September 8th marked several anniversaries according to Lake County Board Chair Rich Sve, such as the American broadcast premiere of the original Star Trek in 1966, actor Peter Sellers’ birthday, the unveiling of Michelangelo’s David in Florence’s town square in 1504, and the official completion of the Northern Pacific Railroad spanning 6,800 miles from Minnesota to Washington state with the driving of a final ceremonial railroad spike near Gold Creek, Montana.
The relatively short meeting was largely taken up by talk of emergencies and how to best deal with them. To start, an annual update on Lake County’s Emergency Management Department was given by Emergency Management Director Warren LaPlante.
LaPlante, who is also a safety officer, has been working as director at Lake County for just over a year, since July 29, 2025. He described the past year as going fast, especially since the start of 2026 due to the number of emergency situations that occurred in the region, from snowstorms and flooding during winter and spring, respectively, to the Stewart Trail Fire in May and the Camp Fire in July.
Lake County Emergency Management Department’s method for emergency process handling follows four steps, shown as four equal points along a circle. First, Mitigate, which is to proactively prevent future emergencies or minimize their effects. Second, Prepare, by taking actions ahead of time to be ready for an emergency. These first two steps are taken before an emergency. Third, taken during an emergency, is Respond by protecting life and property. Finally, during and after the emergency is the fourth step: Recover by rebuilding from an emergency. In most years, he said, “hopefully we don’t have to do a lot of responding,” but 2026 proved to be something special. The Department has been in Respond mode “from January to September,” with two Emergency Operations Center (EOC) partial activations which, according to LaPlante, haven’t been needed “for a number of years”. Although the string of emergencies has kept him busier than originally hoped, he has made a number of changes to the County’s emergency response department in the meantime.
He described his two main goals when stepping into the role a year ago as increasing communications and improving community outreach, both of which have continued to be his focus. Over the course of his time so far, the Department has partnered with emergency responders, National-level complex incident management teams, the US Forest Service, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, adjacent counties, and townships within Lake County. Expanding the quarterly Emergency Management (EM)/Emergency Preparedness (EP) advisory group has become such a success; in fact, it has reached a point where he advised the gatherings were starting to outgrow their current meeting space.
There were improvements in other areas of the department as well. He thanked County Auditor/Treasurer Ronnie Radle for her “tremendous” help with the grant program review, taking a step beyond the usual annual review process to make improvements, get more accurate reporting, and do tracking cleanup, so “at about any given time we can give you an answer on where we’re sitting on a grant” rather than having to wait until near end of year for updates. Late last year training on EOC activations came in handy before this year’s emergencies, and continuing on work from the previous director, evacuation zone updates have been improved to be more precise and not overly large areas as they were before.
The goal of increased communications with the public has, to a large extent, taken the form of improved alert systems. Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) certification updates make use of a FEMA support program to send out alerts via radio and cell phone systems. LaPlante is also hoping for more residents to register with the Lake County Emergency Alerts System, which they can do through Lake County’s website at www.co.lake.mn.us/emergency-management/ by clicking the link on the left side saying ‘Sign Up For Lake County Emergency Alerts’. He also encouraged those already signed up to double-check that their contact information is up to date and not, say, listing a home phone that has since been disconnected. He is also helping with design on the County’s new website, though progress has been delayed by this year’s emergencies.
Another form of outreach has been the department’s Firewise Program, with four communities participating so far and several more hopefully on the way. The program helps with brush pile management and holds community meetings to educate the public on topics such as how to better prepare and protect their property in the event of a wildfire.
Cost-wise, both the Emergency Management and Safety budgets are set to be on track or below expected expenses by the end of the year. LaPlante listed the main items purchased as being a new dedicated vehicle for the team and ergonomic furniture.
LaPlante has a hefty to-do list looking forward, with items such as updates to the County’s Emergency Operations Plan (EOP); updating the Lake County emergency alerts system and adding new County employees automatically to be more organized; updating several policies and plans like the Severe Weather Plan, Respectful Workplace plan, Security and Personnel plan; and finalizing the Stewart Trail Fire Disaster Reimbursement, which has been approved by Governor Walz and allows the County one year from the beginning of July to put in their claim.
Lastly, LaPlante showed visuals for what he called Community Lifelines: icons showing levels of stability for different societal factors, outlined in green when good, yellow when iffy, and red when bad. The icons, lined in a row, stood for: health and medical; water systems; safety and security; food, hydration, shelter; power (energy and fuel); communications; transportation; and hazardous materials.
The Director ended by thanking Lake County staff and giving effusive praise for working with them so far.
The other major matter of the meeting was discussion over a proposed grant application. The Minnesota Judicial Branch offers a Safe and Secure Courthouse Initiative grant, with its application due September 8th, the day of the meeting. The last-minute application was due to the County hoping to get an assessment completed beforehand, which did not work out timing-wise. The state initiative is meant to help fund improvements for courthouses relating to security, and Lake County’s goal is to use the grant for two purposes: new lighting for the courthouse’s front staircase and, more importantly, a new and improved panic alarm system for emergencies. Commissioners Rick Goutermont and Joe Baltich spoke in favor of the upgrades, as did Sheriff Nathan Stadler, who explained it would be more precise to allow for faster response during emergencies. He described the newer security system as “Certainly something I think that’s worth moving towards, rather than trying to just replace what we have.” Sve further added that staff have been requesting a security upgrade for some time.
The Board approved the grant application as an added resolution.
