Government

This recent headline in my local newspaper caught my eye; “Whatcom County councilors like Facebook; public-records rules remain fuzzy” The piece briefly examines the use of Facebook by county elected officials, and the reasons why some use it and others ...

Who’s tired of hearing about the ugliness in Ferguson, Missouri? Me, for one.  I’m tired of watching a community commit suicide by Molotov cocktail, while dedicated police officers try to contain the chaos without getting hurt. I’m tired of hearing ...

Is there something in the water?  Recent stories of leadership faux pas  by fire chiefs, including allegations of criminal and racial activities are damaging the reputation of their departments and the fire service in general.  Dave Statter’s blog, Statter911 features ...

On October 23rd, the Los Angeles Times published an article about LAFD’s response time performance to emergency calls. “No progress on LAFD 911 response times, new data show” blared the headline, summarizing data about how long it takes to; 1. ...

A couple months ago I wrote a piece about public concern with bringing an Ebola infected U.S. citizen back home for treatment. At the time I thought the hysteria surrounding this maneuver was way out of proportion to the potential ...

I just got back from the Oregon Emergency Medical Services conference in Salem, where I talked about the use of social media for crisis communications. After the three presentations I asked one of the conference coordinators if he had heard ...

A videotaped interview of four government employees responsible for handling public information functions after the August 24, 2014 Napa, California earthquake reveals real challenges and inherent conflicts between quickly informing the public, fulfilling incident command responsibilities and ensuring the safety ...

Preaching about the use of social media tools during crisis is much easier than actually doing it. Especially for smaller agencies with limited staff. But, does that mean it can’t be done? Absolutely not. Because of the recent Ferguson, Missouri ...

Over the past two days I’ve closely followed the civil unrest in the small enclave of Ferguson, Missouri, a small suburb outside of St. Louis. A Ferguson police officer shot and killed a young African American male after some type ...

Ebola, the nasty hemorrhagic fever virus described in detail in Tom Clancy’s 1996 book Executive Orders, caused a fair amount of public consternation in the U.S., and for good reason.  The latest outbreak in the African countries of Guinea, Liberia and ...