September 26 2002 Board Meeting
A regular scheduled meeting of the Public Safety Communications Center Policy Board was held on Thursday, September 26, 2002, in Room 501 of the County Administration Building, 320 Chestnut
Street, Wilmington, North Carolina. MEMBERS PRESENT: MEMBERS ABSENT: Chairman Frank Blackley Donnie Hall, Excused Andy Atkinson Dennis Cooper Steve Smith Everett Ward Ed Pigford Bill
Clontz Lise Ruefle Bill Whisnant Ed Woodard Brian Roberts Mike George (Representing Emergency Management) GUESTS: Chief Dunford, Police Chief of the Town of Carolina Beach Bruce Walker,
New Hanover County Information Technology Department Jan Kavanaugh, New Hanover County Information Technology Department Chairman Blackley called the meeting to order at 9:10 a.m. The
summary of August 22, 2002 meeting was reviewed and approved. Ed Pigford made a motion to approve the minutes as written and Lise Ruefle seconded the motion. OLD BUSINESS: Mobile Data
Terminals (MDT’s) Update: Chairman Frank Blackley reported on the MDT update. Motorola installed and tested new parameter settings in the City of Wilmington Police Department’s MDT
fire and lease units. The units will be used as a test base to see if signal cover improves. Participation is needed from the towns of Carolina and Wrightsville Beaches. The main
objective of having the MDT’s is to have only one parameter signal setting for the entire County. This would improve the overall effectiveness and coverage of the MDT’s throughout the
County. A MDT meeting will be scheduled in October.
2 Microwave Tower and Fiber Link; Bill Clontz reported on the microwave tower and fiber link that is currently being installed at Marketplace Mall. Completion date is scheduled for
the end of October. New Hanover County departments will move in November. The microwave tower is on hold until the Department of Emergency Management and the Emergency Operating
Center (EOC) relocates at the end of November. NEW BUSINESS: Information Technology (IT) Sub-Committee: Bill Clontz distributed the IT Sub-Committee report for September and also presented
a power point presentation to provide Committee members with a more detailed and in-depth look at the addressing issue. The following information was presented to and discussed by the
Committee members: The IT Sub-Committee met on Thursday, September 12, 2002. The IT Sub-Committee meets on the second Thursday of every month and the New Hanover County Public Safety
Communications Center Policy Board meets on the fourth Thursday of every month. E911 Address Exception Tracking Report: Bill Clontz distributed a copy of the E911 address exception tracking
report to Committee members for them to review and discuss. Discussion followed. Operational Improvement Incentives: Bill Clontz distributed a copy of the operational improvement incentives
and stated that the IT Sub-Committee is currently working on six particular incentives. Please refer to the handout for more details. Point Addressing System: Bill Clontz reported on
the point addressing system. The following information was discussed: The main objective of the Request for Proposals (RFP) is to hire an outside firm to collect the spot location
coordinates for the front doors of every building in the County. The RFP has been issued by the New Hanover County Finance Department. Six responses were received and reviewed by
staff representatives of New Hanover County and the City of Wilmington. An agreement from a local firm has been received and price negotiations are underway.
3 The firm contracted to do the work is W.K. Dickson. The beach communities, mobile homes parks and apartment complexes will be included in the project. Addressing Corrections Process:
Bill Clontz presented a power point presentation to Committee members regarding the addressing corrections processes. A copy of the power point presentation is attached for Committee
members to review. The slide presentation demonstrates the process and procedure for correcting mass changes to the database. The GIS database was built at the expense of several
million dollars and was conceived as being a one-parcel database that the County would maintain. The City of Wilmington, beach communities and the private sector are allowed access to
the information. The service is available to the public at no charge. The majority of the GIS database is on the New Hanover County web site for easy access. Special requests from
the public are fulfilled by burning a compact disk (CD). The beach communities need to review the Addressing Standards & Procedures Manual and ask their governing boards to consider
adopting it. The New Hanover County Planning Department has a person who is assigned the responsibility for addressing corrections in the County. The City of Wilmington is currently
working on filling their vacant addressing position. The primary responsibility for the person assigned the task is to implement and coordinate address changes throughout the County
and City. New Hanover County is in the process of “tweaking” the procedure since errors are still appearing. When W.K. Dickson begins their GPS fieldwork on point addressing and
a house is found without a number or the number is incorrect we will be notified immediately. The information will be processed and recorded. While meeting with New Hanover County
staff, W.K. Dickson inquired whether the County was going to set up a committee to alert the public about the point addressing issue. It has not been discussed, but it is important that
the public be aware and informed of why and what the W.K. Dickson staff will be doing. It will be a public safety issue. If the public is aware of the situation they will perceive it
better. It is a public safety issue because when an address is given it must be correct in the database and the street name must be correct so that emergency response vehicles can
respond with out a delay. Bruce Walker: Bruce Walker, New Hanover County GIS Department, explained the Garden Lake Estate problem by utilizing the slide presentation. He also discussed
the communication flow of information that needs to be addressed by both the City of Wilmington and New Hanover County. One person from each of the agencies needs to be assigned the
responsibility of coordinating the activity, especially in mass readdressing projects. The information needs to be monitored on a continuous basis.
