By Ed Somers
November 1, 2004

Sugar Land (TX) Mayor David Wallace hosted a summit on October 27 for more than 100 homeland security and emergency management leaders in the Houston-Galveston area. The summit focused on Wallace's proposal to create regional logistics centers to store, maintain and deploy emergency response equipment. This concept has been endorsed by the elected-official Board of Directors of the Houston-Galveston Area Council.

In addition to Wallace, participating in the Summit were Houston Mayor Bill White, U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader Tom DeLay, David Hagy from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and Steve McGraw who runs the State of Texas Office of Homeland Security.

During his remarks, White urged that regional leaders focus on four issues when addressing homeland security:

1) effective communications and an honest dialogue with federal officials as to what capabilities exist at the local level, and what do not;

2) emergency response with proper risk assessment;

3) dual use of equipment and training for both terrorism and natural disasters; and

4) making sure funds get into the hands of first responders without being siphoned off for overhead.

Rep. DeLay endorsed the need for regional preparedness and response planning, and spoke passionately about the House version of the intelligence reform bill, which he said has important improvements over the Senate bill in the areas of law enforcement and border protection.

As a follow-up to the regional summit, working groups of regional leaders will be formed to further develop the Regional Logistics Center concept, locate funding, and insure close coordination with other local, state and federal homeland security efforts.