Cyber Attacks on Municipalities

A whitepaper published by KnowBe4 entitled The Economic Impact of Cyber Attacks on Municipalities, explains that 53.2% of attacks in State Government are targeted at Cities and Local Schools. Data Privacy and Cybersecurity attorneys at McAfee & Taft suggest that cyber security is a business issue, not simply a technical issue. Municipalities must focus on three areas:

People > Process > Technology.

People

Does your city have

• a designated team for cybersecurity events?

• an internal or external technology team? Or a hybrid team of both?

  • Internal- a designated employee, full or part-time, for cybersecurity?

  • External- Who is the point of contact for cybersecurity events?

Process

Does your city have

• an incident response plan?

• a business continuity & disaster recovery plan?

• a framework or process for your data lifecycle?

• a process for assessing cyber risks?

• a cybersecurity training plan?

Technology

Does your city have

• a platform use for Office Management? Is it a cloud or local version?

• security and privacy tools are enabled on this platform?

• multi-factor authentication for all your technology systems?

• an inventory of all computers and technology on our network and systems?

• an inventory of all applications and software?

Visit McAfee & Taft’s website at: mcafeetaft.com For more information about data privacy and cybersecurity.

Feedback is A Gift

Feedback is an important element in all work relationships. The purpose of workplace feedback is to guide and motivate people to reach goals. Leaders who are good at providing feedback build trust and foster an environment of teamwork.

Many people don’t feel equipped or confident when giving feedback. It can be uncomfortable, and hard to find the right words. As recipients of feedback, it’s natural to get defensive or shut down when receiving unflattering feedback.

Here are some practical feedback tips:

Giving feedback:

• Focus on the issue, the reason for the feedback, not the person

• Be sincere, watch your tone so you are clearly communicating you care

• Avoid the sandwich method, don’t sneak negative feedback between positive feedback

• Be specific about a single, recent problem (opportunity for improvement)

• Invite conversation, “tell me about your performance,” or “how did you think that went”

• Recommend next steps or ask what would be helpful, include your support

• Summarize your commitment to helping the co-worker improve

Receiving feedback:

• When someone asks to give you feedback, don't miss the opportunity, say “yes, please.”

• Listen. Don't interrupt them, hear what they have to say.

• Ask questions until you truly understand the feedback.

• Maintain an open attitude, remind yourself, “this person cares enough to invest in me, to give me the gift of feedback.”

• Like any other gift, always say “thank you for the valuable feedback.”

City Spotlight: Collinsville, Oklahoma

Residents of Collinsville enjoy a short twenty-minute commute to downtown Tulsa, but love living without the big city stress. The community has experienced dynamic residential growth the last ten years. Collinsville has strong partnerships with local, state, and federal programs enabling the city to grow and thrive. City officials have created a pro-growth and pro-business environment by investing in transportation, sewer, water, and recreational infrastructure. From the city’s 44-acre city lake and hiking /biking trails to a beautiful, 20-acre city park with amenities such as a quarter mile, lighted walking trail, tennis courts, splash pad, sand volleyball court, basketball courts, skate park, and playground equipment, there are activities for all ages.

Year round events make Collinsville a fun place to be!

• Community Easter Egg Hunt and Easter Bonnet Parade and contest. Children gather 10,000 Easter eggs filled with candy and toys.

• Hogs ‘N’ Hot Rods is held the second Saturday in June. Oklahoma Main Street Premier Event Award.

• Annual 4th of July parade and festivities including music, food trucks, face painting, balloons galore, free watermelon and one of the best fireworks displays across Green Country.

• Taste of Collinsville is the third Thursday in September. A restaurant crawl with so much food you can’t possibly eat it all!

• Just Treats - No Tricks. The event allows little ones a fun, safe place to do their trick or treating.

• Annual Veterans Day Appreciation Ceremony and Parade salutes the City’s veterans. Collinsville is a designated Purple Heart Community and strives to honor Veterans every day.

