ReadyCommunities Partnership Buffalo Symposium and Planning Session | 06.06.2008 | 08:58:15 | Views: 7733 | ID: June 6 '08: During the ReadyCommunities Partnership Buffalo Symposium and planning session, members of the city, local and regional governments partnered with their business and community counterparts to plan and design a pilot project to help the community respond and recover from a disaster in the first 72 hours of a crisis. Through leveraging community resources, attendees developed several key points during the symposium which was opened by Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown. The Buffalo News quoted Mayor Brown saying that leveraging innovative public/private partnerships and resources are "paying dividends for the residents of this community." Mayor Brown encouraged local business leaders and government officials to continue to work together to strengthen the relationships which they have been building. During the planning session, partners talked about the creation of "Crisis Response Officers" - representatives from private sector, non-profit, religious and community organizations who could organize themselves in an "Essential Persons Network" very similar to the Essential Public Network. CROs would have access to information and resources to provide assistance and support to first responders and residents directly affected by a crisis. Secondly, ReadyCommunities partners discussed a credentialing system which integrates BNet's Corporate Emergency Access Program. Using Bnet's system, critical private sector employees would be issued ID cards that allow them to drive during snow and other emergency travel bans to help provide valuable resources. Those critical private sector employees would be allowed access to a disaster scene only by a response official. Officials said they would want to work this program to include the larger Niagara region. Finally, officials began a discussion of creating databases of critical assets and having those databases integrated into a mapping and GIS location technology. Currently, Google's partnerships are allowing assets and critical infrastructure to be overlaid on mapping technology. Officials decided to form a working group to examine, quantify and qualify what is wanted, what is needed and how to develop it. National Blueprint Tags: Citizen & Community Sector P3.
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