Grant County Commissioner Sam Palmer during County Court Aug. 26.

Grant County’s recently hired emergency management coordinator and treasurer are busy tracking down documentation and receipts for the roughly $250,000 that was spent at the county’s Emergency Operations Center earlier this year.

Paul Gray, the county’s emergency management coordinator and EOC manager, said he is waiting for former EOC head of Information Technology Seth Klingbeil to return to Grant County from a family emergency to help him log into the EOC’s computers.

Meanwhile, Grant County Treasurer Julie Ellison said she is trying to get all of the documentation for the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act reimbursement that the county received in case she gets audited.

Ellison said she spoke with the grant-writing service the EOC contracted with, and some of the totals do not match. She said they were not off by much and that it was probably because the state kept changing the guidelines.

Politics at the EOC

At the Aug. 26 county court session, Gray told the court that County Commissioners Sam Palmer, the EOC’s public information officer, and Jim Hamsher, EOC liaison, should no longer be involved in the day-to-day operations of the center.

Gray, former Harney County emergency manager, said when he came to Grant County to help at the EOC in March, he noticed Palmer and Hamsher coming in and out of the EOC when it was at the Forest Service building.

“I saw two commissioners coming in and out of that EOC,” he said. “That’s not the way that it runs. Commissioners make policy and tell us how much we have to spend.”

Hamsher told Gray that the county’s emergency operations plan lists the court as the entity that oversees the EOC and that the court is there to do more than set policy.

After the meeting, Gray told the Eagle that the county’s plan lists the court as the policy group, but within the EOC, he is at the leadership level.

“I did look in the EOP like Commissoner Hamsher said, and within the EOC I am still at the leadership level,” he said. “And it shows them (county court) at the policy group level.”

Gray said that he does not allow politics at his EOC.

He said it’s not necessarily that the commissioners would do anything “not up and on the level.”

“I’m just saying I don’t allow politics of any type within my EOC,” he said.

“This is not just me,” he said. “This is how we teach an incident command system that your county commissioners, administrators and others are in the policy group. They help change policy. If I need something changed, like a county ordinance, that’s where I go and say, ‘Hey, this ordinance is blocking me from doing something that I need to be done,’ or ‘I need an ordinance to be able to do something,’ or ‘I need extra funding from the county to do a job.’”

Gray said he spoke with both Palmer and Hamsher after the meeting and said that they both seem to understand where he is coming from.

“I was on the phone with Commissioner Palmer last night,” he said. “I was explaining, if I have you guys working in my EOC, then I’m wasting a good resource. You guys deal with politics, all day long. I don’t have time to be on the phone with state Rep. Mark Owens or any of these other state officials.”

Past EOC staff

Gray said he wanted to be clear that the past EOC staff did the best they could without extensive knowledge of incident command or what the Federal Emergency Management Agency requires to get reimbursed for the costs the county incurred.

“Yes, we’re getting all the money back this time because of the CARES Act,” he said. “But if it wasn’t the CARES Act, and we had to do it the FEMA way, we would be getting zero dollars back because none of the paperwork was done correctly.”

“Yes, we’re getting all the money back this time because of the CARES Act. But if it wasn’t the CARES Act, and we had to do it the FEMA way, we would be getting zero dollars back because none of the paperwork was done correctly.”

—Paul Gray, Grant County emergency management coordinator

“I don’t allow politics of any type within my EOC.”

—Paul Gray, Grant County emergency management coordinator