By Rusty Nixon Correspondent
PLYMOUTH — The Marshall County Emergency Management Agency is undergoing a “facelift.”
Tuesday at 7 p.m., the EMA will hold a reorganization meeting at its office  in the Marshall County Solid Waste building on Walter Glaub Drive in Plymouth.
Public attendance is welcome.

The effort is to get the agency in compliance with state statute on its makeup of board members.
“State statute says the board is to be made up of the president of the county commissioners or his designee, the president of the county council or his designee, the mayor of the largest city in the county and representative of each of the local city boards,” said president of the Marshall County Commissioners Tom Chamberlin. “You also have a member of the local Civil Air Patrol. As the board is made up now, there are 22 or 23 members and some of them I’ve talked to don’t know how or why they were appointed to the board.”
The sheer size of the board can create problems in procedure.
“With a board that size you have to have 14 to 18 people in attendance at a meeting to have a quorum,” said Chamberlin. “It’s very difficult to get that many people to attend a meeting on a specific night. If they are meeting and voting on issues without a quorum, that’s a problem.”
Chamberlin also pointed out that it was difficult to determine if that problem had occurred since no minutes of meetings have been filed with the County Auditor for inspection, another procedural difficulty that will be addressed.
He also pointed out the big concern for the agency is communication.
“Most of the people involved are not the ones in their communities that make dollars and cents decisions. We’re not sure any of the information in the meetings is getting back to the agencies in the towns that make those decisions,” said Chamberlin. “As we go through items on NIMS (National Incident Management System) and the training for city and town employees it requires, and what the EMA can do for us in critical situations it’s very important that information gets back to the communities involved.
“I think with representatives of the various town boards involved that information is going to get to the people it needs to get to.”
Chamberlin said county Attorney Jim Clevenger will also be at the meeting to help ensure that the agency is in compliance.