Emergency management warns backup 911, mitigation and animal programs at risk under cuts

Alan Harris told the board that emergency management provides consolidated 911, tower and radio infrastructure, interoperability across agencies and a range of mitigation and recovery services. He warned that under a 20% cut the county would consider eliminating or reducing maintenance contracts, backup 911 capability, the personnel-accountability system and wave/portable-radio technology that allows leaders to communicate using smartphones as portable radios.

Harris described effects across animal control and sheltering: reduced stray-hold times (reverting to a three-day statutory minimum), elimination of trap-neuter-vaccinate programs for community cats, fewer vaccine clinics and a likely end to the county's no-kill shelter status without sufficient staff. He said reducing maintenance of tower sites or uninterrupted power supplies could lead to multi-hour outages of critical communications and that some radio-service responses might be routed to Orange County if local backup is not available.

Harris emphasized mitigation and preparedness activities would be scaled back, increasing reliance on state mutual aid and longer post-disaster recovery timelines. He described the presentation as a planning exercise rather than immediate cuts.