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He is supportive of this proposal and he would like for the Manager, Commissioner Jacobs, and representatives from the school boards to sit down and discuss this. This could save same money, time, and aggravation. Chair Brown agreed and said that it would be very beneficial to both school systems to have the resources of the County departments in locating school sites. She said that she has received several e-mails regarding the new high school site that suggest that the County Commissioners and other elected officials within the County are not working together. The statutory process does not allow for a lot of compatibility in working together. She would recommend sending this on to the Manager to develop some process to bring back and share with everyone. The general proposal could be made at the Assembly of Governments meeting on April 29th. The school boards could be invited to the meeting as well. John Link agreed to work an this. He made reference to the last paragraph and said that it should emphasize having a direct correlation between the siting of new schools in the future and having the funding to take care of these sites now. This is similar to the Lands Legacy Program where important properties have been identified to preserve and there is funding in place now. Chair Brown said that she had a wonderful dinner with the Americorp volunteers last Thursday. They worked everyday and built a park outside of the Southern Human Services Center and three miles of trails. There was a send off dinner far them. Chair Brown said that she and Mayor Foy met with Geoff Houck, head of the hospital, to set the stage of working together with the hospital on the important issue of Medicaid funding and how it is going to decrease. Also, mental health reform will create a great need for mental health services. They tried to put in place some communication with the Hospital and the Tawn of Chapel Hill. 4. COUNTY MANAGER'S REPORT John Link asked EMS Director Nick Waters to speak on the County's response to a potential terrorism threat. Nick Waters said that they are revisiting the County's multi-hazard plan and making sure that the task for consequence management includes every possible consequence of a terrorist activity and is assigned to someone. They were able to review the plan because of the ice storm. Also, new partnerships are forming every day. For example, they met with the Interdenominational Alliance in Chapel Hill who is interested in getting involved on a community level and will be in contact with other churches. The key is to get citizens educated and prepared about terrorism. Homeland Security has an office and they activate codes and the County reacts to these advisories. This is important for the Sheriff. Regarding shelters, DSS and the Department of Health facilitated a meeting with a number of agencies to talk about shelter operations and to identify better facilities for special needs versus general population. They also talked today about how to communicate with the non- English speaking population. There was a big scare about anthrax and now the issue is smallpox. He asked Health Director Rosie Summers to speak about this. Rosie Summers said that there is a three-phase approach for smallpox response. The first phase is to vaccinate the core public health response team and key people within UNC Hospitals. The key people would be the first people that would be taking care of emerging smallpox cases. Phase II would be to vaccinate the first responders within the County, which includes law enforcement, fire, rescue, and the remaining health care workers. This is being run under a federal response program managed by the CDC. Phase III is the general vaccination for the public. They do not anticipate going to this stage in the near future. They are engaged in on going planning for this and this is a total community planning effort. They are in the process of finalizing phase I I plans should they need them. April is Public Health Month and they will focus on emergency preparedness in general. They also hope to engage the non-English speaking population in the preparedness effort. Nick Waters said that their department is actively pursuing grants to try to meet some of the shortcomings. Phase I of the needs assessment study has been completed and will be coming to the Board possibly by the next meeting. The study painted out some short and long-term solutions for the County's emergency communication system. There was a tabletop exercise that involved the triangle municipalities, and the lack of communication abilities was evident. The staff is also looking at a Department of Justice grant that will buy about 350 masks that will equip emergency responders with two filters. This is mainly for the threat of terrorism and gas. The