January 14, 2024
By: Dwayne Page
The county is still considering investing in a new radio communication system for emergency services but the original $2.3 million proposal under a seven year financing plan through Motorola Solutions is apparently off the table now.
During a special called meeting Friday night, the county commission was presented an alternative plan which is less expensive but only addresses shorter term needs. But even that plan has not yet mustered enough support on the county commission to move forward.
Instead of committing to a $2.3 million deal over seven years with Motorola at a cost to the county of $346,000 a year, County Mayor Matt Adcock said the county might be able to enter into a new or updated interlocal agreement with the DeKalb Emergency Communications District (911 board) to jointly fund a project through a $1.2 million Motorola lease plan over ten years. Under the arrangement, the 911 board would enter into the contract with Motorola instead of the county and pay half of the $158,000 annual costs ($79,000) while the county would make a yearly contribution of $79,000 to 911 to fund the other half of the payment schedule. The county currently has an agreement with 911 to annually fund three dispatcher positions.
The 911 board has not yet been presented this proposal and they would have to meet soon to take action on whether to opt in on the plan because time is of the essence. February 19 is the deadline Motorola has given for agreements to be finalized between the parties for this particular proposal.
“The original plan was a $2.3 million investment over a seven-year period through a financing deal with Motorola and for the county to join the Tennessee Advanced Communications Network (TACN) which is a statewide radio system that provides communication connectivity infrastructure for local, state, and federal first responders,” said County Mayor Adcock. “The county would have had to make payments of $346,000 a year over seven years which would be the life of the radio warranty. Under that deal, we were told by 911 Director Brad Mullinax that 911 would be willing to give us (county) a $300,000 contribution toward the first payment which would not be due for 12 months. The first payment for us (county) would have been for $46,000 but after that we would have to take on that $346,000 payment each year,” he said.
“Since our last meeting, Adcock explained, I talked to Mullinax about finding a way to slowly integrate this new radio system instead of doing it all at one time. We came up with another option which is for $1.2 million with annual payments over 10 years at $158,117. Under this option, 911 would actually go into the agreement with Motorola instead of the county. Under that arrangement, he (Mullinax) thought that the 911 board might be willing to contribute $79,000 of that ($158,117 annual payment) if we (county) would contribute the other $79,000. For us, this would be an annual contribution to 911 out of our general fund and not from debt service. That’s a little more doable than the $346,000 annual payments on our part under the original $2.3 million proposal,” County Mayor Adcock explained.
Mullinax said Friday night what while the initial $2.3 million Motorola plan would best serve the county’s long term radio communication needs, the alternative $1.2 million proposal is a viable option for now but he cautioned that it is not certified by Motorola to work and it would only fund the purchase of mobile radios and vehicle repeaters and not portables. Mobile radios only that go into ambulances will be supplied by the state.
“I want to first disclose that Motorola does not certify this and will not stand behind that it will work,” said Mullinax. “This is something we would be doing on our own. The APX 8500 radios would be the mobile radios that go in the cars. Our option is to utilize the APX 8500s in the cars and purchase the vehicle repeaters. Those are both coming from Motorola. They are called Futurecoms. They have an option to where they can be used on an analogue system so what we have done is take the existing portable radios like those that the sheriff’s department and fire department have and programmed them up with the analogue frequency. It talks to the car and then goes out to the TACN network on the digital system. It does work very well but Motorola says its not supposed to be used this way,” Mullinax explained.
“Basically what we would be doing is purchasing a total of 88 APX 8500s (mobile radios) and there would be a total of 57 Futurecom vehicle repeaters. We would not be purchasing any portable radios. It would be up to the agencies or the county, city, or whoever to eventually buy some portable radios because we need to be moving toward a different option other than these cheaper radios we have right now. Normally I would not be comfortable saying a radio is going to last ten years and if these were portable radios I definitely would not be saying that but mobile radios usually last pretty well. We don’t have to replace a whole lot of mobile radios because of abuse. They don’t get dropped in the mud or water, etc so we can still utilize the cheap radios if that is what the county decides to do,” Mullinax continued.
