Agenda - 04-17-2012-13 (2) - Laserfiche WebLink

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DRAFT Chief McCracken and George Hare are working with VIPER to solve the technological problems with Motorola regarding penetration in some buildings on UNC campus. Chief Montes de Oca spoke of the need for Orange County to have in place an ordinance dealing with radio penetration in new buildings. Mike Hodgson advised that every radio in the system will physically have to be touched to be re- programmed to bring the radios into current technology. He advised Chief Mauzy to let VIPER know of any changes made to SORS radios before the reprogramming takes place. Hodgson spoke of ways to obtain optimum performance by controlling the number of radios and the number of talk groups, talk groups being the most important to control. • Commissioner McKee thanked Mike Hodgson for his presentation of information regarding VIPER. • Moving to the topic of the status report to the BOCC meeting on April 17t'', Michael Talbert listed the four options dealing with the 112 properties outside the six mite radius in the Southern district of Orange County. 1. Annexation by the town of Chapel Hill of the 112 properties 2. Doing nothing immediately except notifying and 112 homeowners of a plan to have the fire departments operate under their current contracts until new contracts could be finalized to start one year from now 3. Keeping the fire protection districts as they are and raising the tax rate to 7.5 cents to satisfy the financial needs of Chapel Hill 4. Splitting the Southern district into two different service areas and tax districts. • Commissioner McKee stated that we have reached the point of no return because the completion of the next budget year is close at hand. It was McKee's suggestion to go with option two and notify Carrboro, Chapel Hill and North Chatham Fire Departments that contracts will change in one year. This will allow enough time to make a more informed decision as to exactly how to handle the dilemma of huge insurance bills for the 112 property owners. Any other decision would require public hearings, Chapel Hill Town Council meetings and home owner meetings. He was not in favor of making a hasty decision. Chief Jones pointed out that the home owners' association could at any time volunteer to request annexation by the Town of Chapel Hill. • In response to a question from Chief Tapp, County Attorney John Roberts stated that new contracts with the Fire Departments will supersede any current contracts that exist.