Boulder County, Colorado, provides an excellent example of
community preparation for Y2K. We present here their story,
followed by the guidelines developed by Boulder County Y2K
Community Preparedness Group (BCY2K), which include meeting
agendas, a flyer, a speech, and forms you may copy and fill out.
Thanks to Kathy Garcia and BCY2K for sharing this information with
all of us.
–The editors
We kicked off our Y2K Community Preparedness campaign with a
free conference at the University of Colorado, Boulder Campus, from
August 20 through 23, 1998. The conference was cosponsored by the
City of Boulder, the University of Colorado, and the Cassandra
Project. Present at the conference were national experts on Y2K,
including: Jim Lord, Roleigh Martin, Doug Carmichael, Meg Wheatley,
Paloma O’Riley, Cathy Moyer, Steve Davis and Rabbi Zalman Schachter
Shalomi. The conference was attended by 700 people from across the
United States.
On Monday, August 24, 1998, we met for the first time with the
Multiple Agency Coordinating System (MACS), which is led by the
Office of Emergency Management for Boulder County. Boulder County
consists of nine cities/towns, each with its own municipal
government. Each town has representatives on MACS from fire and
police departments, along with representatives from Red Cross,
planning department, risk management, University of Colorado,
school districts. We now have three citizen members sitting on MACS
who are working with the community to prepare for Y2K or any other
disaster that may strike.
We have had educational Y2K meetings with the following
groups:
1. Growers/farmers: asking for their assistance in encouraging
individual gardening, harvest, storage, collection of seeds, and
canning; and assisting farmers on how to get water to irrigate
their fields.
2. Religious community: asking for their assistance as possible
shelters in the neighborhoods where they are located and educating
their congregations.
3. Hispanic community leaders: working to get information to
local Spanish television and radio to educate the Hispanic
community in the Denver Metro area.
4. Hospitals: working with Boulder Community Hospital to set up
a conference to educate medical personnel on Y2K and its impact on
medications for patients (some HMOs only allow a 30-day supply),
and inform them on the readiness of the hospital. BCH was also
asked to work with two other large hospitals in Boulder County to
share what they learned about their bio-med equipment and
software.5. Human Service Agencies have been asked to educate their
clients about Y2K and help them hook up to neighborhood
preparedness groups.
6. Youth from around the county are joining the efforts by
becoming Certified Emergency Response Team members to help in all
disasters, as well as assisting to weatherize the homes or trailers
of elderly and low-income families.
Some wonderful things have happened here.
1. The City of Boulder has joined forces with our preparedness
group by advocating with the university for free office space;
holding a joint press conference to outline the ‘community plan’
for 1999; allowing us to use city stationery to convey information
about Y2K meetings throughout Boulder County, city FYI line to
convey information about Y2K meetings.
2. ‘How To’ meetings have been held throughout the county. (See
the format description that follows.)
3. A town meeting was held on October 4 that included
representatives from Public Service (utilities), US West
(telephone), City of Boulder, Office of Emergency Management, The
Cassandra Project, and Boulder Community Hospital. The meeting was
attended by more than 400 people who applauded when Chief Stern of
the OEM told people they needed to individually prepare and then
prepare their neighborhoods. Somehow folks were waiting for
permission to act. The biggest message sent by the citizens was ‘I
want the truth’ not ‘everything will be okay’ or ‘we are handling
it.’ Future town meetings will be held every other month.
4. A rhythm of meetings in each municipality is now in place,
from orientation (what is Y2K), to a neighborhood congress (how to
conduct meetings), to open meetings (task forces present
information to community on food preparedness, companies selling
products, and so forth), to community coordinator meetings
(coordinators for each municipality get together to fill each other
in on what is going on, support needed, and idea sharing).
5. We have cooperation from our daily newspaper as well as our
weekly paper; not sensationalized stories but ones that will keep
the community informed.
We are working with many others in Boulder County to create a
more sustainable and selfreliant community with Y2K as the
catalyst. We contiune to work to transform cynicism and fear into
creative and effective action by taking care of one another and by
reaching beyond personal differences in a spirit of compassion,
respect, trust, and interdependence.
We work on a task force model with each task force consisting of
a small group of volunteers with expertise in the subject, the time
and ability to do thorough research and/or the ability to work
collaboratively with public officials. The goal is to assist in the
assessment, development, and implementation of sound contigency
planning in each area: utilities, food, water, sewage and
sanitation, business, communication, transportation, health care
and delivery, emergency services and security, essential financial
services, media and educational materials, neighborhood and
constituency organizing, psychology, vision, and the Y2K volunteer
network.
Our website is
www.y2kboulder.com
Kathy Garcia is a neighborhood organizer for BCY2K and an
active volunteer working with homeless families and with youth. She
also serves on the local community corrections board. Kathy
coordinates Holiday Food Basket, which feeds about 800 families in
Boulder, and distributes toys and coats to them.
John Steiner works as networker, consultant, catalyst and
organizer in many public interest arenas. He is a founding member
of Boulder Y2K Community Preparedness Group and is currently
involved in a variety of national Y2K projects.
BCY2K is an informal group in Boulder County, Colorado, who
have come together to take on different aspects of preparing
Boulder County for Y2K.
