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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMarch 6 2003 Board Meeting A regular scheduled meeting of the Public Safety Communications Center Policy Board was held on Thursday, March 6, 2003, in Room 501 of the County Administration Building, 320 Chestnut Street, Wilmington, North Carolina. MEMBERS PRESENT: MEMBERS ABSENT: Chairman Frank Blackley Brian Roberts Andy Atkinson Doug Hewlett Steve Smith Dan Summers Lt. Ed Pigford Everett Ward Donnie Hall Paul Hubbard, Representing Kure Beach Randall Heath, Representing EMS Scott Goodyear, Representing EMS Jan Kavanaugh, Representing Information Technology Lt. William Hoehlein GUEST: Mike Arkinson, New Hanover County GIS Chairman Blackley called the meeting to order at 9:10 a.m. The summary of the November 20, 2002 meeting was reviewed and approved. Dan Summers made a motion to approve the minutes as written and Everett Ward seconded the motion. The motion passed. OLD BUSINESS: City of Wilmington GIS Position:  Chairman Blackley reported that the City of Wilmington GIS position has been filled. Frances Downs, a previous New Hanover Hanover County employee has accepted the position. NEW BUSINESS:  Chairman Blackley welcomed Lt. William Hoehlein. Lt. Hoehlein will replace Lt. Lise Ruefle as the Sheriff’s Office representative.  The City of Wilmington’s representative will be Doug Hewlett. 2 February 17, 2003 Outage Incident: Dan Summers distributed and reported on the February 17, 2003 Outage Incident, Technical Issues, Corrective Action Recommendations, Co-location Request, and System Update. Please refer to the handouts for a detailed report.  Water was the primary cause of the outage.  The prime site switch was delayed approximately 45 minutes due to a chase in progress.  The Flemington Radio Tower is routinely inspected. A re-inspection is scheduled for June.  This was the first system interruption in seven years that was related to the system itself. Technical Issues: Please refer to the handout for a detailed report. Corrective Action Recommendations:  A heavy metal grid or cage needs to be placed over top of the Flemington Radio Tower building to protect it from ice. An ice grid is designed so that when ice hits it, it will shatter the ice. The rest of the tower is protected. The tower height is 550 feet.  An ice shield for the building would cost approximately $15,000 or $16,000. Dan Summers has a quote, but due to budget constraints, a request for this item was not included in this year’s budget.  Options for the building were discussed.  Andy Atkinson asked Dan Summers to report back to the Committee at the next meeting with a document outlining whatever measures are necessary and how much funding would be needed to prevent the incident from happening again. The document would be reviewed by the Committee and recommended to the New Hanover County Board of Commissioners for further approval.  An audit has been done with Motorola, but since New Hanover County is in a coastal zone, an ice bridge was not included.  Since the incident was so unusual, Fail Soft did not respond; therefore the telecommunicators were not alerted that there was a problem occurring. The Center was still transmitting but not receiving information.  The Department of Emergency Management is the system manager for the tower and has a small budget devoted to tower maintenance.  Dan Summers will provide further information at the next meeting on the first three bullets listed under Corrective Action Recommendations. 3 Co-Location Request:  Dan Summers has received two requests for space at the Flemington Radio Tower. One request is from the North Carolina Division of State Highway Patrol and the second request is from the North Carolina Office of Emergency Medical Services.  If both agencies are allowed tower space it would add redundancy in New Hanover County’s disaster planning.  Some of the benefits of allowing the two organizations tower space are as following: o New Hanover County’s PHIRST Teams would be allowed to use the State network. It would help in our mutual aid if assistance were needed to help other EMS organizations. o It is also a part of the “terrorism communication network,” providing access to those repeaters. o It would bring additional capabilities to the community.  The two agencies would not be income generators.  New Hanover County would experience an increase in its meter power.  An agreement would need to be executed stating that New Hanover County would not generate any income from this this additional equipment.  If the two requests were fulfilled, the tower would not have any more room for additional capability.  No formal engineering study for this equipment has been executed.  Dan Summers has approached the two agencies about using Coastal Electronics as the main vendor. Both agencies have agreed to use Coastal Electronics.  Coastal Electronics is currently responsibly for all the tower maintenance. It would be up to their tower engineer to design the appropriate layout suitable to handle the additional equipment.  New Hanover County will lease tower space to both agencies for a $1 a year.  Both agencies will be responsible for their own insurance.  The State Highway Patrol will supply microwave hop capabilities, which will utilize 800MHz equipment that will help with the I-40 counter flow during hurricane or emergency evaluations.  By providing the two agencies tower access, it would eventually allow local law enforcement agencies the ability to communicate with the State Highway Patrol and the State Department of Motor Vehicles from a hand held portable from Ft. Fisher to Raleigh.  The network could also be used in prisoner transport.  This would provide complete network interoperability with all agencies.  