[StBernard] FEMA rejects sheriff's proposal

[Westley Annis]

FEMA rejects sheriff's proposal
Security at St. Bernard trailers won't change 
Thursday, March 16, 2006
By Keith Darcé
Staff writer 

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has no plans to turn security duties
at trailer compounds in St. Bernard Parish over to a private security
service that would be employed by the St. Bernard Sheriff's Office, a FEMA
spokeswoman said Wednesday. 
 
In fact, FEMA officials apparently are unaware of a proposal by Sheriff Jack
Stephens to hire DynCorp International LLC, the Irving, Texas, contract
security service, at FEMA's expense. 

"We don't know of any proposal submitted to FEMA," the spokeswoman, Rachel
Rodi, said. "FEMA did not ask St. Bernard to submit such a proposal. All
federal sites in St. Bernard will continue to be patrolled by (security
patrols under contract with) FEMA," she said. 

Stephens tells a different story. 

The sheriff said he submitted a request to FEMA for money to hire as many as
60 private security guards for about $70 million over the next three years
to patrol Camp Premier, a tent city east of the Chalmette Battlefield; the
Disaster Recovery Center in the parking lot of the Super Wal-Mart in
Chalmette; and a number of group trailer sites being set up around the
parish. 

That figure is more than four times the Sheriff's Office's pre-Katrina
annual budget of $16 million. Stephens said his office would not profit from
the arrangement. "We wouldn't make anything off of this, not a nickel," he
said. 

Stephens said FEMA asked for the proposal through David Dysart, the parish's
director of recovery. 

Under the proposal, the sheriff would pay DynCorp about $725 a day for each
guard, far less than the $1,325 he said a FEMA official has told him the
agency pays every day for each of the private security personnel now
patrolling the sites under a contract with another security company,
Stephens said. 

DynCorp is one of the largest providers of private security forces in Iraq. 

The security officers in St. Bernard would operate under the supervision of
a commissioned sheriff's deputy and would not patrol beyond the federal
compounds, the sheriff said. He didn't know if the guards would have to be
commissioned as local or federal law enforcement officers. 

Layoffs since Hurricane Katrina have shaved Stephen's force to 185 deputies,
down from 398 before the storm. 

He would have to hire new deputies to patrol the federal sites with his own
forces and that would take time because most of his furloughed deputies have
found other employment. 

"It would take about eight weeks to get guys certified," Stephens said. "The
dynamics of this doesn't lend itself to ramping up real quick." 

The sheriff said that long-term security for the federal sites, particularly
the group trailer areas, is needed because similar compounds in other
disaster areas have been prone to higher incidences of domestic violence,
alcohol and drug abuse, and sex offenses. "They're a mess," he said. "I just
want to make sure there is sufficient (law enforcement) manpower." 

. . . . . . . 


Keith Darcé can be reached at kdarce at timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3491.