When Half Moon Bay was awarded in 2009 a $750,000 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the terms of the grant were to build or renovate — with the City paying at least one quarter of the project — an Emergency Operations Center to serve as a central headquarters for local safety officials to coordinate relief efforts during a natural disaster or a large public event. The end result is a 2,800-square-foot building known as the Department Operations Center (DOC), which is intended to be used as Half Moon Bay's principal hub for information and coordination in times of emergency, but is currently serving more as a place for town meetings and managing all big events like the Pumpkin Festival, Mavericks and Rock the Block. Work is yet to be done before the Department Operations Center is considered fully functional as an emergency headquarters, said former Half Moon Bay police chief Lee Violet.

"I think people were confused that this is another Emergency Operations Center, and no it's not. A Department Operations Center [like this one] is smaller scale in nature and serves a slightly different purpose," he said. "The main fire station on Main Street in Half Moon Bay, that is the Emergency Operations Center for that area. The Department Operations Center is for handling smaller events like the Pumpkin Festival where they activated the DOC because it's primarily a law enforcement responsibility to manage the thousands of people that visit Half Moon Bay." Before the new Department Operations Center was built, Half Moon Bay already had a primary Emergency Operations Center connected to the fire station located on Main Street. During construction of the new building, located about one mile away on Kelly Avenue, city council and citizens referred to it solely as the new Emergency Operations Center. It was not until the opening of the new building in November that the name was officially changed to the Department Operations Center.

City Engineer Mo Sharma says that the building was renamed the Department Operations Center so that it's not confused with the existing Emergency Operations Center in Half Moon Bay. Still, according to the California Emergency Management Agency's Recipient Subgrant Guide for Local Governments Fiscal Year 2009, the purpose of the grant allotted to Half Moon Bay was "to provide funds for construction or renovation of a local government's principal Emergency Operations Center."

"The original grant application states that Half Moon Bay had access to a facility belonging to a neighboring entity, the Coastside Fire Protection District, but Half Moon Bay did not have its own Emergency Operations Center," said Mary Simms, FEMA's external affairs officer.

When asked if the new Department Operations Center fits the criteria of the initial grant application, city councilwoman Marina Fraser said, "It's an operations center. It can be used during emergencies."

Fraser was directly involved in securing the grant during a trip to Washington D.C. with councilmember John Muller in 2007. The $750,000 grant given to Half Moon Bay was part of a 2009 federal budget plan to assist with emergency management and preparedness programs nationwide. Congress allocated $33 million towards an Emergency Operations Center Grant program. Half Moon Bay received about 2.27 percent of the national budget designated for this. According to the terms of the grant, the city was obliged to pay $250,000 on the new Department Operations Center. Half Moon Bay ended up spending $400,000 on the building using funds from a local public-facilities reserve account.