Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Battle for airwaves delays emergency radio upgrade

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 20 May 2004 13:42:37 -0400

Battle for airwaves delays emergency radio upgrade
(Westchester County Police & Fire)
By KEITH EDDINGS - Thursday, May 20th, 2004 'THE JOURNAL NEWS'  / White
Plains, NY

WHITE PLAINS - A $15 million upgrade of the radio systems that serve
emergency responders in
Westchester won't work on the airwaves the county was assigned because
of interference from other
emergency channels in New York City and New Jersey, delaying the upgrade
in parts of Westchester for up to
six months, county officials say.

The new system is intended to eliminate the kind of chaos on the air
that results when police, fire and other emergency
responders using different channels are unable to communicate with each
other at major events, as occurred during the
Sept. 11, 2001, terror attack at the World Trade Center.

In Westchester, the new emergency communication system will use about a
dozen channels to link local fire departments,
medical response teams, hospitals and the county's bus fleet during
major emergencies. The system was scheduled to begin
working by the middle of next year, but the effort stalled when
consultants from Motorola found "all kinds of interference"
on the frequencies that the Federal Communications Commission assigned
to the system, said Norman Jacknis, the
county's information technology czar.

"Whether it's New York City stepping on the frequencies, or (the
frequencies) shouldn't have been assigned (to
Westchester) to begin with, is an interesting question," Jacknis said.
"As a practical matter, it means that in some areas of
the county, those frequencies aren't usable."

The county appealed to the FCC earlier this year, which said no other
frequencies were available and suggested that the
county ask New York City to surrender or share some of the nearly 600
frequencies that the city has been assigned,
including many it doesn't use, Jacknis said. Those talks, which have
included at least one conversation between County
Executive Andrew Spano and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, still are going on,
Jacknis said. In the meantime, Jacknis
recently met with FCC officials in Washington, D.C., to get the agency
to sign off on any agreement struck with the city.
Jacknis said he is hopeful the city will cooperate, given the number of
resources it has in Westchester that the county helps
to protect.

"We have their water supply here. Indian Point. We have a variety of
things that closely tie New York City and
Westchester," Jacknis said. "It's in their interest that our public
safety resources can operate effectively and, considering the
number of frequencies they have, this is a small amount to ensure that
we're taking care of their stuff as well as our own."
The county needs 12 channels to make the system operate, Jacknis said.

John Werbell, a spokesman for the city's Department of Information
Technology, could not be reached.
The new system will give all of the responders in Westchester access to
the same airwaves, which would be apportioned
and administered by the county. The county bus fleet also would be
included in the system so it could help carry out an
evacuation, and major hospitals also will be given radios. The system
will complement local radio systems, not replace
them.

Bringing the bus fleet into the system secured about $8 million in
federal aid, cutting the county's cost to $7.8 million. The
county cost will be paid for largely by the 30-cent surcharge that
county legislators placed on monthly cell phone bills in
January 2003, which is expected to generate $1.4 million annually.

Westchester hopes to get part of the system up by late next year, but
Jacknis said full implementation will be delayed for
three to six months while the county searches for the new frequencies.

Westchester Emergency Services Commissioner Tony Sutton said the system
will be worth the wait.
"It's disappointing, but we're trying to keep our eye on the ball,"
Sutton said. "We want a system that works, and we want
clean frequencies. If it takes a little longer to do that, that's what
we want to do."

Putnam County already has a single frequency that allows emergency
responders across the county to communicate with
each other, said Robert McMahon, the county's commissioner of emergency
responders. McMahon said the simpler
system, which uses repeaters on hilltop towers to pick up and
rebroadcast the signal to commanders across the county, is
adequate for Putnam because it has many fewer police, fire and emergency
medical responders than Westchester.
In a related development, Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano and
Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, both
Democrats, issued a joint statement yesterday urging the GOP-run state
Senate and Republican Gov. George Pataki to
support a bill that would require nuclear energy companies - including
Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which owns Indian Point
- to pay the cost of developing plans for evacuating communities around
nuclear plants in the event of an accident or
attack. The bill, which was drafted by Brodsky and Sen. Thomas Morahan,
R-New City, has passed the Assembly each
of the past two years but has not advanced in the Senate.

Entergy now pays $550,000 annually to help the state and the counties
around Indian Point develop the evacuation plans,
including $412,500 that goes to Westchester. Mark Hanson, a spokesman
for Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno,
R-Rensselaer County, said the Senate supports a measure that would allow
localities to increase the fee to $950,000.
Westchester spends about $4.6 million annually to maintain its
evacuation plan, Spano said.

http://www.nyjournalnews.com/newsroom/052004/a0120radio.html

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