• Annual Cowboy Christmas Tree Lighting The City’s 26’ Christmas tree comes to life with Santa arriving on a stagecoach. Activities include free hot chocolate and stagecoach rides down Main Street.

• The nighttime Christmas parade takes place on the 2nd Saturday in December with brightly lit floats downtown .

Employee Spotlight: Pamela Hunnicutt

Pamela Hunnicutt joined the OMAG family in September as our Grant Coordinator. She is working with the state American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) team assisting cities and towns with accepting local funds and planning allowable projects. Pamela has over twenty years of experience writing and managing federal grant programs under the U.S. Department of Labor.

In addition to the ARPA program, Pamela will be available to our members for customized assistance with grant funding. Her services encompass a wide range of grant and fund-raising support for cities and towns. She will work one-on-one to assist with researching new grants, reviewing grants prior to submission, and compliance and reporting. For funding help on specific projects to address your city’s needs, contact Pamela Hunnicutt 405-657-1449 or phunnicutt@omag.org.

OMAG in Action: Volume 1

OMAG in Action - Issue 1

January 2022 Risk and Safety Newsletter

6 Common Causes of Workplace Fires

What do you get when you combine building debris, partially installed electric systems, flammable materials, and chemical solvents? You get a high risk of starting a fire in your workplace. Structure fires cause thousands of deaths and millions of dollars in property damage each year. Taking precautions to prevent fires is especially important for municipal employees while doing their day-to-day jobs. The following are six common causes of structure fires:

1. Haphazard debris disposal – When focused on the task at hand, it’s easy to throw construction debris, empty boxes, and other flammable/combustible materials off to the side and not properly dispose of them. Always throw such debris into a proper waste receptacle. Keep garbage cans and dumpsters a safe distance from heat sources. Keep storage closets and rooms from cluttering up with old paper, wood, paint and other flammable/combustibles.

2. Temporary electrical systems – Electrical hazards on worksites are so common they have earned 2 spots on OSHA’s Top 10 Safety Violations list. Use of extension cords as a permanent energy source for machines and tools and using multiple power strips together to create more outlets. Both of these can start fires due to poor inspection practices and overloading power systems. Shorts and power surges can cause sparks and result in an electrical fire.

3. Space heaters – According to the NFPA space heaters are a common fire hazard. Keep space heaters away from flammable/combustible materials, keep them turned off and unplugged when not in use. Don’t hide them under a desk, keep them in the open. Turn them off when you leave a room; don’t leave them unattended. Inspect them and clean them frequently. Dust and debris can easily ignite or sparks from exposed wiring can cause fires.

4. Smoking in improper areas – An ember from one cigarette is all it takes to burn down an entire building. Allow smoking only in designated areas that are away from flammable/combustible materials. Hang signs to indicate where designated smoking is permitted and where it is not. Dispose of cigarette butts in approved containers and empty them frequently, making sure all butts are completely extinguished.

5. Cooking food – It’s common for employees to cook food on their lunch breaks. Flammables and combustibles should be kept away from cooking appliances. Don’t overload outlets with kitchen appliances and devices. Clean up after yourself, wash pots/pans, wipe down greasy surfaces, and properly throw away paper and plastic ware. Keep areas under and behind appliances swept and dusted.

6. Lack of fire protection training and resources – Train all employees on fire safety basics. Make sure they know what and where high fire areas are. Train them to use a fire extinguisher, know where the fire pull stations and emergency exits are, and how to safely evacuate the facility. Keep emergency routes and exits clear. In areas like shops where welding and other hot work are taking place, have someone act as a “fire watch” looking out for fires that may emerge from sparks spreading to flammable/combustible materials. They need to have a fire extinguisher ready for action.

Creating A Winning Attitude

Your attitude can make or break you. It's virtually indisputable that your attitude determines how far you'll go in life and a positive mental outlook can help you achieve optimal success. 

Having a positive mental attitude helps you cope with challenges. When you're put to the test, you're more likely to find your inner strengths to overcome adversity, and that strength just might be your winning attitude. Whether or not you have the tools, skills, knowledge, or resources, your attitude can get you through tough times and come out on top. 

