other positions.
“A new piece for us was to look at training locally – training the trainer," he said.
"That’s a big win I believe for ourselves in the sense that we don’t have to send people away,” he added. “We can do that in-house.”
He said there’s a lot of enthusiasm among staff to be involved.
Coun. Darren Wilson asked Powell what the succession plan is if he steps down from serving as director of emergency management.
Powell laughed.
“That’s a remarkably good question,” he said.
Powell said he’s been awfully busy.
“I’m back to spinning three plates again and to be quite honest with you, this year I am maxed as much as I possibly can,” he said.
However, Powell said for the moment, he plans to keep on in his position.
“For me, it is what it is,” he said. “I enjoy what I’m doing. I enjoy stepping up to the plate when it comes to emergency management and providing some leadership and some guidance and some awareness.
“But as far as the heavy lifting and navigating through maintaining the REP, I don’t have a significant amount of time to provide for you for that, so that’s the piece that we’re trying to leverage – to get someone to help us with that.”
Powell said staff turnover made his job much tougher. He specified one person in particular.
“We lost a lot of heavy lifting, I’m not going to lie to you,” he said. “When Jen Lutz left this place we lost a tremendous amount of heavy lifting when she pulled out.”
Lutz left for a position with the City of Airdrie.
Director of protective services Justin Andrew backed up Powell’s statement, saying Lutz worked half-time in emergency management for a couple of years, during which time she did a lot of upkeep for it.
He said because of that, when the pandemic hit, “we went into it strong because everything was up to date and ready to go.
"It definitely is a little more time-consuming than one would think, especially if there’s no emergencies, but a good plan is being prepared for us."