“I don’t love this option, said Mullinax, but it is an option that will get us by for a period of time. I’d much rather see us do all this replacement at one time and not piecemeal it together. I think that would be the better solution. It does solve the problem for now with the antiquated infrastucure that is on Short Mountain, Snow Hill, and Jefferson. At the very least they (first responders) will have a mobile radio that is going to work because the mobile radio will be brand new in their car or fire truck and honestly that is what really matters but having that portable in their hand, especially for the sheriff’s department and EMS, when they are inside a house on a domestic call is of paramount importance so we don’t need to lose focus of that. There needs to be some planning and budgeting in place on the county level to start replacing these (portable) radios for the sheriff’s department, EMS, and fire department. The county fire department has ten-year-old radios right now. They last got them in 2013,” said Mullinax.
“I think it would be irresponsible if we don’t do something pretty soon because the current state and condition of our radio system is at risk,” Mullinax continued. “If we can’t page ambulances, fire trucks, and the sheriff’s department, we are setting ourselves up for liability. The other day we paged EMS and then we called up there and they said the tones didn’t go off in the building. They didn’t receive the page for an ambulance inside the ambulance service. To me that is a red flag. We have to do something. If we can’t afford to do this $2.3 million deal which I do think is the best solution, we certainly need to do something with this other deal which will buy us some time to where maybe we can apply for some grant money,” said Mullinax.
Of course, even if the county votes to sign on to this alternative plan, Mullinax said the 911 board still has to opt in as well.
“I have not talked to my 911 board about this ($1.2 million) deal that Mayor Adcock called me with today (Friday) but I think its doable. I can’t speak on behalf of them (911 board). We would have to call a special meeting and get approval for it. I am okay with it if the 911 board is okay with it and instead of us coughing up a $300,000 contribution to you (county), it could run through 911 but if we do this we will need to have a letter of intent sent to Motorola by February 19 saying that we are going to execute this because the whole thing (Motorola offer) expires March 6. We must have the paperwork submitted and everything done before then. It takes a little bit of time and effort to get these agreements and contracts put in place, probably a couple of weeks,” added Mullinax.
Jeff Gray, Director of the Tennessee Advanced Communication Network, also addressed the county commission Friday night about the advantages to the county of being part of the TACN network.
With TACN, Gray explained that first responders, including law enforcement, fire, EMS, and healthcare providers, would have reliable communications capabilities for daily operations and the ability to talk to each other to coordinate at the local, regional, and statewide level to respond in the event of an emergency or disaster.
According to Gray, TACN is made up of mobile and fixed radio transmission sites across the state so that from Tennessee’s urban to most rural areas, first responders have consistent communication coverage. “No matter where you are in Tennessee, even when other means of communication fail, TACN offers seamless communication for our partners. TACN has built-in redundancy to ensure the network still offers statewide coverage in the event any location becomes inoperable after a natural or man-made disaster,” said Gray
Because disasters know no boundaries, with TACN, local, state, and federal public safety agencies can respond as many but communicate as one. This interoperable communication is key to providing a swift and organized response that will save time, money, and citizens’ lives. And when infrastructure maintenance, repair, or an upgrade is required, the state bears the expense and not the TACN partnering county.
“We received funding this year with the vision of building out our system to mobile coverage across 85% of the state,” said Gray. “We are working on adding tower infrastructure, probably 200 additional towers across the state especially along Interstates, other major highways, state parks, and county seats to improve coverage over the next five to six years. One specific area we are looking at is the Corps of Engineers site at Center Hill Dam. All of our sites have generator back up and are monitored by Motorola. We also have a network and security operations center that monitors it. Everything is tied together with microwave. All the towers are connected via microwave which is like an internet connection for the tower sites and we have four redundant cores across the state. In Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Jackson we have sites that are redundant so if the system fails in any one zone then it backs up automatically to the next zone because of the microwave system and the entire system stays up,” Gray explained.
