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Bay Area UASI’s Governance Structure Aids Collaboration, Coordination in California

Following a ‘shotgun marriage’ in 2006, three California UASI districts joined together to protect one of the nation’s high-risk areas.

california fire
Robert A. Eplett/CAL EMA
In California, the Bay Area Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) is unique — it consists of 10 counties, three core cities and more than 100 incorporated cities. And that’s just the governments that are involved. The area’s geography provides even more diversity: it has coastal areas, a mountain range, rural valleys, agricultural areas, suburban areas and high population density. It’s ranked a Tier I UASI, meaning it’s considered one of the highest risk areas in the nation, grouping it with large cities like New York and Chicago.

According to FEMA, “The UASI program focuses on enhancing regional preparedness in major metropolitan areas. The UASI program directly supports the national priority on expanding regional collaboration in the National Preparedness Guidelines and is intended to assist participating jurisdictions in developing integrated regional systems for prevention, protection, response and recovery.”

More than $832 million is available to UASI districts for fiscal 2010, and the Tier I UASIs will receive $524.48 million of it. Therefore the Bay Area UASI will receive a large chunk of funding that’s dedicated for law enforcement terrorism prevention-oriented planning, organization, training, exercise, and activities that support the development and operation of fusion centers.

In 2006, the federal government instituted a “shotgun marriage” of three California UASIs — San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose — to force collaboration, Laura Phillips, general manager of the Bay Area UASI, told attendees at the All-Hazards/All-Stakeholders Summit in San Francisco on Thursday, April 29. They were given 60 days to pull the stakeholders together to create a one-year governance agreement.

Phillips said that although it was one of the few UASIs that shrank in terms of who it was required to collaborate with, the partners chose to keep the footprint larger. “‘Regional’ no longer means a couple of cities coming together,” she said.

Rural areas are often viewed as being outside of the core area that will be impacted by an emergency or disaster, but people and resources will move out of the urban areas when evacuating. Examining how the rural areas will be impacted by the flow of people and resources should be considered during the planning process. Phillips said the rural areas should be included even though they’re not UASI partners.

Governance Structure Aids Coordination


The Bay Area UASI’s success is partially credited to its tiered governance structure, which allows collaboration and coordination of multiple funding sources toward a specific goal, Phillips said. “We should have a road map and know exactly what we want to spend it on,” she said. Investments are guided by strategic plans and a gap analysis.  

The governance structure is broken down into multiple groups. The Approval Authority is represented by the three major cities — San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland — and the counties in which they’re located. The Approval Authority provides policy direction and is responsible for final decisions regarding projects and funding. An Advisory Group gathers in closed meetings and is where much of the debating happens, Phillips said. According to the UASI’s website, the Advisory Group’s primary goal is to ensure that projects undertaken by the UASI are truly regional in nature.

There are also working groups that focus on individual initiatives including: regional planning; training and exercise; chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosives detection; medical and health; infrastructure protection; citizen preparedness and emergency management. These planning groups work on risk- and threat-based formulas to increase planning and preparedness for each topic.

The Bay Area UASI supports other programs, like Urban Shield, which conducts exercises based on real-life scenarios that replicate critical infrastructure sites in the region. Phillips described Urban Shield as a multiagency, SWAT-like exercise that includes more than 2,000 participants throughout a 50-hour test of stamina and endurance.

Phillips said this is important toward testing effectiveness because they don’t want the federal government to tell them how to plan and prepare. The Bay Area UASI wants to identify where to make investments during the next funding cycle based on exercises and regional planning.

 

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