It would aid in New Hanover County’s reprogramming efforts.  The trade off would be by loaning the two agencies tower space; New Hanover County would have network access. If both agencies made a contribution to our infrastructure then we would rather have the support-in-kind. I want this to be on the record for the new director and any other people who are involved in the project. 4 System Update: PHIRST Team:  The Health Department PHIRST Team have requested four portables, two will be secured capable and two will not be secured capable.  The portables will be bought with grant money. Equipment Inventory:  The goal is to flush out all identification numbers that have been lost or stolen.  A spreadsheet needs to be done to keep track of the reprogramming. Campus Police:  Due to a cellular vendor occupying tower space at the water tower on Randall Drive at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington (UNC-W), Dan Summers is unable to get frequency information on that site. Down Range Repeaters:  Six to eight more frequencies should be allotted for future use.  Emergency Management has spent approximately $7,000 on frequency re-coordination, frequency fees, updates, and audits.  New Hanover County is up-to-date with their FCC frequency requirements for 800 MHz, VHS, and UHF. The requirements are valid for four to six years.  The FCC can fine local government if an audit is conducted and frequency requirements are not met. Backup Contingency Committee:  Donnie Hall will be Chairman of the Backup Contingency Committee.  A representative from each user agency needs to be on the Committee to provide agency’s input and direction on how the backup plan will work.  Due to the uncertainly of his availability, Steve Smith will designate a person from his staff who is familiar with how the trunking system operates to represent the Center.  There is an issue with the control stations the telecommunicators use.  The control stations were installed under a FEMA grant as backup.  The telecommunicators are more familiar with the audio control consoles.  The transmitters in the audio control consoles were tested and were fine.  The audio control logic is different on the control stations versus the logic that is on the console.  The audio reset on the control stations needs to be visible at all times to the telecommunicators.  Coastal Electronics has offered to do a dial in for a Fail Soft drill with New Hanover County. They are capable of forcing the system to go into a Fail Soft mode that could be incorporated into one of the drill components for the exercise. 5  An incident similar to the ice event may occur at anytime, so it is imperative to act quickly and get the problem resolved now so that it does not escalate into a future problem.  Communications is going to be a target in the Homeland Defense scenario.  The following people have volunteered to be on the Backup Contingency Committee: EMS – Robbie Matheson; Sheriff’s Office – Lt. Hoehlein; City of Wilmington Fire Department – Frank Blackley. Information Technology (IT) Sub-Committee Report: Steve Smith and Jan Kavanaugh distributed and reported on the Information Technology Sub-Committee Report. Please refer to the handout for a detailed report. Steve Smith also provided Committee members with a copy of two of the Standard Operating Procedures that Policy Board members previously approved. Please refer to the handout for a detailed report. Several additional items were discussed, they are as following:  Last year, Steve Smith developed an IT position by converting a telecommunicator position into an IT IT position. The IT person would oversee the system on a 24/7 basis. They would also work with Mike Arkinson in the GIS Department to maintain the mapping and addressing in the CAD system.  The position was approved by the Policy Board, but never materialized due to State funding issues.  Staff is working towards having remote access to the CAD system via home computer to prevent travel time.  It was stated that New Hanover County can find funding for deputies for the jail but cannot find funding for an IT person in 911.  Jan Kavanaugh is training Debora Cottle and the “chain of command” is improving.  Chairman Blackley stated that one of the concerns he had was that Jan Kavanaugh was getting overwhelmed with the workload (Elections, OSSI, 911 Coordination) and would decide to leave New Hanover County for another job. He felt that the Policy Board needed to address the issue further.  Lt. Pigford asked if the IT position could be revisited in the new budget year beginning in July? Since the request was made last year, was there a way to make the request again this year and have it reviewed from a budget standpoint?  Steve Smith stated that the Policy Board could make the request.  Through Andy Atkinson, the County Manager, advised the Policy Board not to revisit the position. It is the Policy Board’s decision to do whatever they deem necessary. Since the Policy Board has a slightly different role than other departments, it would not hurt to express the need again and have it endorsed by the Policy Board. Due to the current budget situation, it may not be approved this year. 6  Lt. Pigford made the following motion: o “The New Hanover County Public Safety Communications Center Policy Board has requested that the Information Technology position for 911 be revisited during the FY03-04 budget cycle. During the FY02-03 budget process, a telecommunicator position was relinquished to accommodate this request. The FY02-03 approved budget did not include the requested position.” o Everett Ward seconded the motion. The motion passed. Due to conflict of interest, Andy Atkinson abstained from voting.  