Thank goodness for Everything Alamogordo where you can view archives of Otero County Commission Meetings.

http://www.everythingalamogordo.com/

You would never know from this story that roughly 20-30 minutes were used addressing issues of this FEMA mandated Hazard Mitigation Plan including suggestions to keep the work product/proprietary information in Otero County by doing this ourselves. Why?

(1) We would employ local expertise instead of outsourcing to, in this case a Lousianna consultant hired to represent a global corporation, Ecology and Environment (check them out on the internet, their stocks have sky-rocketed since November election and with the passage of the "Stimulus").

(2) Any sensitive information gathered, and there is such infomation not available to the public, would be kept local. In this day, information is money.

(3) We need to address the fundamental idea of taking grant monies and the consequences. The Otero County resolution adopting this Hazard Plan says several things:

Otero County took grant money from FEMA to prepare the plan;

local governments must have these Hazard Plans to get "Hazard Mitigation Grant Program Funds";

and post-disaster mitigation funds are only available to those counties with approved plans.

So, what we have is FEMA basically saying, "Here is the money (your tax dollars). Make a plan that we approve (using your tax dollars to pay for the approval process) or you won't get mitigation grant program funds (your tax dollars)." This sounds like extortion to me, how about you?

Is there any doubt why this country is in big trouble?

Sadly, this part of the meeting wasn't the only part ignored. Sgt. Willie Estrada, one of Alamogordo's true heros, was honored and not one word in the paper.