After an election campaign in which little or nothing was said by either party ticket about whether and how to revamp the antiquated countywide emergency dispatch system, likely to represent the single largest capital budget item in the history of Montgomery County, the new board took its first step on the matter yesterday by appointing a broad-based committee of emergency personnel to advise it on how best to move forward.
The Ad Hoc Committee on Public Safety Communications, to be chaired by Commissioner Bruce Castor, will consist of 24 members in executive positions in emergency services across Montgomery County, and more may be added, said Castor. Their charge is to study the current system from every angle to determine the best way to proceed on an upgrade and work with a consultant analyzing technical issues.
Last September the county formally declared the situation to be “an actual emergency” after a breakdown in which the 15 year-old terminal for the paging system for fire fighters and emergency medical personnel did not respond after being taken offline for routine maintenance. With a functioning back-up system in place, there was no effect on residents seeking help, said Tom Sullivan, Director of Montgomery County Public Safety, at the time. A replacement part was flown in by a second-hand supplier by the next day.
The resolution to override normal contracting procedures because “the infrastructure of that system has begun to fail,” based on the failure of the paging terminal and the possibility of other components suddenly wearing out was approved unanimously. Castor, the only current board member on the panel at the time, gave his unqualified support.
The current emergency telecommunications system was bought from Motorola in 1996 with a predicted useful life of 10 years.
Cheltenham Police Chief John Norris told Citizens’ Call once again today that a major upgrade of the system is absolutely necessary. “Sooner or later they’re going to have to replace the system – there really is no choice.”
Norris expressed confidence in the approach of the new administration at the county and supports the advisory committee function and its composition, which includes police chiefs from Abington, Whitemarsh, Lower Salford, Plymouth and Lower Gwynedd. On the question of balancing the urgency of the situation with the required fiscal responsibility of analyzing comprehensively a huge potential capital excpenditure, the chief said, “You need to look into all possibilities – when you’re spending this kind money, you’d better do it right.”
As of last September, the upgrade option was to have included the construction of additional communications towers to eliminate “dead spots” across the county and the replacement of outdated hardware and technology. The upgrade also was to involve replacement of some 7,000 portable police radios, 2,445 of which were part of the original purchase in 1996 and are now obsolete to the point that replacement parts are no longer available.
In a survey taken by the Montco Department of Public Safety last summer, most municipalities, including Cheltenham, supported the need for an upgrade and agreed to bear the costs of the radios required for their own municipalities, together amounting to about $17 million.
However, Commissioner Leslie Richards, who was at the time a supervisor in Whitemarsh Township, said in a Q&A with the press after the meeting that she and other local officials at the time felt pressured and didn’t have enough information to make solid decisions on a complex question back then. Castor suggested that the motive for moving ahead quickly was the desire to place him in an awkward political position. He was being pressed, he said, to make a decision on a large expenditure of debt (about $50 million) on a critical county function, with the county facing a major deficit for the next fiscal year just as the fall campaign was getting underway.
But the board majority of Commissioners Jim Matthews and Joe Hoeffel eventually backed off the issue as the level of complexity of the project grew and decided to let the new administration make the call on a new emergency system.
With no time frame even established for Castor’s committee to report back to the board on a security issue officially under an “emergency” status, Shapiro was asked if the deliberate pace being set now for studying the problem indicated a reduced level of urgency involved from the standpoint of the new administration. His response was a firm “no,” saying that “the evaluation process going on by the prior board was based on a faulty construct. . . You’ve got to base your decision on good information with a sound process that is inclusive of everyone. That’s what Commissioner Castor’s task is. The answer is not that it’s being pushed down a notch, the answer is that it’s being ratcheted up by virtue of the board action today.”
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