Oak Park CERT needs insurance

By Billie Owens Acorn Staff Writer

The volunteer Oak Park Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) needs money to pay for its liability insurance coverage or risk falling behind in preparedness.

The Oak Park Municipal Advisory Council (MAC) wants to help but first wants to know what it will cost. The panel voted at last week’s meeting to postpone a request for additional funds until the MAC’s next meeting at 7:30 p.m. Tues., Feb. 24.

In the meantime, Ventura County Supervisor Linda Parks said she would investigate the cost of insurance.

The MAC unanimously approved a request for $1,415 by the Oak Park Community Emergency Response Team. The money will pay for CERT training items, and tents and sleeping bags for the new brushfire truck at the Deerhill Fire Station.

But officials said liability insurance is just as important as equipment to the preparedness of CERT, which is made up of volunteers. Without insurance, the team can’t get permission to use various facilities for training, and without training CERT would be inadequately prepared for disaster, said David Ross, secretary of the Oak Park Community Foundation.

Ventura County previously paid for liability coverage but because of budget cutbacks, it no longer does. The county is required to provide liability insurance for intensive disaster relief training but not emergency response team training.

The Oak Park Fire District and the Oak Park Community Foundation pay some of CERT’s costs.

"We’re covering (liability insurance) because it’s important to the community but we can’t continue to do it," said Ross.

To illustrate his point, Ross cited a facility-use agreement made earlier this year with Oak Park Unified School District. Before emergency training could be conducted at a local school, CERT had to provide proof to the district that it had liability insurance of up to $1 million. It could to do so because the foundation board voted to extend its insurance coverage to CERT on a very limited basis.

"CERT is not an activity in the purview of the community foundation," Ross said. "It took a special action for specific dates, specific things. We cannot be doing that. Our insurance premiums will be affected.

"Therefore, since this is something that is supervised by the county, it appears to me that the county should help fund that cost."

Parks said she would investigate and report back on what it would cost the MAC to reimburse the county for extending its liability insurance to cover CERT training for the 2004-05 fiscal year.

In other business, the MAC conducted a lengthy debate about MAC Website information, but took no action other than voting to table the matter indefinitely.

Currently, basic information such as agendas and minutes of past meetings can be found on Ventura County’s Website via Supervisor Parks’ link. The Oak Park Update (www.oakparkupdate.com) contains much local information about the MAC and Oak Park.

But the site owner, Brett Garrett, also is a real estate agent with business interests at stake.

"I just want to inform the community," Garrett told the council.

Garrett said specific criteria to get MAC’s endorsement were promised to him last year. Chatfield said the council hasn’t been able to agree on criteria.

Regarding posting on community signs, Parks said county counsel told her access for one had to be access for all. Oak Park Update could put its Web address on the signs, if any one in the public also got the same opportunity.