On the other hand, an attitude filled with negative overtones makes everything much harder. You can't win when you go into the contest prepared to lose! If you expect to do well, your attitude will create positive, winning thoughts that help you succeed. 

Cause and Effect  

It's important to realize that for every effect in our lives, there's a specific cause. Through positive thoughts, we can control these causes and change effects or outcomes. 

• In order to change your future for the better, you must first alter your thoughts in the present. 

For every positive seed you plant, your thoughts will grow and reward you with a positive harvest. Negative seeds have the opposite effect. They'll grow but result in a spoiled and fruitless crop. You can't plant negative seeds in your mind and expect positive results. It just doesn't work that way. 

A vivid and defining difference between people who are successful and those who aren't is the way they think. Successful people visualize their goals and take action to make them happen. 

Unsuccessful people dwell on the negative, spend their time and energy complaining, and worry about things that are unimportant. This negativity wastes time and energy that could be harnessed toward achieving your goals. 

Practice Makes Perfect  

If you hone your positive thinking skills and develop the mental attitudes of a winner, you'll be able to overcome challenges without giving up. No matter how discouraging things may get or how intently others may try to dissuade you, with your winning attitude, you will be unstoppable! 

A positive outlook enables you to focus on your goals with a tunnel vision that eliminates negative distractions and keeps you on a chartered course to success. 

• Train your mind to focus on the good. Develop a positive mantra or affirmation to help you overlook the negative and realize the power of optimism.

Train Your Mind 

We often worry about our physical fitness, but do we think much about the fitness of our minds? Just as we train our bodies for peak performance, we must also train our minds by coaching ourselves to think winning thoughts. 

An effective way to train your mind is to look at challenges as opportunities instead of obstacles. A problem is only a problem if you allow it to be one. With each challenge comes an opportunity to learn and improve. So, if you search for solutions, you'll find them. 

When you internalize this mindset, you're sure to develop a winning attitude for a lifetime and reap the rewards of true success and happiness.

Keeping Pace with the Maintenance of Your Water/Wastewater Systems

In life, we have to take care of ourselves physically and mentally. If we are exercising and eating right, it helps keep us physically fit which also helps us stay mentally fit, because we are not worrying about getting sick. Same goes for the distribution and collection systems for our water/wastewater. We must keep them fit (in good working condition). If we don’t then our systems sooner or later begin to fail. This creates headaches and other pains we must deal with down the road. Issues like water line breaks, sanitary sewer overflows, and low water pressure while fighting a fire.

It is important to have a plan. To develop a maintenance schedule, provide the appropriate equipment, and to train workers to do the job correctly and safely. Part of the problem with our infrastructures today is we have not been vigilant and put forth a constant effort to keep our systems up-to-date and in good working order. It is easy to complete a project or reach a goal and then back off and take a breather. When we spend months or years focused on completing a task, it is only natural to want to relax a bit. But relaxing puts that next deadline or goal in jeopardy. Pretty soon we are operating in “catch up” mode and instead of spending our time keeping our systems maintained and working smoothly, we are simply putting band-aids on little hurts and not curing the debilitating disease that is beginning to consume our systems.

Water/Wastewater jobs are challenging, and the work never ends. There just isn’t time to take it easy. Emergencies are inevitable, there will be ruptured water lines and sewer backups. Best case scenario, you get a little behind in your schedule, worst case, you get caught up in a perpetual game of chasing problems and never get back into a proactive mode. Face it, there will never be time to kick back and relax without consequences. But with a functioning maintenance system in place, the difficult days will be the ones where you hope you can only stay on track, and the easy days are ones you may have a chance to make some progress. Take advantage of those days and persevere on, procrastination never fixed anything. Make the decision to start working on consistently maintaining and updating your water/wastewater systems.

