Monday, November 26, 2007
Administration Center
Room 3220
10:00 a.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT: Chief Edward Kondracki, Chief Gregg Cleveland, Chief Don Dominick, Vicki Burke, Bruce Ranis, Dr. Eric Voter, Sheriff Steve Helgeson, Steve O’Malley
MEMBERS EXCUSED:
MEMBERS ABSENT: Interim Chief Tim Hauser, Chief Scott Alo
OTHERS PRESENT: Jay Loeffler, Patti McDonah, Assistant Chief Randy Loken, Ann
Willford, Assistant Chief Tom Jacobs, Jim Klock, Keith Butler,
Al Blencoe, Matt Zavadsky, Lt. Pat Hogen, David Montealegre
CALL TO ORDER:
Committee Chair Chief Kondracki called the meeting to order at 10:02 a.m.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES:
MOTION by Burk/Ranis to approve meeting minutes of September 24, 2007. Motion carried unanimously.
ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT – JAY LOEFFER – Hand outs
Jay included a hand out of Public-Safety Communications Month Statistics Report and noted 911 calls are up 13 % compared to the first 10 months of 2006. He attributes this to the February snow and the August flooding. Jay continued to review and explain the statistics.
Radio System Update - One of the last portions of the radio system upgrade was to get the alarm system working. The system notifies temperatures, lights, generators, smoke detectors and if the UPS system if failing. There are issues with the Sheriff 2 channel which Communications Services is continuing to work on.
E-911 Grant – Have received $74,028.22 in reimbursement and will continue to receive payments through the end of 2008. Payments are submitted and received quarterly.
Staffing – There has been an acceptance of employment and as soon as the physical has been passed the new dispatcher will be announced. This will put Public Safety Communications at full staff. There will be advertising in December for Telecommunicator testing to be done in January. There are two Telecommunicators who will be retiring in 2008 whose positions will need to be filled.
Staff Recognition – Karen Hoel was presented the Community Recognition Award by the La Crosse County Domestic Abuse Task Force and Patti McDonah was presented the 2007 Volunteer of the Year award by La Crosse Area Special Olympics.
INTEROPERABILITY REPORT– Jay Loeffler – Power Point Presentation.
Current Status – La Crosse County Public Safety Communications is divided into two systems.
· City of La Crosse uses 800 MHz Band – Trunked System.
Advantages – Best in-building coverage and frequencies in their band are more available.
Disadvantages – Need transmission sites to be closer together – More towers needed
to cover an area.
· All other agencies us VHF Band
Advantages – Has better range – Needs fewer transmission sites.
Disadvantages – Not as good for in-building use. Susceptible to skip.
Jay explained the Radio Spectrum and where each level falls. The two are apart in their systems and not compatible to communicate to each other. The majority of the state is VHF Conventional.
Interoperability challenges are – No direct radio contact between responders on the different systems. For examples: UW La Crosse is VHF and La Crosse Police is 800 MHz. The same applies with Tri-State Ambulance, VHF and La Crosse Fire Department, 800 MHz. Information must be relayed through communications centers and often then relayed between dispatchers within the center. One solution is Radio Swapping which is basically handing someone else a radio from your system. Patches have been tried for special events but ties up both (2) channels/talk groups and ties up one of five channels used by city system.
Recent upgrades - Keith Butler
There were grant opportunities received a few years ago to study the state of interoperability in the west central part of Wisconsin with La Crosse being the southern most county of a group of 13 to 14 counties. Of the 22 dispatch centers in this area, 10 of the communities have a new repeater system to add which can be connected to each other. There is also an intercom system using BadgerNet which allows all the dispatch centers to be linked. There are challenges involving the digitizing of voice with the Badger-net system. Being the lowest priority on the system, voices sometimes drop out or do not connect fully and there has been a meeting set up with BadgerNet to resolve some of the issues.
Upgrade of Radios through state grants - OJA (Office of Justice Assistance) has been funding the upgrading of radios at a 75% / 25% match. Most of the old radios have been upgraded to new radios or the radios less compatible have had all the state mutual aid channels inserted which adds 10 to 15 more channels (VHF).
Jay Loeffler continues – In August, Wisconsin received $15.3 million of a $1 Billion of a nationwide Public Safety Interoperable Communications Grant.
