Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Public safety radios fail to communicate-Fairfield, Calif.

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2003 18:27:41 -0500

Public safety radios fail to communicate-Fairfield, Calif.
Sunday, December 21, 2003
By Jeff Mitchell

FAIRFIELD -- It could take more than $50 million to create a countywide system
in which police officers, firefighters and sheriff's deputies can actually talk
to each other, quickly and easily.

It's a stiff price tag for something that seems so easy in this era of
high-speed communications. And in these tight economic times, is it really all
that important for a Vacaville police officer to be able talk with a Fairfield
police officer?
But in a age when high-speed pursuits regularly see suspects flying from one
city to another in just minutes, the ability of law enforcement officers to know
where everyone is located is critical. Without it, such a pursuit can become a
tactical nightmare and lead to injuries or worse.

Now imagine a scenario where terrorists detonate a radioactive "dirty" bomb
somewhere in the county. Knowing who is alive or dead and who's left to render
assistance takes the issue of having a dependable, versatile radio system to a
whole other level.

To be sure, by requesting the help of the Solano County Sheriff's operators,
agencies currently can be patched through to one another. Likewise, virtually
all patrol officers nowadays carry cell phones with pre-programmed memories to
make contacting other public safety agencies fairly easy.

But because all of the radio systems are so different, just the simple act of
monitoring the radio traffic with a scanner - which could help clue in other
agencies as situations unfold - is difficult.

"If you're pursuing someone at, let's say, 90 to 100 mph, you can blast in and
out of a city before that patch can even be made. By the time you're hooked up,
you may well already be out of that city and on to the next," Solano County
Sheriff Gary R.  Stanton said in a recent interview. "This needs to get fixed or
someone's going to get hurt."

To date, the patchwork system has caused few major problems, such as confusion
at fire scenes and a non-injury collision between a Vacaville officer who
inadvertently crashed into a Fairfield officer during a pursuit.

The lack of dependable radio equipment was highlighted during a recent
all-county terrorism-response exercise when radios of the participating agencies
failed moments before the event was to begin. In this case, poor weather is
thought to have hampered the performance of the electronic gear.

"We tested the radios not once but twice before the exercise," said Robert
Powell, manager of the Sheriff's Office of Emergency Services. "Then, right
before we're set to begin, they just stopped working. It was a mess but a good
lesson to learn."

Adding further pressure to the aging radio patchwork is a ever-growing
residential population in Solano County which translates to ever-growing demands
for service, officials said.

In the decade from 1990 to 2000, Solano County experienced a 15.7 percent growth
rate. Translated to real people, that means an additional 63,525 people became
county residents during that time period, statistic showed.

Decade-old issue

As many Solano County cities developed over the years, the individual
municipalities purchased and developed radio systems tailored for their needs
and geography - not to easily connect with other systems.

But now, in a world changed by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the need
for fire and police departments to work quickly and seamlessly together in the
event of a major act of terrorism or natural disaster is more important than
ever, said Bob Harrison, chief of police in Vacaville and the man heading a
regional group of public safety officials studying the issue.
The issue of so-called radio "interoperability" goes back at least a decade,
Harrison said. A recent county grand jury has studied the issue as have two
outside consulting firms whose fees have exceeded to $200,000, officials said.
RCC Consultants Inc. of Woodbridge, N.J., was the latest company to examine the
issue. A consortium of Solano County cities and the county itself are sharing
the firm's $109,477 fee.

"The county has undertaken this ambitious project with the full understanding
that public safety services to the citizens (of the county) will require
effective inter-agency tactical coordination and that effective radio
interoperability will become a much more acute issue in the near future," the
consultant's report concluded.

The current system has every department operating on its own radio frequencies,
meaning that unless patched through the Sheriff's Office, each police and fire
department is speaking in a different language with no one around to readily
translate, Harrison said.

Short- and long-term fixes

Consultants have identified an advanced 24-channel digital trunked radio system
as the best solution to the county's current communication difficulties through
the year 2018, the RCC report states. Also, part of the plan calls for creating
three or four regional communication centers to replace the series of dispatch
centers that currently dot the county.
But because the long-term solution is so costly - an estimated $52 million - the
cashed-strapped county and cities will have a hard time paying for it.

Consultants along with Harrison's working group have identified two cheaper
solutions - one at about $39 million and another at about $2 to $3 million.

Both the chief and the sheriff agreed grants from the state and federal
governments along with direct federal legislation will likely be the only way
local agencies can obtain equipment this costly. An agreement, or memorandum of
understanding, is currently being drafted which will ask the county and cities
to formally join together to pay for and develop the new radio systems.
In the meantime, pursuing the $2 to $3 million solution should make for
effective short-term fix, they said. By using electronic devices originally
developed for the military known as radio "gateways," the agencies will have a
better chance at communicating in "real time" and monitoring one another.

"The gateway system is definitely a short-term solution that will help as we
work toward developing the funding for the larger system," Harrison said. "(The
process) is moving forward. But, like any worthwhile effort, it's going to take
some time."

Reach Jeff Mitchell at 427-6977 or [email-masked].

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---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 12:44:24 -0500

http://www.dailyrepublic.com/articles/2003/12/21/news/news3.txt

Marcel-

[email-masked] wrote:

>  In a message dated 12/21/2003 8:51:50 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> [email-masked] writes:
>
>
>
> Can U supply the URL???
> Thanks
> Bob