Local officials to train for disaster response National Incident Management class to be held Aug. 2 BY AMANDA BELING Correspondent SEA BRIGHT - - Local officials from Sea Bright, Fair Haven and Little Silver will come together Thursday, Aug. 2, for a training session in emergency management. Hosted by the borough of Sea Bright, representatives of all three municipalities will attend a National Incident Management System (NIMS) training session led by Bill Kelleher, the NIMS integration coordinator for the emergency management section of the N.J. State Police. "As a result of [former] Gov. Richard Cody's Executive Order 50, this course is to be offered to all municipalities, and it is my job to make sure they have all been given this training session," said Kelleher. Executive Order 50 took effect in August 2005, establishing an incident management protocol in New Jersey called NIMS. It stated that NIMS was to be the state standard for incident management and was to be used for all emergency incidents in the state of New Jersey. "NIMS is intended to provide a consistent, flexible and adjustable national framework to enable first responders at all levels of government, along with the private sector and nongovernmental organizations, to work together effectively and efficiently to prepare for, prevent, respond to and recover from disasters," said Sea Bright Borough Clerk Maryann Smeltzer. "This class is also important because it's required when obtaining federal grant money." NIMS 402 Class for Elected Officials is also part of the Incident Command System (ICS) component of NIMS, and is an integral part of various incident management activities currently being undertaken throughout the state, including current emergency management training programs. "A lot of towns have done this training already, including Monmouth Beach and Highlands," said Pete Lang, Sea Bright's Office of Emergency Management coordinator. "I went to Bill Kelleher and then went to the borough and said that they needed to do this because it explains their role in this and what their duties and responsibilities are." Six components of NIMS will be discussed during this session including: Command and Management (ICS); Preparedness; Resource Management; Communications and Information Management; Supporting Technologies; and Ongoing Management and Maintenance. "This is a federal course - ICS for Executives - and it's designed for the officials that have policy-making responsibilities but not first response responsibilities," explained Kelleher. "It will explain in further detail how the executive fits into the overall process." "Usually, I will have three or four municipalities at a time, which is good because if there are certain questions and concerns between the towns, then they can talk with each other," said Kelleher. Though it is more geared toward the first responders, those interested in reading more about NIMS can log on to www.nims.nj.gov. The NIMS 402 Class for Executive Officials on Thursday, Aug. 2, will be held at 7 p.m. in the Cecile F. Norton meeting room in Sea Bright Borough Hall, 1167 Ocean Ave.