Office of Justice Assistance’s State Interoperability Executive Council (SIEC) is creating a plan for a statewide trunking backbone to achieve interoperability.
APCO 25 Narrowband – By 2013, FCC requires frequencies to become narrowband compliant. APCO project 25 will move to make Radios work in both analog and digital as well as narrowband compliant. Equipment purchased with Homeland Security Grants is required to be APCO 25 compliant. Communication Center’s equipment would not need to be replaced, but upgraded.
Being noticed by the Chair, Matt Zavadsky said operationally, La Crosse County does not have the mechanism to allow responding agencies to talk to each other and there are no policies or procedure. It is very difficult for responding ambulance and rescue to talk to each other. Counties surrounding us have the capability which is a standard protocol to switch to a common channel. Matt hoped there could be a proposal to make that interoperability available on a regular basis.
Chief Kondracki asked Jay’s thoughts on what can be done. Jay responded that the technological challenged are continually be worked around with the radio swapping etc. and that he will contact some of the agencies and find out what they are doing. He also said we are limited on what channels we have available. Keith said there is an EMS ground channel rarely used but is available. The plan has been that the responders work amongst themselves as to what channel they want to switch to. Chief Cleveland said they have an entire VHF system available and is being used on a regular basis and they currently have the capability of 48 VHF channels. Operating in both the 800 MHZ and VHF environment they have to have the capability of flipping back and forth. Chief Cleveland said unified command, which was used during the floods between Shelby, Stoddard and La Crosse, helped overcome their interoperability issues.
Chief Dominick said he would like to find a way that the responding agencies would also include Law Enforcements perspective on the situation. Chief Loken said the problem is, there would have to be a separate radio to talk to EDC and Tri-State. Sheriff Helgeson said, if there is an incident which there has to be given a “clear” that everyone can come in, it is done through the dispatch center.
Chief Kondracki asked that Jay find out the costs involved and what protocol can be established and report back at the next meeting. Steve O’Malley also asked for a recommendation from the Public Safety Communications Board for the consideration of changing from 800 MHz. Steve also wanted to compliment Jay on the agenda and the substance of it. Chief Kondracki advised Jay’s presentations are excellent in stimulating positive discussions.
VISIONAIR UPDATE – Al Blencoe – Hand out.
Al gave an overview of VisionAir and how it began. The decision to look for different software was driven by P2K. A committee was developed, lead by IT, LCSO, LCPD, and OPD. There was a two year process with 2 RFP’s and site visits before VisionAir was chosen. The company was not as experienced as they should have been and also oversold their ability and RMS was their largest challenge. The City and County invested more time and effort and issues were resolved with the company and within the user group. Al’s position of Technology coordinator was created and all agencies invested in solutions. Mobil data was a product brought on later and every law enforcement agency in the county is using it. Al highlighted Evidence, Jail and Mapping also being used.
Other projects
· West Salem Police Dept. are coming on to RMS
· MOSO exploring possibility of participating in WIJIS through La Crosse
· LCFD – Implementing MOBILE Mapping.
· Jail Interface to North Point classification software expected soon.
· Learning to use new mapping tools.
Chief Kondracki said it is very encouraging that we are the leaders in the state and have received funding to back up our efforts as well. Pat Hogen interjected that there may have been problems initially but working with County RMS and other agencies around the state and county we have been able to work though those problems.
EMD ADVISORY COMMITTEE UPDATE – Jay Loeffer – Hand out.
Chief Loken indicated his approval that Jay gives the update. Jay advised the board that Donn Martin gave a presentation of the Quality Assurance System at the November 1st meeting. Prior to that meeting the EMD Agreement was reviewed by the City Attorney, Gundersen Lutheran’s Attorney and La Crosse County’s Corporate Council for feedback. The committee has discussed the revisions and sent the agreement back to the legal aspects which is where it is currently.
