Madison Forum Speaker – Mickey Lloyd

Mickey Lloyd, Director of Homeland Security/Director of Public Safety, Cobb County, told Madison Forum members at the July 29 breakfast meeting that he has the best job in the world. 

Ex navy; ex baseball player; Atlanta police force for 30 years; Retired as Deputy Chief of Police; Internal Affairs with Georgia State Police, Mr. Lloyd was appointed, after 9/11, as Deputy Commissioner of Homeland Security by Gov Barnes,   After losing the position due to the party change, he applied to Cobb County for his present position, and he says it was the best thing that ever happened to him.

Mr. Lloyd says in Cobb County, as opposed to other places he has worked, the department  pretty much gets what it needs for public safety and pretty much what they want. It’s not an easy sell. They have to justify everything they do.  The Department received several federal grants the first few years he was in office. The County was helped in this because, when he was with the state, he helped write the standards for applying for grants, and he says their philosophy is they never ask for anything on a grant that they wouldn’t buy anyway.

Cobb County has about 1532 people in Public Safety with an overall budget of $134 million. The Department is responsible for police, fire, emergency services which includes 911 and communications, animal control, Intelligence, narcotics, homeland security, and public safety training.  Mr. Lloyd says three things he can’t afford to delegate. First is the budget because he is ultimately responsible for it. Next is intelligence, which does undercover work gathering information.  Next is training.  He says there is nothing more important in public safety than training.  This is the core, and the training is continuous, including his own.

Homeland security is also important.  The issue at hand is to get as much information on our enemy who is dedicated to terror attacks on the United States, our allies, and our way of life.  Terror is alive and well, and it is here. People don’t hear a lot about it because the department doesn’t want to terrorize the people in our county.  This information comes from the public.  Citizens are the department’s most important asset, because we know what is unusual or out of place in our neighborhoods. All information that comes in through the terrorism hotline is investigated.  

The Cobb County Emergency Management organization is led by County Manager David Hankerson. Next is the Homeland Security Task force co-chaired by Mr. Lloyd and Sheriff Warren. They work together constantly so, when necessary, they can pull in all resources from the cities and the county - police chiefs, fire departments, EMT, DOT, the health department, the finance department, and others, to respond to urgent situations or plan for upcoming problems.  

The big project now is changing emergency communications from analog to digital to allow Cobb County departments and other jurisdictions to talk to one another.  The SPLOST will allow the county to finish this system in a couple of years, as opposed to seven or eight years, through the part of the tax that goes to public safety.  

Mr. Lloyd talked about JHAT, the Cobb County Joint Hazard Assessment Team.  The teams are made up of members of the police department, the fire department, and the sheriff’s department to identify critical infrastructure sites in the county.

The department also studies critical locations to determine how to get emergency personnel in and out safely in case of an incident, and how to implement rescue operations.

Mr. Lloyd  encouraged all citizens to become stakeholders in the homeland security effort. He mentioned the many training classes held in Cobb County for civilians in various aspects of public safety, crime prevention and awareness, and homeland security.  There is the Citizens Public Safety Academy, which runs two classes a year for ten weeks each.  There is Citizens Emergency Response Training, which has over 400 volunteer members who are trained in neighborhood response to any event. They learn how to stabilize a situation until the response team arrives.

Mr. Lloyd says homeland security in Cobb County is planning, and practicing, and getting citizens involved, and with all these groups working together we can be successful in keeping the county prepared.

To report any unusual activity, the Eyes on Cobb 24-hour Tip Line phone number is – (770) 590-5569