Minutes 11-17-2011 - Laserfiche WebLink

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The financial impact will be substantial over a period of time and the County would need a technical consultant. Updating the VIPER system completely would cost about $3.5-5 million. The staff is asking the Board to allow the Manager to move forward with hiring a technical consultant— perhaps the same one that did the study in 2004- that could determine how to improve the system, how many towers are needed, where they need to be located, how many additional channels are needed, and how many local computers are needed. This should be accomplished in abouf 2-3 months. The cost of the consultant should not exceed $50,000. There is money currently available in the E911 Telephone Fund that could be used for this. Commissioner Jacobs asked if Orange County officials met with state officials about the VIPER system recently. Frank Montes de Oca said not that he is aware of. He knows that there was a conversation with the surrounding county micro-managers. There was a state representative there. Commissioner Jacobs said that after the last meeting regarding this, he called Congressman Price's office because he has always been good about getting the County grant money. Congressman Price's office got back to him today and a meeting was been set up with Deputy Secretary of Crime Control and Public Safety, the head of the VIPER system for the state, a representative of the Governor's Office, and a representative of the Highway PatroL The State is offering to do the study for Orange County for free. Unfortunately, there is no money that Congressman Price's office can access. Frank Montes de Oca said that Mike Hodges from the state is the manager for the VIPER system. The original plan called for about 240 original towers from the coast to the mountains. The state is about 40 short. Commissioner McKee asked Dan Jones, Chief of Chapel Hill Fire Department, about the repeaters to get reception and how that works. Dan Jones said that the mobile repeaters provided no improvement in building penetration, but they did get improvements in geographic coverage. The problem is with the technology because 800 mHz digital will not penetrate buildings. This is a nationwide problem. However, 800 mHz analog will penetrate buildings. Motorola is bringing some factory engineers to recreate the test that was done with their engineers watching to see if they have any advice. Commissioner Gordon asked if it was a good idea to continue with this technology given this problem. Dan Jones said that he does not have an answer for that yet unless someone can tell him the technical differences between analog and digital. The current radios can be changed over to analog and that would be costly, but would be cheaper than purchasing more radios. Commissioner Hemminger said that she attended the last Fire Chief's meeting and the group agreed to work around the situation of communication and she asked about this. Dan Jones said that, as a temporary measure, the fire chief's talked about going to a talk around channel, which is not repeated, when firemen are in a building. The 911 telecommunicators cannot hear this channel and none of it would be recorded. It would be a temporary solution to keep from losing fire fighters or police officers. Commissioner Hemminger asked the people using the VIPER system about where the dead spots are. Frank Montes de Oca said that they do know a lot of these areas, but sometimes it is not a geographical issue and it could be affected by weather, buildings, etc. Dan Jones said that none of them have the expertise or the testing equipment to place the towers in the correct spots to solve the dead spots. Commissioner Hemminger asked about a priority list for which towers would be the most needed. Commissioner Foushee said that she also wants to know if the County should stay with the current technology. She said that the anecdotal information shou�`d be given to consultants