A panel discussion between county officials and representatives from volunteer fire departments and emergency service districts will be held at 6:30 Thursday in the Nacogdoches County Courthouse Annex, where many public safety response issues will be discussed.

Sheriff Thomas Kerss said the meeting is aimed at evaluating the current response system, and ways it can be improved will be addressed.

"This meeting is an opportunity to bring a representatives from each volunteer fire department and emergency service district to the same table with the sheriff's office, Department of Public Safety, ambulance services, EMS representatives and the city fire department, as well as other interested parties to plan for the future, so we can improve the communication and response to the citizens of our county," he said.

The agenda for the meeting states that topics on 911 calls and technology, local VFD, EMS and law enforcement dispatch procedures, Certified First Responder Programs and the concept of combined dispatch will all be discussed at the meeting.

A designated representative from each entity will speak on behalf of their departments.

"We hope for it to be a healthy discussion and to put out a lot of information, not only on why we are doing certain things now, but trying to address ways to truly make them better," Kerss said. "Hopefully, setting some realistic goals that can be met in the near future, as well as setting some long-term goals to strive for will be addressed."

Part of the information and discussion will focus on the technology involved in responding to disasters and emergencies, he added.

"Some people have misconceptions about what the capabilities are currently here," Kerss said. "We've come a long way from where we used to be, but I think in a lot of people's minds, they think we have an extremely advanced system of monitoring calls and tracking response personnel, and that's still really a myth. So it's really educating what our capabilities are, but also trying to identify some reasonable technological advances we can make in the not-too-distant future."

Many things have changed over the years regarding Homeland Security and disaster response, so the meeting will also tackle the reasons why certain protocols came about.

Among the many emergency responders expected to attend, the county judge, county attorney and the sheriff will also take part in the discussions.