Any non-emergency workstation problems in 911 will be handled through a work desk in IT and will be considered a trouble call. The call would be answered by one of the six IT personal computer support people. This will prevent one person from handling the entire workload and provide a quicker response to the problem. Jan Kavanaugh will continue to handle the system administration problems.  Any non-emergency problems on the Emergency Medical Services Mobile Data Terminals (MDT’s) will be handled by their own Information Technology Department.  Currently, a checklist and trouble-shooting list are being designed for the MDT’s.  Jan Kavanaugh has remote control for all the servers from her desktop computer.  An extra meter was added at the Seabreeze tower to improve MDT coverage.  The City of Wilmington Police Department tested some new ranges within the software itself and found that the original settings they had established were sufficient.  The same testing needs to be done on the County side and parameters need to be established.  From the polling mark, MDT users need to adjust their RF modems to be able to receive the signal.  The State found several problems when they did the testing on their side. They are currently correcting the problems, but are still having problems with their repeaters and switches.  Lt. Hoehlein will start charting and mapping the dead zones that the law enforcement officers are experiencing to see if there is a pattern or if they are just isolated instances that are causing the problems. (Date, time, weather conditions, etc.) He will report back to the Committee on his findings at the next meeting.  Each agency needs to use the change management request form when making nature codes and MDT changes.  An authorized person needs to be assigned in each agency to make the changes.  Jan Kavanaugh needs to know each of the agencies authorized contact person who she can call if she has a question about a change.  Lt. Hoehlein will be the authorized person in the Sheriff’s Office.  Donnie Hall will be the authorized person in County Fire.  Lt. Gibson is currently the authorized person in the City of Wilmington Police Department. Lt. Blanton may be taking over that responsibility. It was unknown at this time.  In some situations the information will need to be changed in the message switch. The same procedure will be followed when call signs need to be changed. 7 Data Recovery: Steve Smith reported briefly on the data recovery efforts.  While the CAD system was down in January, some data was lost.  OSSI stated that they could possibly recover the data for $150.  For $1,000 OSSI could recover all the data.  From 7:00 p.m. to approximately 2:30 a.m. the Center has no computer data for that timeframe. During that timeframe, the telecommunicators were using cards.  The $1,000 will come out of the Public Safety Communications Center’s budget.  In order to restore the data, OSSI may suggest switching over to the other CAD server. It was unknown at this time how the data would be restored. Point Addressing: Mike Arkinson gave an update on the point-addressing project. He showed Committee members a map of the areas that were currently being worked on, which ones had been completed and future areas.  Approximately 30,000 points have been collected since February 21, 2003.  The GIS Department is waiting for a written confirmation for the area south of Snow’s Cut.  The collection rate varies depending on the area of collection.  Several hundred points are being collected daily.  Of the addresses collected there is approximately a ten percent return of zero address values.  Zero address value means that there are no numbers posted on the building or it is a residential or business complex.  The location is captured and a zero is inserted for the value, this will indicate that those locations need to be identified at a later date.  The othophoto project is near completion.  All the aerial photographs that will be going into the CAD system have been delivered as individual tiles.  Currently, the GIS Department is waiting for the final delivery, which will include compost data sets. The sets will build the mosaics of all the images and will build it in an image file attached similar to what is now available on the CAD system. When the file is available it will be moved into the OSSI file.  This will provide color topography as a background option.  The information information will be online before the end of March.  UNC-W is in the process of addressing all of its campus buildings. Once it is completed a contracted crew will document the building locations and collect location points.  When the point-addressing project is complete, the information will be loaded into the OSSI system and be available on-line.  The completion date for the project is June.  All the inaccurate addresses currently in the system have been removed and addresses that had the best chance of being correct were loaded into the system to demonstrate how the point addressing would work. 8  It is a good solution for particular issues that arise when roadway models cannot identify a specific point location or when there are district-coding issues that need to be resolved.  Funding for the project is still in budget and will cover 100,000 addresses.  The information being collected may be used for several other projects such as to compile a hazardous materials address list or crime analysis lists.  The current file covers the entire County. Certain items were pulled out of the current file such as parcels of land that were greater than one-third acre. If the address fell on a piece of property of that size it was removed from the system. The GIS Department only wanted points that were within a parcel because the address point actually comes from the center location of that parcel. If the area is too large, the central point may be located too far away from where the actual address exists. The smaller the land parcel the closer the accuracy of the address.  