Winterizing Vacant Property

We all know Oklahoma’s weather can be unpredictable and last winter is a perfect example.  On October 27, 2020, much of the state experienced an extremely devastating ice storm. I’ve lived in Oklahoma most of my life and have never seen an ice storm of this magnitude that early in the season. In February of 2021, we had 2 weeks of subfreezing temperatures and many of our cities and towns experienced record sub-zero temperatures for multiple days. Then, on April 21, 2021, Oklahoma experienced a record-setting cold front from the Arctic which again was not typical.  So, why am I reminding my readers of this unusual weather? As I mentioned, Oklahoma weather is unpredictable and that’s why we must be prepared for it, especially in preparing our vacant buildings for winter weather.

OMAG’s Municipal Property Protection Plan (MPPP) limits coverage for buildings if they are vacant. Please see the below language from page 21 of the MPPP limiting coverage for vacant buildings.  You will notice that sprinkler leakage and water damage are not covered if a building is vacant. 

3. Vacancy a. If the building or leased premises where loss or damage has occurred has been vacant for more than 60 consecutive days before that loss or damage occurs, OMAG will not pay for any loss or damage caused by any of the following, even if they are Covered Causes of Loss;

(1) Vandalism;

(2) Sprinkler leakage;

(3) Building glass breakage;

(4) Water damage;

(5) Theft, or

(6) Attempted theft.  

b. Buildings under construction or renovation are not considered vacant.

c. With respect to a Plan Member, vacant shall mean 70% or more of its square footage is not rented or used to conduct customary operations.

d. With respect to a tenant, vacant shall mean 70% or more of the rented space shall contain enough business personal property to conduct customary operations.

e. Vacant property will be valued at actual cash value.

You can avoid frozen pipes and water damage by taking some simple steps to winterize properly, especially vacant buildings.

Start at the exterior of the building and do the following:

• Shut off the water at the street- most water meters are close to the sidewalk or street, make sure your utility department shuts off the water at the meter.

• Open your lowest faucets on your property -This is most likely an outside spigot or in a basement. Remove any hoses, drain these faucets first, and keep them open until you have drained the rest of the building’s system. After everything is drained, give the exterior spigots an extra layer of protection with insulation or a bib cover.

• Give some attention to water heaters – Turn off the gas or electrical service to the water heaters. After turning off the water heater, drain it completely according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

• Drain the water system – drain all toilets, toilet tanks, and other pipes, making sure there is as little water in the system as possible. Open the spigots for showers and sinks, starting at the uppermost level and systematically working your way downwards to the lowest level of the building (Those low-level faucets you opened earlier. This will help the draining process.).

• Don’t forget the laundry, garage, basement – bathrooms and kitchens will be the primary target areas but be sure you attend to all rooms with running water. Also drain any exterior water lines, like sprinkler systems. It might even be good to blow out the lines with compressed air after the lines have been emptied.

• Pour environmentally safe, biodegradable antifreeze into drains – it is recommended to use the type of antifreeze used in boats or RVs. It will help any remaining water in P traps to resist freezing. Treat toilet bowls, tanks, and sinks or any other drains in the facility.

• Tape the toilets shut and post “do not use” signs – So people won’t inadvertently use them, tape the toilet lids shut and post signs (Caution: Winterized- do not use).

• If you leave the heat on… - be sure the temperature is set to at least 55 degrees Fahrenheit. Even if you leave the heat on, you should still turn off the water and drain the system. Winter storms frequently knock out power for days and could cause pipes to freeze.

• What to do if you leave the water on (say if you’re doing renovations or have the property up for sale) – insulate pipes on exterior walls, crawl spaces, and attics. Open cabinet doors to allow heat to circulate around un-insulated pipes under sinks and appliances. Let warm water drip or gently stream (depends on how cold and how long the freeze is) overnight to keep pipes from freezing.

• During extreme cold spells inspect the property daily – walkthrough the property looking for damage or potential problems that could lead to pipes freezing and water damage.

If you have questions about your coverage contact Chris Webb, OMAG Director of Underwriting cwebb@omag.org or 1-800-234-9461 ext.1442.