Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Delay on radio towers costly- County has wasted $8M, retired official says

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 23:50:47 -0500

Delay on radio towers costly- County has wasted $8M, retired official says

By DAN HIGGINS
Journal Staff

ITHACA -- If Tompkins County had acted five years ago on buying a new emergency
radio network, it could have saved taxpayers $8 million, the former chief of emergency
services said.

Jack Miller, who built and was caretaker for 28 years of the microwave system the
county now uses, said the county has wasted time and money in its bid to replace the
aging equipment.

"I know this is going to sound like sour grapes, but I don't care," said Miller, who
retired
last year. "This is an important safety issue and I've held my tongue too long."

In 1998, Miller asked Motorola for a cost estimate for a new microwave radio system
that would better serve the county's police, fire and ambulance services. The company
came back with a figure of $8.6 million.

Four years later, after two consultant's studies and monthly committee meetings,
Motorola responded to the county's formal request for proposals with three options,
ranging in price from $10.5 to $15 million.

The most recent, formal proposals didn't take into account the cost of radios, which
could tack an extra $2 million onto the cost of the project.

County officials, including the legislator in charge of shepherding the public safety
radio
upgrade project, agreed that the process has been drawn out.

But, said Legislator Barbara Blanchard, D-City of Ithaca, Miller makes his claims
without looking at the big picture.

"I think the process has been overkill on studying," Blanchard said. "But we were taking
criticism that we hadn't looked hard enough, that we hadn't done our homework.

"What we have is an insurance policy that we're doing the right thing."

As the years pass and police, fire, and rescue workers are still depending on
30-year-old radio technology, the prospect of a replacement becomes more expensive.

Politicians and emergency officials agree that the prospect of waiting becomes more
dangerous:

As recently as January, during a severe ice storm, emergency responders around the
county were flustered when radios and pagers went dead for several minutes at a time.
There were about a dozen instances in the following week when part of the radio system
went off the air for several minutes, said Emergency Response Director Lee Shurtleff.
"And we do not know what happened," he said.

Last week, mice got into the computer equipment at the base of the radio tower on
Connecticut Hill, Shurtleff said, taking that tower out of commission for several hours.

The problems will only get worse as the system gets older, Shurtleff warned.

In 1998 Miller asked Motorola for a rough estimate, at a time when the county had just
begun its "full-court press" to sell the emergency upgrade to taxpayers and to town
governments that would have to host new radio towers.

Motorola conducted engineering tests, called propagation studies, and determined that
the county could eliminate all but 5 percent of its "dead spots," use a digital,
state-of-the-art, 800-megahertz "trunking" system, and include room for an upgraded
paging system for $8.6 million. Buying new portable radios would cost perhaps
additional $1 million to $2 million.

"But, frankly, what's happened since then has just been political," Miller alleged. Miller

accused the county of procrastinating while waiting for state funding that may never
materialize, and changing the project requirements in an attempt to please too many
constituencies.

Tompkins County's legislature sees it differently.

Ithaca Journal articles dating back to 1999 show that the county responded to people
who, at the time, balked at an $8.5 million system, and worried that the county was only
listening to a biased party -- the company selling the system -- for advice.

Thus began a now four-year journey that has included three consultant's studies (price:
$840,000), one lawsuit (cost to county: $16,627.19) and changes in the plan which have
pushed up the cost, by the most conservative estimates, 40 percent.

Residents in Danby, Caroline and Dryden began raising concerns in 2000 and 2001 that
radio towers would be unsightly and depress property values.

There are currently nine radio towers in the county that act as transmitters for
emergency communications.

Most recently, county officials have begun negotiating with the state of New York to get
the state to help pay for whatever radio plan the county finally adopts.

The state is building a radio system of its own, called the Statewide Wireless Network,
and has agreed to talk with the county about the possibility of sharing costs and
possibly tower sites.

But the state's system is moving even slower than the county's.

County Administrator Stephen Whicher said he has been frustrated by what he has
characterized as the state's slowness on making any concrete plans for its huge
network.

Last month Shurtleff, sensing that the county was no closer to buying and building a
new system than it was in 1998, offered what amounted to a Plan B.

He said that emergency responders, volunteer firefighters and police officers could be
made safer through some stopgap measures. He suggested rebuilding some aging
tower sites, and purchasing a limited upgrade of equipment until the county was ready
to buy the rest of the equipment. He feared the current system wouldn't live long enough
for the new radios to come online.

Shurtleff's estimated price for Plan B: $7 million to $8 million.

Originally published Thursday, March 27, 2003
http://www.theithacajournal.com/news/stories/20030327/localnews/1261082.html

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