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HomeMy WebLinkAboutJuly 24 2003 Board Meeting A regular scheduled meeting of the Public Safety Communications Center Policy Board was held on Thursday, July 24, 2003, in Room 501 of the County Administration Building, 320 Chestnut Street, Wilmington, North Carolina. Members Present: Members Absent: Andy Atkinson Chairman Frank Blackley, Excused Steve Smith Lt. Hoehlein, Excused Mary Antley Robbie Matheson Sterling Powell Brian Roberts Bill Clontz Dennis Cooper Donnie Hall Warren Lee Ed Gibson Doug Hewlett Chris Gilmore, Representing EMS Jan Kavanaugh Guest: Ray Rothrock, Mayor Carolina Beach Vice-Chairman Andy Atkinson called the meeting to order at 9:34 a.m. 800 MHz Update: Warren Lee updated the Committee on the 800 MHz information.  Motorola presented the 800 MHz sub-committee with an updated proposal.  The money that originally had been submitted in the May 2002 proposal for the microwave system to link the Public Safety Communications Center to the Flemington Tower and Hill Valley Walk was removed.  The item was removed since the State Highway Patrol is requesting it to be part of their package with the installation of the microwave link at Hill Valley Walk.  Instead additional money was included for a new building to house the Simulcast equipment, if the County decides to purchase the system. The current building is not large enough.  The new proposal will be approximately $2.7 million for 14 channels.  A proposal for 25 channels was also included since New Hanover County has licenses for 25 channels. The cost for 25 channels will be approximately $3.3 million.  Motorola is concerned that if New Hanover County does not use the extra licenses, other phone companies such as Nextel will ask the FCC for a pardon to acquire those frequencies not being used.  A short proposal will be presented to the Board of County Commissioners at their next meeting outlining the options available.  Surcharge money may not be used to fund the system – it is not an allowable expense. 2  The purpose of the Public Safety Communications Center Policy Board is to be a support mechanism for the different agencies. It is the responsibly of the different agencies to provide board members with information, so that sound decisions and recommendations may be made regarding various issues. State Highway Patrol: Warren Lee updated the Committee on the State Highway Patrol issue.  Charter Communications has informed New Hanover County that they are going to require that an engineering study be done at the Hill Valley Walk tower site to determine if it will support additional structures.  Charter Communications does not own the 16 acres of land that the tower at Hill Valley Walk occupies. A private citizen who leases the space to three other cell phone companies owns the property.  New Hanover County has a five-year lease that is renewable four times. The lease states that the leaseholder can give New Hanover County a year’s notice to vacant the land. Two motions were made regarding the following following information: First motion: Sterling Powell made the following motion: “To endorse the State Highway Patrol and The North Carolina Office of Emergency Medical Services to pursue installing UHF repeaters at the Flemington Tower Site with the stipulation that if New Hanover County needs additional tower space in the future, the two agencies will have to remove their equipment.” Doug Hewlett seconded the motion. The second motion is as following: Sterling Powell made the following motion: “To allow the State Highway Patrol permission to install two microwave links, one at the Flemington tower site and one at Hill Valley Walk tower site.” Doug Hewlett seconded the motion.  After further discussion, both motions passed. Approval of May 15 and June 26, 2003 Summaries: Vice Chairman Atkinson asked if anyone had any additions or corrections to the May 15 and June 26, 2003 summaries. Bill Clontz stated a correction to the June 26, 2003 summary. On page three under Workstation Issues, bullet three should read as following: “The problem is either with New Hanover County’s network or the hardware. OSSI intends to make that charge and we do not agree with it.” Ed Gibson made a motion to approve the summaries with the one correction. Doug Hewlett seconded the motion. Motion passed. 3 Information Technology Sub-Committee Report: Bill Clontz reported on and distributed the Information Technology Report. Please refer to the handout for detailed information. Jan Kavanugh reported on the Public Safety Communications Center activity.  The desktop and server issues are two big issues in the Public Safety Communications Center that the Information Technology staff is currently working on.  Jan Kavanaugh met with OSSI representatives and several solutions were introduced to help resolve the issues. Dictaphone System:  The Public Safety Communications Center needs to get one more software license for its Dictaphone system, it only has four and five is needed.  Once the outside users are established, security will need to be set up so that the different agencies only have access to their channels. Reserved Street Name List:  A reserve street name list will be created and stored in a database similar to the error-addressing database to allow users access to the information.  The addressing people in the City of Wilmington and New Hanover County allowing them to enforce the addressing standards will maintain the database.  New Hanover County Planning Department would be responsible for the unincorporated areas and the beaches. The City of Wilmington will be responsible for the incorporated areas.  New Hanover County’s Information Technology Department would be responsible for the programming of the database.  