Page 12 THE VILLADOM TIMES II • July 27, 2011 Emergency responders collaborate under local leaders by Jennifer Crusco Two emergency response organizations have decided to collaborate to better serve the community. CERT, the municipal Community Emergency Response Teams, and RACES, the Bergen County Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service group, will be working together as the Bergen County Emergency Response and Communications Team. Sergeant Barry Leventhal of the Bergen County Office of Emergency Management spearheaded this county-wide collaboration, which is being run by two members of HoHo-Kus CERT. Those members are CERT Manager and Bergen County RACES Deputy/CERT Liaison Stanley Kober and Bergen County RACES Director and Radio Officer Ronald Bosco. Kober explained that when CERT is activated, RACES will also be activated, and vice versa. He pointed out that these two groups have complementary skills, which will be particularly beneficial when used together. “CERT members are trained for a disaster. RACES members are trained in ham radio operation and the setup of mobile communication sites,” Kober noted. The goal, he said, is to have the members of both groups receive crosstraining. Kober pointed out that three of the 57 Ho-Ho-Kus CERT members now have licenses to operate ham radios. “When an incident occurs in our area, we are going to need the resources and skills of each group in order to fill in the gaps created during the emergency,” Bosco added. CERT groups from various Bergen County municipalities, RACES members, and other ham radio operators are invited to participate in joint drills and exercises. Bosco and Kober organized and ran the first of these drills, which was held on a cool, windy April day in the parking lot of the Bergen County Community Services Center in Paramus. RACES volunteer operators are licensed radio amateurs who are certified by a civil defense agency and are able to communicate on amateur radio frequencies during drills, exercises, and emergencies. Members of this group are activated by local, county, and state jurisdictions. They are the only amateur radio operators who are authorized to transmit during declared emergencies when the President of the United States specifically invokes the War Powers Act. RACES volunteers use the National Incident Management System, which employs a prescribed method to enable federal, state, and local governments, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector to work together to protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate the effects of various incidents. CERT was established by the federal government as part of the Citizens Corps with the goal of training volunteers to fill in until professional emergency responders are able to arrive on the scene. According to CERT’s operating guidelines, this group highlights readiness, people helping people, rescuer safety, and doing the greatest good for the greatest number. CERT focuses on a positive, realistic approach to emergency and disaster situations when citi- zens will initially be on their own. Citizens are trained to manage utilities; put out small fires; open a person’s airways, control bleeding, treat for shock, and provide other basic medical aid; search for and rescue victims; and organize themselves and others. For information about joining Ho-Ho-Kus CERT, visit www.ho-ho-kuscert.org, or contact Stanley Kober at sakober@yahoo.com or (201) 445-1121. Prospective volunteers may also pick up an expression of interest card at the Ho-Ho-Kus Police Department at 330 Warren Avenue in Ho-Ho-Kus. Bergen County residents who do not live in Ho-HoKus and wish more information about CERT should contact Detective Gidget Petry (petry@bcoem.org) at Bergen County Office of Emergency Management at (201) 7855746. To join the RACES organization and/or become a ham radio operator, contact Ron Bosco (WB2GAI) at (201) 7855750 or via e-mail at nj2bc@aol.com or wb2gai@aol.com. The municipal court case between the Allendale Community for Mature Living and some of the facility’s neighbors was dismissed without prejudice after Attorney Russell Huntington and Allendale Prosecutor Richard Rosa hammered out an agreement with neighbors who had charged the facility, through the police department and the zoning officer, with permitting a number of violations. After Municipal Court Judge Harry Norton Jr. dismissed the complaints, Rosa said the nursing home had agreed in a closed negotiation to install a new electronic gate at the rear entrance so staff members will be able to enter and leave in their cars if they know the code, but outsiders making deliveries and other traffic would have to use the main entrance off Route 17, as provided in zoning agreements when the nursing home addition was constructed. “Mr. Rosa has treated us very fairly,” Huntington said as he was leaving the court. Allendale Community consents to new gate “The ordinance is not going to be changed in any way,” Prosecutor Rosa said. Judge Norton noted that this was the most recent of a number of complaints by neighbors and said he hoped there would be no recurrences, but the dismissal was the only action that took place in open court. The negotiations between the neighbors and the management, while visibly animated, took place in closed session. The Allendale Community for Mature Living complex includes facilities for independent residential living, assisted living, and a 150-bed nursing home. The facility has an excellent reputation for patient care, but a long record of reported violations of use of the rear entrance at Harreton Road for delivery services, not simply for emergency access as provided by local ordinance and in agreements that permitted the expansion of the complex. J. KOSTER