Anything that had more than one one occurrence or duplication was deleted from the system (differences in street names).  Some problems were pre-determined and were eliminate to demonstrate the usefulness of this project and the need to have the work contracted out.  The old information will eventually be removed and replaced with the new layer.  Steve Smith stated that Mike has been very thorough in working with the Center and he is very accommodating, knowledgeable, and resourceful. He has been a tremendous help in making the project a successful. Public Safety Communications Center Budget Request: Steve Smith distributed and reviewed the FY03-04 Public Safety Communications Center budget request. Please refer to the handout for a detailed explanation of the budget.  The largest increase in the requested budget is in the Equipment Rent (3520) account.  The increase is due to the radio communication and telephone systems that are currently being installed.  The Policy Board elected to pay off the radio communication and telephone system over a three-year period.  Payments are larger and will be paid out semi-annually for three years.  After three years, payments will decrease to just include the maintenance contract.  The voice logging equipment is a five-year contract, and will have quarterly payments.  The payments are larger than the amount being paid out before, but it is less than the amount that was budgeted in the last two years to purchase a system.  Three additional trunk lines will be added when the new telephone system is installed. Currently, the Center has nine trunking lines.  The additional lines should help with the abandoned call situation.  Currently, when all the lines are full the calls roll over into the administration lines and some of the information is lost. 9  Dan Summers asked if the new trunk lines would have alternate routing? The new trunk lines could provide an alternative path and be parallel into the future EOC for backup. 3920 -Maintenance and Repair Equipment:  The Dictaphone maintenance contract is under this account.  The maintenance on the River Road Tower has been transferred to Emergency Management’s budget. It will be more cost effective to combine the two tower maintenance agreements.  The $30,000 is used to cover any radio equipment maintenance that is not covered under a maintenance contract. 5200 -Training and Travel:  The $6,325 under Training Conferences and/or Seminars is for the required OSSI user training to keep the CAD system running smoothly. 6399 -Computer Expenses:  Includes any unforeseen hardware replacement costs for the CAD system. 6400 -Capital Outlay – Equipment  The improvement plan includes a microwave link, which would connect the three towers to the Center and help prevent the reoccurring cost of landlines.  The microwave link would connect the Flemington Road Tower to the annex and the annex to Seabreeze and Seabreeze to the new Department of Transportation facility in Castle Hayne.  It would provide a backup data link and decrease wire line costs.  It would provide access to the State network.  Replacement of the VHF primary base station with a multi channel station would provide additional backup for County Fire with EMS as the primary channel. After a lengthy discussion on the budget, Donnie Hall made the motion to approve the budget with the IT support position included. Dan Summers seconded the motion. The motion passed. Power Point Presentation – 2002 Annual Report: Steve Smith distributed the 2002 Annual Report to Committee members and presented a power point presentation on the handout. Please refer to the handout for a detail report.  The main goal of the Center is to decrease the non-emergency call volume. Public Safety Communications Center Survey Results: Steve Smith distributed a copy of the survey results to Committee members. Please refer to the handout for a detailed report. 10 Miscellaneous:  The Standard Operating Procedures for Emergency Medical Services (EMS) is complete and ready for approval.  EMS is working on the radio template for data inventory.  The same talk group will be used except that it will be called a different name.  The City of Wilmington Police Department talk group (Special Seven on CAD) is creating problems especially when the officers are trying to work on special assignments or try to communicate with each other.  There is a need to have interoperability between the agencies.  There is a tremendous amount of radio resources not being utilized correctly.  More slots are needed for the down range repeater at the Town of Carolina Beach.  The names of talk groups on the console screens need to match the radio names.  The consoles have the ability to list the full talk group names, but the radios are using the zone names. It is very confusing and creating problems during communications.  The Center needs a position for a Special Ops event.  Brenda Hewlett and Steve Smith went over the screen layouts of the consoles and arranged the fire consoles to have EMS access. The EMS consoles have fire access.  The Sheriff’s Office has access to Pleasure Island and the City of Wilmington Police Department so that they can utilize the normal backups and liaisons without having to go to two different screens.  Officers need to keep their own radio and not switch with someone else if it is not working correctly. The next scheduled meeting will be held on Thursday, April 24, 2003, at 9:00 a.m. in Room 501 of the County Administration Building, 320 Chestnut Street, Wilmington, North Carolina. Lt. Pigford made a motion to adjourn the meeting, Lt. Hoehlein seconded the motion. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 12:17 p.m.