It was the consensus of the Committee for Bill Clontz to proceed with the data base idea. Power Outage and Impact: Jan Kavanaugh reported on the power outage that occurred on July 23. 2003.  The event happened approximately around 5:30 a.m.  All the equipment should have been on generator power.  The switches in the telephone room went down and power was lost.  The disk drive in the Center’s server room lost power, the CAD servers did not go down, but since the disk drive was powerless it created problems for the telecommunicators.  Connection to the network was lost due to the switches in the electrical room losing power.  The UPS battery generator did function correctly.  Property Management is in the process of checking all the electrical equipment to make sure everything is working correctly.  The courthouse also had problems with their telephone lines. 4  A final determination needs to be done as to what exactly happened and make sure it does not happen again. Elections: Vice Chairman Atkinson conducted the annual election to elect new board members.  The Committee nominated Frank Blackley to continue as Chairman and Andy Atkinson to continue as Vice Chairman.  According to the Policy Board bylaws, the Public Safety Communications Center director will provide a Secretary. Donnie Hall made a motion to elect Frank Blackley as Chairman and elect Andy Atkinson as Vice Chairman. Ed Gibson seconded the motion. Motion passed. Communications Contingency Sub-Committee: Donnie Hall gave a presentation to the Committee outlining the progress the Communications Contingency Sub-Committee has made and he also distributed information relating to the presentation. Refer to the handouts for a more detailed report.  The Sheriff’s Office needs representation on the Committee.  General Electric (GE), Corning, Inc. and New Hanover Regional Medical Center (NHRMC) are the three sites that have industrial 800 MHz systems.  In compliance with their agreement, New Hanover County is allowed space for a few channels on each of their systems. Infrastructure Redundancy and Back Up Levels:  There are four backup levels that work in the 800 MHz systems.  When Failsoft occurs the system loses it ability to do trunking functions and the user is locked into one channel.  The Department of Emergency Management drafted a Failsoft policy.  The Failsoft mode can occur if there is a problem detected in the data transmission lines with the Bell South lines.  Motorola representatives state that New Hanover County goes into Failsoft mode quite often, but it happens so fast and is corrected so fast that it is not noticeable.  All end users need to follow the established policies and procedures and understand how Failsoft works.  The fleeting concept was identified.  A quarterly Failsoft drill needs to be done with all the agencies to familiarize them with the policies and procedures involved. Back-up Sites:  The industrial back up sites includes General Electric (GE). Corning, Inc., and New Hanover Regional Medical Center (NHRMC). 5  Several radios in the system have not been programmed with the back up channels because the industrial sites were not part of the system when the last back up reprogramming was completed.  Templates will be set up for different talk groups on the channels.  Each channel is color coded to a physical location.  Testing in the City of Wilmington needs to be done to locate the best signal. National Mutual Aid Backup:  The NMA two channels have not been established yet.  A repeater needs to be located in the Northeastern part of the County.  Motorola has been approached to produce a feasibility study of putting a repeater on the water tower in Ogden Park or looking somewhere closer to Market Street near the Porters Neck or Castle Hayne areas.  Vice Chairman Atkinson asked Donnie Hall to present the same presentation at the next Public Safety Communications Center meeting since the majority of the Committee members were missing and the information is very important.  He also requested that the information be sent out to Committee members asking them to read and review the information so at the next Policy Board meeting it can be discussed. Training and policy procedures will also be discussed and established. Additional Information: Donnie Hall had two more additional items to discuss. First Item:  The different agencies need to be notified when the CAD system is malfunctioning.  Some agencies are notified immediately, but other agencies are not aware that there is a problem with the CAD system.  The supervisor on duty could contact the agencies to make them aware of the problem. Second Item: Donnie Hall would like to make a presentation to the Policy Board on how the Public Safety Communications Center affects the insurance rates from the fire districts.  New Hanover County has one of the highest insurance ratings in the State because of the number of telecommunicators we employ and the number of circuits we have. Vice Chairman Atkinson would like the two discussions previously held with some of the the Public Safety Communications Center employees and managers put on the agenda for the next Policy Board meeting.  The Public Safety Communications Center will be relocating to Marketplace Mall. It will take approximately two years before a building will be built to house the department.  The Wilmington Police Department and Sheriff’s Office deputies are still sending a lot of unnecessary traffic through the Center. 6 The next scheduled meeting will be held on Thursday, July 28, 2003, at 9:00 a.m. in Room 501 of the County Administration Building, 320 Chestnut Street, Wilmington, North Carolina. Due to not having enough people for a quorum, Vice Chairman Atkinson called the meeting adjourned at 11:16 a.m.