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To the editor:
I’ve served as the Plainfield Emergency Management Director for quite a few years, including a break, working with six select boards starting back in 2015 under Rob Bridges.
I told the select board a few months ago that I will resign on May 1, before my 80th birthday in June. I’ll be turning my attention back to music, hazard mitigation, media arts and Buddhist activism, which were the core of my life until a decade ago.
I am beginning to look for candidates to take my place.
Emergency management is a big job, thankfully shared with others and supported by our select board.
The job is defined by federal and state regulations as part of the FIOPS (Federal Interagency Operational Plans for U.S. disaster preparedness and response).
I will train and mentor any successor with a good heart who can embrace the work and research. State mandated training is included.
The position requires an abiding curiosity, including understanding Plainfield’s history of disaster events and the future in flux and deep compassion and empathy for people already harmed by disaster, for those ahead who are in harm’s way and a willingness to look for trouble and avert it.
The job also requires the pragmatism to look at tough realities, even those we wish weren’t true, and to solve the puzzle of reducing possible harms and good communications and organizing skills, including being able to let the town know what is really going on, finding and encouraging volunteers, making arrangements for the shelter and other support services (and state resources) that are needed for disaster harm reduction, including immediate collaboration with state emergency management and other agencies.
We will use the next five months to finish up a check list of strategies and resources so Plainfield can better prepare for the next disaster, and improve our resilience and pool of resources (especially for our vulnerable people and schoolchildren).
We have a working office, a staff of two others and an Emergency Operations Center at Town Hall, and a public shelter nearing completion.
The job includes an honorarium and paid expenses.
The EMD does not need to be a resident of Plainfield but must be within immediate driving distance.
Please join us If you have these qualities and are a person with a desire to serve your community.
Contact me with your offer to help by email at [email protected], or call (802) 380-6408.
Michael Billingsley
Plainfield
