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HomeMy WebLinkAbout12 03 2009 Board Meeting NEW HANOVER COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT &9-1-1 230 Government Center Dr, Suite 185 Wilmington, NC 28403 Phone: (910) 798-6920 Fax: (910) 798-6925 E-mail: wlee@nhcgov.com Warren Lee Director Memorandum To: Public Safety Communications Center Policy Board Members From: Warren Lee, Director Subject: December 3 Board Summary Date: December 4, 2009 A Public Safety Communications Center Policy Board meeting was held on Thursday, December 3, 2009 at 10:00 AM in the Emergency Operation Center, 220 Government Center Drive, Wilmington, North Carolina. MEMBERS PRESENT: MEMBERS ABSENT: Andre’ Mallette Patricia Fields Warren Lee Dennis Cooper Sterling Powell Harold Heglar William Younginer Sharon Braxton Cynthia Deacon Kurt Bartley Michael Core Jon Rorie Leslie Stanfield Dorian Flowers Darrell Lanier Sam Hill Jerry Brewer Guests Debora Cottle, NHC EM & 9-1-1 Jan Kavanaugh, NHC IT Wayne Pearce, NHC EM & 9-1-1 James Varrone, Wilmington Police Dept Tom Tilman, Wilmington Police Dept Mary Smith, Wilmington Police Dept Genia Genia Boswell, Wilmington Fire Dept Robert Llora, Motorola Andrew Curd, Motorola Jason Adams, Wireless Carrie LaBasco, Motorola Chairman Powell asked that the visitors introduce themselves as there were a couple of new faces. Tom Tilman and Jim Varrone were here from WPD as well as Sam Hill from WFD. Chairman Powell called the meeting to order at 10:06 a.m. He asked if everyone had a chance to review the minutes from October 22, 2009 and if there were any questions, comments, changes or corrections. No one had any. Chairman Powell asked if there was a motion to approve the minutes. Andre’ Mallette made a motion and Darrell Lanier. All agreed. Motion passed. OLD BUSINESS: 800 MHz Rebanding Update Chairman Powell asked if Warren would update everyone on rebanding. Warren said it is still ongoing, they are now working on the Sheriff’s Department radios. He asked if Jason would give an in depth update. Jason said they were going to move on to the Port Authority and smaller groups next. Chairman Powell asked if there had been any problems, Jason said there was a minor issue with the Airport they would fix next week but other than that everything has been going smoothly. Warren reminded everyone that they need to keep track of time and mileage for the reimbursements and to submit them in a timely manner. NEW BUSINESS Integrated Fire Dispatch Chairman Powell asked if there was anything new on Integrated Fire Dispatch and Wayne informed everyone there is nothing new right now; there is a meeting set for next Friday. Pre-Alerting Chairman Powell asked how it was working and Debora said there haven’t been any issues on 9-1-1 side. Chairman Powell said that it seems to be inconsistent when he is listening. Radio Issues Chairman Powell asked about the radio issues from Monday morning. Jason said that the analog system at Flemington went into fail soft. The controller had stopped working on the new system. They went back to the old system and the patches did not work. Once they moved the repeaters to the old system they had trouble getting the consoles up which are why the patches were down until about 3pm. The new equipment is in his office and will install them to insure they work before they move repeaters back. It will be scheduled early one morning so that everyone knows about the outage which should take about 30 minutes to transition. Chairman Powell asked about the analog not working, what do needs to be done with digital? Jason said nothing needs to be done; the only thing affected was the permanent patches because they are done at the console level. Warren stated this shows the importance of migrating and getting this done as quickly as possible. Right now parts are available but this equipment has an end of life as discussed by Motorola. As of now what is left is the Sheriff’s Department and EMS and Jason said that will start next week. Chairman Powell asked if everyone knows what happens when it goes to fail soft. You are put to a set repeater and are now sharing radio traffic with other agencies. So listen before you talk. Wilmington Police Department Tom Tilman and James Varrone wanted to let everyone know that RHC was in the process of going through accreditation and wanted to come out to listen, learn and have a discussion after the meeting. Text Messaging Chairman Powell asked about the county having a new text messaging system. When he was training in one of the stations there was a sign up for texting classes. If there is anything new please bring it to these Board meetings and share with everyone. It might be beneficial to everyone and he was interested to see if it was something that they could use. Jan said that she thought it was a third party service and Leslie said they would look into what was being used. OTHER ITEMS AND REPORTS Chairman Powell asked Warren to update everyone. Warren stated that everyone should have gotten their reports by email. The center has just upgraded to the Voice Over IP network (VOIP). This will allow us to do some things we were not able to do before like text messaging to 9-1-1. The switchover went smoothly. Leslie reiterated that the technology in the center is capable of receiving all kinds of information various ways; the holdup is ground level network is still analog. There are vendors who are catching up and AT&T will have to step up or they will be displaced by the other carriers coming into the market with their technology. Warren said the next step is to get AT&T and other vendors to sit down to discuss this technology and get proposals. There could be representatives from our agencies in a committee to review this information and we would welcome your input if you are interested. If you will contact Lynn if you are interested and we will move forward to bring the vendors in for a discussion. Leslie said this new technology allows you to split the system to several locations which is an advantage if there is a reason to have a co-location or temporary move for any reason. Previously, there was capability to only be in one place. This split would allow redundancy in off-site locations with the same capabilities as the system here and to be able to maintain that base. The location can be set up anywhere there is a high speed connection. Warren said the Center has started a new class with five more trainees. We are trying to get fully staffed and back up to speed. We have been able to keep the secondary channels open; this has not happened in a long time. The most difficulty we have encountered is trainable staff that we can retain. MEETING SCHEDULE Chairman Powell if the times we are meeting are acceptable or if there were other suggestions. No one had any opposition so the schedule will stay the same; the fourth Thursday every month, skip November and the 1st Thursday of December. IT Jan said there was nothing to update. Chairman Powell adjourned at 10:30 a.m.