October 3, 2007
Posted by Kim Ferguson (nkfergus) on [PUBL_DATE]
Environmental Health & Safety >>

SAFETY COMMITTEE MEETING

October 03, 2007

Learning Center Classroom

Attendance:  Karl Jackson, Barry Ingraham, Shawn Lahey, Colleen Harmon, Bob Collins, Roger Crouse, Dave Guerrette, Larry LaPlante, Greg Thompson, Bill Egeler

Kaylyn Hewitt – student representative, Nikki McNally – recorder

Absent:  Tim Crowley, Alan Punches, Bob Rice, Dan Boyd, Brian McDougal, Dean Duplessis, Tom Richard, Betty Kent-Conant, Dennis Albert, Lori Googins, Jackie Nadeau, Sonny Michaud

Karl brought the meeting to order to discuss nominations on the new chair person for this committee. Everyone who attended could not volunteer to be chair.  It will be brought up again at the next meeting due to such low attendance at the first meeting.  It may require scheduling an alternate time in order to increase participation.  Possibly plan a meeting in the morning one month and the next month plan one for the afternoon. 

Barry mentioned that it would be important for someone to take minutes.  Nikki McNally agreed to be part of this committee and take minutes. 

On the discussion about a new chair, Greg mentioned that it usually is an individual from faculty that is given the responsibility and most administrators are not willing to accept the role.

Karl voiced that being a chair of a committee can sometimes be very frustrating, scheduling a time and a place to hold the meeting, sending out e-mails to the members while attempting to meet everyone’s schedule. 

Another item that was discussed was the Emergency Action Plan. We have completed the floor plans for our facility for the police station, fire station and Risk Management. There are copies of other colleges’ Emergency Action Plans that have gotten good comments from the State Police and NM should look at these plans as it continues to develop on its own.  The committee will continue to work on this plan in upcoming meetings.

Barry noted that the next System Environmental Health & Safety Committee meeting will be held on November 7^th and Emergency Action Plans are on the agenda.

Greg wanted to know about the policy on smoking on campus.  Bill had signage put up “no smoking within 50 ft. of any building”. Bill has a survey on smoking on campus put on the portal.  There will be designated areas for smoking in the future.  Bill preferred to ban smoking on campus completely but about 40% of our students/employees smoke. Butt cans have been moved to the designated smoking areas.  We need to look at the smoking policy, who is going to be there to enforce it and could it be that tickets should be given out when people don’t abide by the policy.

Bill mentioned that he and Barry will be meeting with Presque Isle Middle School to discuss emergency evacuation procedures. Our campus is the alternative location when they need to evacuate their campus and vice versa.  We need to set up protocols and a traffic plan just in case busses need to pick up the middle school students.

There was a discussion on fire drills.  The evacuation procedures states to shut everything off before evacuating the building.  Use your best judgment on time.  If you feel you have time to shut off all computers, LCD projectors and all of the lights because you don’t see fire or smoke, then take the time to do so, otherwise don’t.  Take all belongings with you so you have what you need in case you are unable to go back in the building. 

Another point brought up addressing evacuation is in reference to handicapped people who are in wheelchairs.  It appears that people need to be trained on the evacutrack systems located in each stairway to help the handicapped people that may be on the 2^nd floor. A training session should be scheduled every semester. Dave stated the device works well but we just need the training.  The video is a good teaching aid.  Barry and Dave will meet to go over the information and bring back to the committee at the next meeting.

Larry mentioned that when there’s an accident/incident on campus they need to fill out an incident report.  The form is located on the portal under college forms and documents.  See Larry to report an injury.

Greg questioned the Honeywell Instant Alert product that was demonstrated on campus.  Barry stated that the college was looking into rolling the service out first to employees for a pilot and then to students. Barry also mentioned that students should check their e-mail and the portal on a daily basis to check out important information.  The Instant Alert product from Honeywell allows the student to pick how they want to be communicated with and what type of messages they want to receive, excluding emergency messages. 

There was a discussion on Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).  SMCC and CMCC have agreements with the DEP to work on their issues.  This is only available in the southern part of the state.  CES is due to do an environmental audit campus wide.  Two years ago SafetyWorks came to NMCC to do a voluntary safety audit at the college’s request.  SafetyWorks encourages businesses to do their own self audit because their funds are limited. We need to look at previous audits to make sure items identified in their previous visit are complete. 

Colleen mentioned that there are trip hazards on the partitions in the learning center.  A work order is required for maintenance to respond. People should put work orders in when they have a concern whether it’s your area or not.

Next meeting will be held Wednesday, November 7^th @ 9:00 a.m. in the Student Access Center classroom. 

Last changed: Nov 07 2008 at 11:32 AM