Up to $250,000 of state homeland security program funding may go to supplying new equipment for the county’s Emergency Management Agency and possibly training and equipment for the Clark County Sheriff’s Office and SWAT team, Clark County EMA director Michelle Clements-Pitstick said.
The Clark County Sheriff’s Office and local SWAT team could also benefit from the grant funding, Clements-Pitstick said, through the funding of training and possibly equipment. She said the Clark County EMA is working with law enforcement to determine what needs will be included in the grant application.
Equipment the EMA is hoping to update for its own office would include a new utility vehicle and new light towers, often used during large events like the Clark County Fair.
The county’s EMA has been maintaining equipment funded through the Homeland Security dollars that were dispersed to emergency management agencies following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
“Some of that equipment is reaching the end of its life,” she said. “We’re looking at replacing some of that or adding to our equipment.”
Funding through the state homeland security program was once a regional grant, where Clark County would be included in a region with several other counties that worked together to submit a project for the funding. Now the grant is competitive, with counties having the opportunity to submit applications for their own projects.
The second grant, $25,000 of funding through the Building Resilient Infrastructures and Communities program, would cover the costs to update the county’s mitigation plan, required by law every five years, with the update plans due in 2025. The mitigation plan details the county’s response to emergency situations. The Clark County EMA typically contracts the plan out, a process that takes roughly $25,000, Clements-Pitstick said.
The Clark County Commission allocated up to $250,000 in American Rescue Plan Act dollars in June to the Clark County EMA to cover the costs of a new mobile incident command center, a trailer used by the agency to respond to emergencies.
The agency’s current trailer, which contains a few workspaces for agency workers to use at the scene of an emergency event, is roughly 20 years old. Its replacement is expected this December, Clements-Pitstick said.
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