4 The beach communities’ boards need to review and consider adopting the addressing standards and procedures that the Board of County Commissioners and the City of Wilmington have
adopted. If the mechanism is in place when it comes time to required residents to display address numbers, the transition will be smoother. If all the agencies would adopt the addressing
standards and procedures it would be easier to maintain the database and there would be consistency across the County. How each of the agencies would enforce the procedure would be up
to their governing board. The enforcement associated with governing the addressing correction process was discussed. The County GIS staff offered to set up meetings with each of
the beach representatives to discuss the addressing issue with them so they would be better informed on how the procedure works and be able to answer questions that may arise. Andy Atkinson
made the following motion: Prepare a letter to the beach communities, mayors, and managers asking asking them to review the addressing standard policy that the City of Wilmington and
New Hanover County have adopted. Also, ask them to consider whether or not the policy would be something their governing boards could adopt to make the addressing procedures in the County
more uniform. Enclose a copy of the addressing standard policy with the letter. Everett Ward seconded the motion. The motion passed with no discussion. Public Safety Communications Center’s
August Report: Steve Smith distributed and reported on the Public Safety Communications Center’s August Report. Please refer to the handout for a detailed summary of the report. The
following information was presented to the Committee: Recent requirement changes on background investigations from the North Carolina Sheriffs’ Education and Training Standards Commission
is making it more difficult for the applicants to obtain background information because they have to list all the places that they have lived and all the names they have gone under for
the last ten years. The training process is going well since the implementation of pre-testing. The pre-testing screens those applicants that have a good chance of being successful
telecommunicators. The last few people who were hired have done very well in the telecommunicator course and on the consoles. Several applicants have completed the preliminary process
and will go before a review board in the near future.
5 Telephone and Console Upgrade: Steve Smith reported on his interactions with Richard Taylor and Motorola regarding the surcharge monies and various syntax issues related to the upgrade
of the telephone and console equipment. Both the State and Motorola engineers are having a problem interpreting what an integrated system is and what component expenses will be covered
under the surcharge Steve Smith read a paragraph from the Motorola contract confirming what is going to be provided in the upgrade and what expenses will be covered with the surcharge
funds. The item has been placed on the Board of County Commissioners October 7 agenda. Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD): The change over to the sequel server is still in process.
The IT staff has been experiencing some problems with the change over. Staff members from OSSI have been called in to help resolve the problem. Input to the CAD system has been extremely
slow and on occasion the system has stopped. There have been some problems with the way the project has been handled. The proper preparatory work was not completed by OSSI and therefore;
when the server was installed the configurations were not there to property run the CAD system, which created problems. The resource monitors are not working in the City of Wilmington
units. The resource monitors may have gone down when the CAD system went down during the night. Carolina and Kure Beach Situation: Steve Smith has met with Chief Dunford from the Carolina
Beach Police Department and they have been working on the details for the Carolina Beach transition in January. A meeting is scheduled to discuss and implement the process of getting
the Carolina Beach map layers aligned and in position to correspond with the officer and unit information that will be needed to enter the information into the CAD database. The meeting
will also provide a time line for all parties involved to complete the process before January. Radio Situation: Motorola has an in line repeater that is essentially a signal booster
that may help to improve the coverage at the southern end of the County. The line repeater can only do one talk group. Carolina and Kure Beaches would each have one talk group.
A repeater will be needed for each talk group used on the southern end of the County. Carolina and Kure Beaches are currently using 800 MHz radios, but they are set on a conventional,
not trunked, setting.
6 The repeater will be set at the tower and when the signal goes through the repeater it will transform it into a trunk signal and send it to the Center. The same situation will occur
when the Center responds back with information or uses any other talk groups. Ron Groves from Coastal Electronics stated that it should take care of the coverage at the southern portion
of the County until a better solution is found. The cost to install the equipment will be approximately $10,000 per repeater. The talk groups need to be identified then implemented.
A repeater was ordered from Coastal Electronic so that it could be installed and tested. Personnel Issues: Steve Smith reported on the personnel issues at the Public Safety Communications
Center. Some personnel issues that have been creating problems have been resolved. The personnel currently in the Center have observed and realized over the last few months that
they are going to be treated fairly and that problems will be dealt with and as quickly as as possible. People are coming to work except when they are sick. They are not abusing their
personal or sick time as before. The four part-time positions are working well to cover peak periods. The three eight-hour positions will be utilized in the same way as the part-time
positions to help cover peak periods. There will be eleven people on each shift except during peak times when there will be 13 to 15 people on each shift. Extra personnel will allow
for call takers and give us some administrative help to do other things. Bill Clontz distributed copies of the Addressing Standards and Procedures Manual to Carolina and Wrightsville
Beach Committee members for them to take back to their jurisdictions. The next scheduled meeting will be held on Thursday, October 24, 2002, at 9:00 a.m. in Room 501 of the County Administration
Building, 320 Chestnut Street, Wilmington, North Carolina. Bill Whisnant made a motion to adjourn the meeting, Andy Atkinson seconded the motion. There being no further business the
meeting was adjourned at 10:17 a.m.