Minutes 10-02-2014 Fire - Laserfiche WebLink

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b) Opportunity for County Training Facility Commissioner McKee said there has been talk about Orange County building a training facility. Dan Jones said they have a small tower for training as well as a two story burn building. He said this is a small facility that is shared with mutual aid neighbors. He said there are discussions ongoing about relocation of that facility and the fire station that adjoins it, as both are in bad shape. He said what is really needed is a second small training facility with a burn facility and a rescue tower on one or two acres, somewhere north of I-85. He said a small training center would cost a half million to a million dollars, not counting the cost of land. He said there has also been discussion of a regional training center for specialized training. Commissioner porosin said the Board is considering a bond, and maybe this could fit into that. Commissioner McKee said there was discussion about property in the Schley area and the possible use of part of that parcel as a training facility. He said this might be worth a re- look. 3. Open Discussion a) VIPER Radio Svstem Jim Groves said there was a recent meeting to talk about the Voice Interoperability Plan for Emergency Responders (VIPER). He said it is the state 800 MHz system that is currently in place, and it is falling short of ineeting everyone's needs. Pete Hallenbeck said when looking at radio coverage you want to know the coverage, the capacity for communication, and the redundancy, or what happens when things fail. Jim Groves said this current system was built as a NC Highway Patrol radio system, used in the center of a roadway while sitting in a vehicle. He said the coverage is lacking in situations where you are inside a building or chasing someone. Jim Groves said years ago the system was stable, but now the state has added additional counties, and it has reduced the capacity. He said earlier this year there was an outage of VIPER that took the entire state down. He said this caused the County to scramble, and it showed that there is no redundancy built into the system. Dan Jones said the state sold them a bill of goods with this system in an effort to get the federal funds needed by creating the required interoperability. He said the state convinced the counties that this would solve their radio problems. He said it is an excellent system for the highway patrol because they do not go inside buildings or use portable radios very much. He said the system follows the interstate and highways, and it has many limitations that were not fully explained. He said it doesn't work for local agencies, fire departments and EMS. He said it leaves firefighters, police officers and emergency workers in a structure with no radio contact with the outside. Dan Jones said the County, departments and cities have spent a lot of money buying 800 MHz radios for a system that does not work very well. He said it is now time to replace the radios and this a good time to do something new. He said there are a lot of other options, including 700 MHz systems, or going back to UHF or VHF. He said a lot of money could be spent to build more towers on the 800 MHz system, but he has come to the conclusion that pouring additional money into supporting the statewide