Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Culpeper supervisors agree to no-bid purchase of emergency radio system

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 11:52:47 -0500

Culpeper supervisors agree to no-bid purchase of emergency radio system
November 6, 2003 1:14 am

By DONNIE JOHNSTON
Citing compatibility reasons, the Culpeper County Board of Supervisors
agreed yesterday not to seek competitive bids on a $6.5 million
public-safety radio system.

The board voted 6-1 to use the sole-source procurement method to
purchase the Smart Zone 800-megahertz system from Motorola. Supervisor
Bill Chase cast the only vote against not seeking bids.
Because the purchase is for public safety, the county is not required to
follow usual bid procedures, County Attorney Dave Maddox advised
supervisors.

The new system will replace the county's antiquated low-band system. It
will allow Culpeper police and fire and rescue officials to communicate
with each other. They would be on the same wavelength with other
Northern Virginia counties, and also share Fauquier County's existing
Smart Zone controller.

"It would be like fusing the brains of those two systems," said Ken
Ballard of CTA Communications, the company that is designing the
Culpeper system.

Ballard said that should the Culpeper system ever lose its central
dispatch center, the system could be operated from the Fauquier center.
"This way you don't have to spend money building a backup system," he
said.

Culpeper has a verbal agreement with Fauquier to share controllers,
county Communications Director Alan Culpeper told the board. He said
such an arrangement would also benefit Fauquier because its dispatchers
could use Culpeper's facilities should problems arise there.
Ballard said most large jurisdictions in the state are now using the
Motorola system, and CTA believes that employing the sole-source
procurement method could save Culpeper as much as $1 million. Other
systems would need to be modified--at additional expense--to allow
communication with existing systems in Northern Virginia, he said.

"With the 800-MHz system, Culpeper would have interoperability with
systems in Northern Virginia, D.C, and the Maryland suburbs," he said.
In the past two years, Culpeper County has erected four strategically
located 360-foot antennas that should provide public-safety radio
coverage over 95 percent of the county.

Those towers would be linked by microwave with an antenna at the
proposed dispatch center at the intersection of State Routes 229 and
729, as well as to a mountain tower at the Warrenton Training Center.

CTA's plan calls for an initial purchase of 778 radios, with the
expectation that 1,170 will be in use by the year 2019. Culpeper said
plans call for the system to be in operation by the spring of 2005.

To reach DONNIE JOHNSTON: [email-masked]

http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2003/112003/11062003/1158781/printer_friendly

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