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In 1980
the Mayor and Council of the City of Los Angeles created
the Emergency Operations Organization (EOO) to centralize
the direction and control of local emergency preparations,
response and recovery. An Emergency Operations Board, consisting
of key department general managers and permanently chaired
by the Chief of Police, was established to direct and control
EOO affairs. The City Administrative Officer (CAO) was designated
as EOO Coordinator and was responsible for providing full-time
staff to coordinate day-to-day EOO and EOB responsibilities.
During
its first decade, EOO Coordination (inter-agency liaison,
administrative and budget issues, etc.) was accomplished
with a small full-time CAO staff working with more than a
hundred part-time departmental representatives through an
extensive committee and subcommittee process. The readiness
and management of the City's Emergency Operations Center
(EOC) were the responsibility of the Police Department.
In 1990,
because of concerns about no department being directly responsible
for Citywide interdepartmental EOO training and the slowness
of the planning process, efforts were initiated to establish
a full-time cadre of personnel to address these issues. In
1991, a full-time EOO Planning and Training Cadre utilizing
six or seven existing staff through loans from the Police,
Fire, Public Works and General Services Departments was proposed.
This proposal relied on the willingness of departments to
loan existing staff, with no new positions or funding provided.
The proposal was not implemented.
In the
wake of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots, the issue of slow and
inadequate EOO planning and training was again raised. The
recommended solution was a full-time, seven member EOO Planning
and Training Cadre consisting of newly funded positions from
five City departments (Police, Fire, General Services, Public
Works Engineering, and Water and Power). The Mayor and City
Council approved the EOO Planning and Training Cadre as part
of the adopted City Budget, effective July 1, 1993.
The EOO
Cadre did not achieve full staffing until after the January
1994 Northridge Earthquake. The approved positions included
a Police lieutenant, two Fire captains, one senior management
analyst, one senior engineer, one management analyst, and
a clerk typist. Concurrently, the CAO had a minimum of four
full-time staff devoted to EOO coordination activities. Additionally,
the Police Department had a full-time sergeant assigned to
ensure EOC readiness and training. Finally, on July 1, 1994,
the Mayor and City Council authorized two new Information
Technology Agency (ITA) systems positions to support EOC
automation, for a total of 14 full-time EOO-support positions
assigned to seven separate departments and working for four
separate chains-of-commands.
In 1995,
at the direction of Mayor Richard Riordan, a high-level task
force was established to develop recommendations on how to
better organize EOO staff responsible for the City's Emergency Management. The result was that, with the adoption of the
City's FY 1996-97 Budget, the ten full-time positions from
Police, Fire, General Services, Public Works Engineering,
Water and Power, and ITA were consolidated with the four
existing CAO positions to establish a new CAO Emergency Management
Division. A fifteenth position was provided for a new Assistant
CAO (ACAO) to manage the new division.
Although
formation of a separate Emergency Management department
was seriously considered in 1996, it was concluded that the
infant organization would be more successful if it initially
remained a part of the well-established Office of the City
Administrative Officer. The permanent ACAO for Emergency Management was hired in September 1997.
In 1999,
Los Angeles adopted a new Charter that, among many things,
gave the Mayor direct authority over the City's Emergency Management. Because of this, the City Council joined with
the Mayor, and after the new City Charter became effective,
on July 2, 2000 established the new Emergency Management
Department (EMD). Staffing and facilities for the new EMD
remained the same as when it was a part of the CAO. On recommendation
of the Mayor, Ellis M. Stanley, Sr., the incumbent ACAO,
was confirmed by the City Council as the department's first
general manager and EOO Coordinator in November 2000.
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