Public Safety committee
Regular meeting minutes
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
CALL TO ORDER AND ATTENDANCE
The meeting was called to order at 7:00p.m. by Jim Barton, Chief of the Warehouse Point Fire Department. The following members were in attendance, Gil Hayes, Ed Endee, Jay Madigan, Andy Ouellette and Jonathan Towle.
ADDED AGENDA ITEMS
A motion was made by Jay Madigan, seconded by Gil Hayes to add the following items under New Business:
a) November meeting - change of date
b) Chairman
Madigan/Hayes Unanimous
PREVIOUS MEETING MINUTES
The minutes of the previous meeting of September 13, 2006 were reviewed by all present. A motion was made by Jay Madigan, seconded by Ed Endee to accept the minutes as presented.
Madigan/Endee Unanimous
NEW BUSINESS
a) November meeting
Due to the Thanksgiving Holiday, a motion was made by Jay Madigan, seconded by Ed Endee to change the November meeting to Wednesday, November 29th at 7:00 p.m. at the Park Hill Community Hall.
Madigan/Endee Unanimous
b) Chairman
Due to work schedules, the co-chairman have been unable to attend many of the Public Safety meetings. It was a consensus of the members present that there should be a discussion at the November meeting between the members and the co-chairman regarding their availability to attend the meetings.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
A) Radio Project Update
The following is the update on the radio project as presented by Ed Endee at the meeting:
1) We have received the results of the coverage study (drive test) from Marcus Communications. The test was conducted on May 17, 2006. Test equipment consisted of a Telecommunications Drive Test Box, a mobile radio programmed to 5 watts transmitter output (to simulate a portable radio), two GPS receivers, and two laptop computers. 1,069 samples were taken on a predetermined route that covered most of the town. The goal of the test was to achieve 95% acceptable overage. The test revealed 97% coverage. User feedback indicates that coverage may be better, since no “dead spots” have been reported.
2) The FCC licensing situation continues to be worked on by Marcus Communications. The town has received a second STA (Special Temporary Authorization) to operate on all of our channels from the FCC. Permanent licensing will occur after a period of operation where there are no interference complaints. Marcus is continuing to work on documentation for the FCC and APCO to resolve the situation.
Marcus has turned this problem over to their Attorneys as there has been a complaint filed from Durham that the Town of East Windsor has taken over one of their frequencies. This should not have occurred as the application had been filed electronically with APCO but was misplaced by them. The application was refilled (via fax this time) but by the time the application was filed Durham was already using one of the frequencies that we had a temporary license for; thus the need for Marcus’ attorneys to become involved. When any additional information is forthcoming, it will be brought to the attention of the committee.
3) The majority of the items on the punch list have been corrected by Marcus Communications. The licensing issues and the receipt of the complete system documentation and a few pieces of equipment remain. The speaker/mike moisture problem is still being investigated by the manufacturer. All electrical problems encountered at the site have been taken care of.
4) There are now four spare portable radios kept at the EWPD for temporary replacement of portable radios that need service. Sgt. Kenneth Smith has custody of the radios and can program them to a specific profile. Users can exchange a radio needing service at the EWPD and then receive their original radio back after it is repaired. There will also be spare speaker/microphones available.
5) I am still working on the operations manual for the radio system.
There were two additional issues brought up for discussion which are as follows:
Pagers - the members present from the Warehouse Point Fire Department were complaining that they were not receiving a clear page. The reason for this problem is because the dispatch on the page is being routed from Coventry through Soapstone Mountain in Somers - down to the valley in Warehouse Point where the receipt is garbled. The trouble is not with out repeaters (transmitters) at the Town Hall but rather with the way the calls are being paged out through Coventry. Ed Endee had a couple of suggestions to help with this problem and they were:
a) to do away with the current paging system and go with totally digital pagers
b) figure out what is wrong with the voice transmission and what could be done so that the page would work better with the transmitter.
c) put additional money into the system to get new frequencies and new pagers.
There was one additional suggestion and that was to look into the possibility of getting the 33.80 MHz transmitter to help with the paging problems with both the Warehouse Point and Broad Brook Fire Departments.
Ed Endee volunteered to look into the problem and report back at the next meeting.
The final items brought up for discussion was the CIP Request. It was a consensus of the members present for Ed Endee to work up the CIP request to include the paging system and to forward same to the First Selectman.
ADJOURNMENT
A motion was made by Gil Hayes, seconded by Jay Madigan to adjourn the regular meeting of the Public Safety Committee at 8:00 p.m.
Hayes/Madigan Unanimous
The next meeting will be on Wednesday. November 29, 2006 at 7:00 p.m. at the Park Hill Community Hall.
Respectfully submitted,
Darlene H. Kelly
Recording Secretary
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