Tonganoxie Mayor Dave Taylor sees the safety of local residents as his No. 1 priority.

To that end, the mayor is organizing a preparedness summit, of sorts, next week to address Tonganoxie’s ability to respond to a crisis.

The mayor’s decision to call together school, police, fire department and other officials came last week, after he attended a homeland security meeting in Topeka sponsored by the League of Kansas Municipalities.

That meeting prompted Taylor to begin thinking about Tonganoxie.

“After the meeting, I felt maybe we should get together and discuss the future of the city on bioterrorism and bird flu and a variety of things,” he said. “I want the public to know the city is doing its part, along with other organizations, to protect them.”

On March 3, the mayor will bring together officials to ensure Tonganoxie knows how to respond in emergency cases, whether it’s a bird flu outbreak or a terrorist attack.

“I’m trying to get everybody together so that we have one entity that covers the whole city so in case something does happen, we’ll know what to do,” he said. “That’s the main thing. The general public has to got to work and raise children. This is our responsibility as leaders in the city to ensure that you’re safe in your homes. It’s our job to address these problems.”

Taylor said it’s possible that more meetings could be required to achieve his goal.

“We have the fire, police, schools, and we need the faith-based organizations,” he said. “They’ve been invited to come. Who can feed the masses better than the churches? If it’s something that happens that’s real serious and we might have to quarantine people, we’ll have to rely on people to feed people and clothe people, and who can do that better than the faith-based organizations.”

The mayor said that if crisis strikes, he wants to be ready.

“We can’t just sit around and do nothing,” he said. “Our responsibility is to the people of this city. That goes for everybody — fire, police, school, mayor, council. It’s our responsibility.”