“This is all being done under the umbrella of interoperability. You are on a separate system right now that does not talk to the state system so our vision is to build up the state system and have partners like you come on to bolster interoperability so you can talk to each other when you are out there working together every day or during a big disaster. This is our passion making sure that not only the state agencies be able to talk to each other, but our partner agencies be able to talk to each other better and over greater distances in emergencies,” Gray said.
“We (TACN) already have a maintenance contract through Motorola. We upgrade all of our software every two years across the entire state so if you (DeKalb County) choose to come on with us (TACN) that (infrastructure maintenance) expense is not passed onto the county. All of these tower sites will be maintained and upgraded regularly by the state,” said Gray.
TACN, a division of the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security, is funded by the Governor and Tennessee General Assembly.
Commissioner Larry Green made a motion to adopt the new ($1.2 million) proposal subject to an intergovernmental agreement with 911 to share the costs over the ten-year period.
“I think we have to do something. I think this is a start,” said Green.
Commissioner Greg Matthews offered a second to Green’s motion.
“Before we vote I would like to know if we can afford it and not (be told) we hope so,” said Commissioner Tony Luna. ”I would feel more comfortable with a yes vote if I knew the numbers better. That’s my only hangup. I love the technology. No doubt we need it. I’m just not comfortable spending ($1.2 million) until I know more about the funding,” Luna said.
“We don’t have funding allocated yet, but I feel comfortable if we did this smaller plan ($1.2 million) with our part being $79,000 a year if 911 will agree to contribute $79,000 every year over the ten-year period. I believe we could scrounge up $79,000 from the general fund if we can cut back some expenses for other things. I think that is the only way we could make that work,” said County Mayor Adcock.
“We will have a twelve-month period (under this proposal) in which we would have no payments so that would give us time to get the intergovernmental agreement together and make sure the 911 board agrees with what we are agreeing with,” County Mayor Adcock continued. “The budget committee would have to pull numbers together and find that $79,000. I am pretty sure we have $28,000 (in savings from abolishing the citizen member beer board). We would have to come up with the rest of it ($79,000) but I think that is doable. We have unrestricted opioid settlement money so we might be able to move some of that money to this project. That would be a good source because that opioid money is recurring each year. I know it’s a scary thing because we are in a struggle right now with our finances. We have a lot of different things to look at in our budget this year including salary increases, housing inmates in other counties, so it will be tough for sure this year,” added County Mayor Adcock.
Although the commission voted 6 to 3 to approve the plan, the measure failed because eight votes in the affirmative were needed for passage. Five members of the commission were absent. Those voting in favor were Glynn Merriman, Larry Green, Jeff Barnes, Sabrina Farler, Tony “Cully” Culwell, and Greg Matthews. Those voting against were Tony Luna, Daniel Cripps, and Beth Pafford. Five members were absent including Myron Rhody, Tom Chandler, Tim Reynolds, Justin Adcock, and Susannah Cripps Daughtry.
During the public comment period at the end of the meeting, Pam Charles of Dowelltown questioned the commission’s failure to move forward on this issue.
“I understand based on this meeting that we have an archaic 911 radio system. There have been problems with it in the past. The Short Mountain repeater has failed among other things. If our radio system fails, someone could die. In my opinion the number one job of the county commission is to keep county residents safe. I just heard some of you guys say, my life as a county resident was not worth $79,000 a year or $300,000 a year. If the system fails and you can’t get a police officer or the fire department or someone to my house or anyone else’s house in the county someone could die. I understand we all have to manage a budget but when you look at your line items in the (county) budget, you need to prioritize because I think the lives of our citizens are worth more than some of the other things that may be in your budget,” said Charles.
Stephan Charles of the second district said while he appreciates the commission’s desire to be more conservative on this project, it may not be in the best interest of the county.
“I appreciate everyone’s reluctance to spend my money but unfortunately, I think this money has actually already been spent. We have a 20-year-old communication system. I haven’t even had a cell phone that long. I have to get a new one every two years. We are way behind. This $1.2 million project sounds like a patch job. I really think we should figure out a way to spend the $2.3 million and upgrade the system,” said Mr. Charles.
The county commission is likely to revisit the issue at the next meeting.