There was a meeting scheduled November 13th but cancelled because the committee is waiting to get the information back. Another meeting will be set up from there but there is not a lot to advise at this point. At our next meeting the agenda will be to discuss the reviews and revisions by legal council and eventually our goal is to get it back to La Crosse County Corporate Council and to go through the contract approval process and anything else that needs to be discussed more on the standards. Chief Kondracki asked if the Agreement for Pre-Arrival instructions is actually before the legal staff. Jay acknowledged it was. Chief Kondracki asked if the committee has had the opportunity to review this and Jay said not the second revision but the first one came back at the last meeting. Chief Kondracki said if the committee has ideas of modifications or changes for the agreement will it have to go back to legal council again. He said he didn’t want to see the suffering of paralyses by analyses and how can that be avoided. Chief Kondracki said he has items highlighted he would like to go over. Jay said he welcomes the input and it can be brought up at the next meeting before the agreement goes to legal council. Chief Cleveland said he thinks one of the issues is that we are trying to get the agreement to a form that 80% of the people agree on so we can define some of those things and have the answers for you when you ask those questions. Then the committee can answer those questions without having to send it back to legal council. We want to get a product that is 90% as is and then bring it to the committee and also field questions. Chief Cleveland advised, as Jay has said, we have to get the standards down for quality control and what the standards are for bench-marking for quality for both receiving of calls and handling of calls. The agreement is not solidified enough at this point to be brought to the committee. Asst. Chief Loken said this is something different than legal normally looks at. It is subject matter that you have to bring them up to speed to and it takes quite some time to understand what this whole thing is all about. They don’t have the background on what we are trying to achieve. He said we have continued to use the six points handed down by this board as our guiding principals and we want to come back with something just about there. Chief Kondracki asked if this is something that will happen at the next meeting. He said he actually hoped it would be further along by now but understands the needs for legal review and will have questions when this comes forward. Steve O’Malley said he would like to echo with the Chair and would like to see more progress on this. Steve said he didn’t think the role, as board members, needs to be involved with the details. The details are between the main agencies involved and he trusts this will be worked out. He said he would like to again echo the sense of urgency and would like to see this moved along. Vicki Burke said that was her opinion also and it obviously has to be done before the end of this year. Jay said it is currently with the City Attorney and Gundersen Lutheran and Corporate Council has not approved it but has given advice on it. Chief Kondracki said he wasn’t aware it was at City level and would make every effort to move it along. Jim Klock said the agreement is ready for review from Gundersen Lutheran.
Chief Kondracki asked when the next scheduled meeting would be and asked that they have the agreement before them so they can move on. The meeting was scheduled for Monday, December 17, 2007 at 11:00 a.m. The meeting time was agreed upon.
Chief Kondracki asked that for future agenda items this be put as a priority item for review and approval at the December 17th meeting.
LAW ENFORCEMENT CENTER UPDATE – Steve O’Malley
Steve gave an overview of the Law Enforcement Center addition. Steve said it is a phases plan which has unanimous support of the County Board which indicates the level of compromise and agreement and working together that has happened between the Sheriff, the elected officials on the County Board and Administration to come up with a plan that solves today’s problem into the long term future and allows to provide for the communities needs. Phase 1 ends up expanding the ground floor, first floor Probation and Parole. There is discussion with the State to bring them in house which would add a lot of collaboration between Law Enforcement, Justice Sanctions and Jail. Phase 2 actually provides for a way of expanding receiving at a much lower cost. Phase 3 would actually expand up and Phase 4 would expand on top of that area. While it was anticipated you could go up with cells no one anticipated that everything else needed to grow. After a lot of hard work a completed re-design of one controlled entry point so court house screening will actually screen everyone entering the building. The part still being examined is how existing dispatch can expand. The Public Safety Communications Governing Board will be involved in making some of those decisions. Chief Cleveland asked what the time table was for dispatch. Steve said the groundbreaking itself will be next summer. Occupying for the whole system won’t be until the Fall of 2010. The earliest of any significant expansion would be in that time frame. Chief Cleveland asked if the dispatch center was associated with a particular phase. Steve said not at this time because they don’t know yet what the changes are going to be.
ITEMS FOR FUTURE AGENDAS -
EMD Agreement for review and approval.
NEXT MEETING DATE
The next meeting of the Public Safety Communications Governing Board is scheduled for Monday, December 17, 2007 at 11:00 a.m.. Meeting location to be verified.
ADJOURNMENT MOTION by Cleveland/Dominick to adjourn at 11:35 a.m. Motion carried unanimously.
Disclaimer: The above minutes may be approved, amended or corrected at the next board meeting. Patti McDonah, Recorder