SSEMC Meeting 12.12-13.2013
Tacoma Community College – Fort Steilacoom
In attendance:
Chris Mackersie – Pierce College and today’s host
Shelley Miell – Pierce College and today’s event coordinator
Elman McClain – Seattle Central Community College
Mike Lane – Yakima Valley Community College
Jade Broglio – Edmonds Community College
Francesca Fender – Highline Community College
Robin Blacksmith – Shoreline Community College
Charles Hollen – Spokane Community College
Ken DeMello – Spokane Falls Community College
Anthony Bowers – Lake Washington Technical Institute
Ray Richardson – Bates Technical College
Marc Tolle – Everett Community College
Bruce Merighi – Wenatchee Valley College
Lonnie Hammond – South Puget Sound Community College
Bill Overby – Skagit Valley College
Ken Pacheco – Clark College
Larry Yok – Highline Community College
Levi Glatt – Columbia Basin Community College
Lisa Beach – Clover Park Technical College
Maureen Rickertsen – Pierce College
Linda Crearar – Center for Excellence (arrived at 1:10)
Bob Lord – Center for Excellence (arrived at 1:10)
Working lunch commenced at 11:45.
Welcome by Chris Mackersie to Tacoma CC, Ft Steilacoom with safety brief, conference room layout.
Elman opened the general meeting at 12:45 with a discussion of the Center for Excellence presenting to BAC at the fall
meeting that a training matrix was presented as if it were vetted by SSEMC. Elman explained that the Center has been a
support resource that has helped our agencies with training resources. Elman was concerned that this training matrix
was presented without prior discussion by the membership of SSEMC and that the Center for Excellence is not a voting
member of SSEMC, but actually a resource for member agencies.
Elman explained a bit of the situation leading to the cancellation of our fall meeting scheduled to be at Wenatchee
Valley College. We were far short of a quorum of registered attendees, so no business could have been conducted
during that meeting.
Elman and Robin detailed that the BAC has an expectation that our meeting tempo, agenda format and meeting format
mirror what the BAC is using. This was made clear to our Executive Council at a meeting with Frank Ashby of BAC, and
expected to allow us the best opportunity for success as an emerging council. The day was very beneficial and also
established a once per year training cooperation day with the OFC group. Spokane will be the tentative host for the May
15-16 meeting conjoining SSEMC/OFC.
Elman’s request for an action item to come to a decision on the role of the Center for Excellence was presented. Chris
shared a historical perspective on how the state board, legislation and prior Center for Excellence input has
contributed/led to where we are today. Without a central reporting system at the 34 member institutions, the Center
became a focal point to ask questions relating to Safety, Security and Emergency Management. Now that the SSEMC
has been established, the actual role of the Center may need to be adjusted. With endorsement by OFC for the SSEMC
to be created a decade ago, and now BAC establishing the SSEMC there now is a formalized body for our peer group.
Robin amplified the critical role that the Center took in assisting member agencies with tabletop training exercises and
as a resource provider. She urged us to look to the Center for training needs and resources, but to stand united and
insist that the Center for Excellence not speak on behalf of the SSEMC or attempt to represent the SSEMC at meeting of
various councils/boards. Ken D. spoke on behalf of the Training Subcommittee, and stated that the matrix in question
was presented by the Center at the Training SC meeting, but the Training SC perspective was that the training was too
aggressive and beyond the reasonable reach of most member agencies.
Guest Presentation: (1:05)
Chris introduced Lt. Mark Feddersen, the patrol LT for Tacoma, who will be presenting on the Birney Elementary
homicide emergency law enforcement response. Mark presented a brief WA history about how we arrived at using the
National Standard of the Incident Command System. He spoke to the two phase problem without being NIMS
compliant, first, you don’t speak a common language during events and second, you are not eligible for federal grant
funding. Sgt Frank Krause was the School Resource Officer on scene, and Mark was the Incident Commander. During
the presentation Mark suggested a few things that may allow dispatch call screeners, dispatchers, fire, ems and law
enforcement can respond:
 Addresses, building and room numbers next to or on all phones
 Train all employees to know the resources available and how to get responders to the scene
 Staff must know exactly where to send responders before responders will actually report
 Knowledge of ICS principles through training courses, tabletop and actual exercises
 Accountability of students and staff with means of reaching them, alerting them etc.
