Snafu: FEMA council meeting cancelled

For readers of this blog you will know that I’ve been trying to follow events around the future of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the council that was to issue its report today.

The meeting that was to have been held at 1PM Eastern time was abruptly cancelled at the last minute. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary left congressional testimony early to attend the meeting—that was never held. I had registered to attend and tried to dial in myself to no avail. Now I know why I was unsuccessful.

You can read the articles below. Here is my assessment for what is going on:

• The final report that will be issued is not coming from the council. It has been already stated that DHS took the 160 page report and condensed it to 20 pages.

• Then one reason “reported” for the meeting cancellation was that the White House did not have time to adequately review the report.

• Therefore, we can make the assumption that the final report will really be coming from the White House and will not contain any recommendations that they do not agree with. Let’s just take the word “independent” out of the title of the council.

This is not how an “independent council” is supposed to be treated. It denigrates the contributions by the people who participated and their work to come up with recommendations.

I am betting that all the members of the council were in Washington D.C. for the meeting after having traveled there for the meeting. The members come from a variety of states as far flung as Florida, Texas and California. So much for respecting them and their time commitments to be present at the meeting. Common courtesy—not observed.

AP Story:  A meeting meant to launch FEMA reforms is abruptly canceled

Politico Story: Vote to overhaul FEMA canceled after leaked report