Elman gave the group a brief break, asking everyone to return to our main presentation room before breaking into our
subcommittees for the afternoon work session.
The EC met with the CoE
Motion to approve the minutes by Bill Overby, second by Lonnie, all in attendance in favor of approving the minutes.
Secretary/Treasurer report: Nothing financial for our council at this time. Secretary report merely stated that we will
request a SBCTC representative and better web presence/resource for our peers to use at the state board’s site.
Further, the listserv has seen a lot of expansion by depth of numbers enrolled from individual member institutions. A
better list of the one designated representative from each of the 34 member institutions is needed and Ed will work on
that list.
Jade presented the AdHoc Survey report, there was a limited response to the survey request. Many institutions did not
fill out complete information and opted to remain anonymous. This is problematic because the intent is for SSEMC
members to reach out to peers who have a good handle on facets that others may not, and are seeking help. For
example, only one responding member addressed any international students. Only 2/3rds of the member institutions
responded, after significant prodding from Jade. Is the survey something that needs to be retooled, repeated or does
the member list need to be refined to ensure that the SSEMC members are the ones getting and responding to the
survey. Jade will retool the survey and send it to the SSEMCEC by December 27th who will approve, send out and
request that the survey will be returned within one week. This allows the deadline to be just before the next quarter
begins. There was no one seated at the table that could not meet the completion deadline of January 6th, 2014. This will
allow us the winter quarter to review and discuss the survey results.
Lonnie represented the Security subcommittee, which had nothing to report at this time.
Ken D. represented the Training subcommittee, which had a SSEM Recommended ICS Minimum Training Matrix based
on the common positions in each college, demonstrating the expected minimum training, depending upon the roles for
those individuals. There is ongoing subcommittee work to come up with a standardized training list for Campus Security
Officers. There is also ongoing work to get a standardized plan for environmental/occupational safety individuals.
Robin suggested additional work on the training matrix to come to a consensus of the level of ICS training
needed to consider our institutions in compliance with standards and adequate to manage events.
Jade, Lonnie and Bruce stated that they had good success with open training facilitated by ICS trained staff and
then the students would only have to take the online test, not the whole course online.
Ken D stressed this is a recommendation, and each of us will have to decide and/or defend the level of training
that we each use as our campus standard.
Robert Lord spoke that he is neither a member of the Center of Excellence, nor is he representing Pierce College.
He is an expert in emergency management, ICS and coordinates the fire and homeland security certificate
programs through WAOL/Canvas as a training resource available.
Chris suggested refinement on the titles in the matrix and suggested adding some reference guidance from
FEMA to show why this would be the recommended training.
Ed recommended that the matrix be predicated by an ICS Organization chart that shows the positions and the
level of expertise and training needed for each position to which someone may be assigned. Some
disagreement to the format was heard, with Ken D suggesting we get a product out and others suggesting an ICS
position chart based recommendation may be a better approach.
Robin and Bill suggested that we expose our administrative leadership to the L363 course to better see the roles
they may need to be capable of filling for various incidents on campus.
Chris presented the perception that you can’t demand respect, but you must first earn respect. In this case the
SSEMC is working on earning the respect of BAC and WAC. Further, our position has been eroded by recent loss
of SSEMC familiar individuals at the SBCTC because all prior staffers have left the organization. Having someone
at SBCTC representing our council is key. Producing a 13-14 work plan is essential. BAC asked us for a training
matrix, but perhaps they were asking more for a blueprint of following current best practices.
FEMA/DOE/FBI/USDHHS/USDOT has endorsed a new framework document for emergency management. This
now is published and available, and may well be the federal standard that may be the source to assess what we
are doing on each of our campus locations.
Larry Yok, VPAS for Highline and BAC member, stated that there is a gap in compliance knowledge to ensure that
we are getting our campus locations prepared. BAC needs to know what are the things we need to be doing for
Clery compliance, what are our audit vulnerabilities, what are our minimum needs? What are the minimum
needs for incident management? What do we need to know to tell us we have a functional safety office that
can effectively service our campus environments? Larry also noted that radical changes (guns for campus
security) and mandates that show if certain measures are not met that we are deficient are not what the BAC is
eager to see or embrace. Knowing that we are meeting the minimal needs to ensure we are trained for
incidents, compliant with the regulatory needs and providing safety to our campus.
Elman and Robin had a brief discussion with Clery Compliance, when asked about various compliance matters
that BAC may be asking of our SSEM peers.
Ken D updated the SSEM Recommended ICS Minimum Training Matrix while this discussion unfolded. He
incorporated some of the suggestions heard during the discussion and put them into the document. He put it
up on the projector screen for further discussion. Ken now suggests that we include charts from the FEMA NIMS
2011 Training Program Manual that shows the chart breakdown (3 pages from the manual) as an executive
summary. Present that as a chart guideline that details what varied incident levels are, FEMA minimal training
expectations for those levels of incident management. This would determine the level of training
need/compliance at each of our member institutions.
Elman will take the visual documents back to the BAC subcommittee on Monday.
Ken D has been working on a proposal in the Spokane District. This proposal is relative to changing RCW
28B.10.550 to expand the text to include WACTC membership MAY establish law enforcement units. Current is
specific to only four year universities, by a vote of their trustees, may have law enforcement on their campus.
Wants the law to change to state of Washington institutions of higher learning may, by the vote of their
trustees, establish a police force. 37 of 50 states have the same language allowing all institutions of higher
learning to establish police forces. 74% of 4 year colleges with 2,500 students or more have police forces
nationwide, according to a DOJ survey.
Ken D will provide a copy of this presentation for inclusion to the minutes. This has been perceived by many as a
push to get armed police forces on campus, which is not the reality. Each institution could send guards to an
armed course and choose to have an armed security force. Rather, this merely has the intent to change the
RCW such that each community college Chancellor/President/Board of Trustees have the authority to establish a
law enforcement agency that has access to information that is currently not available to non-commissioned
agencies.
Ed suggested that if the Spokane District Chancellor is supportive of having the same authority to decide
as to establish a police force or not, that this discussion be held at that level, with that peer group in
WAC.
Bill asked if this change would permit our institutions to investigate their own campus crime at the level
that each institution can manage. The risk of sharing of Federally-protected student information with
agencies and the potential for FERPA violations as a result is also a concern as we currently do business
with police agencies that might be reduced by a college’s ability to investigate low-level crimes.
Ken D was willing to share the work that his team has done with their AAG with our group regarding the
sharing of information between agencies without violating FERPA.
Jade moved that since we have had the presentation, that it is now time to move forward back to the
SSEMC agenda.
Larry Yok stressed this is a legislative matter that should first come from the WAC, be tasked to the BAC
and then carried down to the SSEMC for input, consideration and recommendation when/if asked by
BAC.
Chris wanted to honor the work done on this subject, and know that our forum is one where we can
openly discuss more subjects of interest to some or all of our SSEMC members.
Elman opened an old business item to see if we can get a better web presence on the SBCTC site for SSEM.
What input does our membership have for how we would like our website to appear, links to have, support for
web site management/update.
New Business:
When the Ad Hoc Survey is done, we would like to request that Jade begin working on template documents for
our members to use. Specifically, with all the statewide discussion on COOP, it would be nice to have an ad hoc
group to work on a boiler plate COOP. Jade is agreeable providing this happens after the survey work is done
and after our next scheduled meeting.
Center of Excellence had hand out information about the Partners in Preparedness and the Society of Military
Engineers working on a Cascadia Fault exercise/discussion. Linda will forward that information electronically to
the SSEMC listserv.
Elman also presented a request that all member of SSEMC participate in one of the subcommittees so that there
are not members wandering around when we have breakout sessions for subcommittee work.
Security Operations: Kyle, Lonnie, Charlie, Mike, Bill
Communications: Marty, Ed
Training: Ken D, Bruce,
Compliance Reporting: Elman, Lisa Beach, Shelley Miell
Ad Hoc (Survey currently, COOP next): Jade, Chris,
Executive Council: Chairs of each committee
Robin brought up a request that we identify standards for host sites, so we can ensure we have ITV/Distance
capabilities with hubs on east/west sides so that small groups could meet if needed.
Chris will work on refreshing the SBCTC/WAC/BAC system organizational documents that formerly were
maintained by Noreen.
Next meeting dates:
Winter Quarter Meeting: February 20th South Puget Sound - Lonnie
Spring Quarter Meeting: May 15&16 at Spokane – Ken D and Charlie
Summer Quarter Meeting: Late August early September – Yakima Valley – Mike
Meeting adjourned.