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New radio setup in works - 08/11/02

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Copyright 2002
The Detroit News.

Use of this site indicates your agreement to the
Terms of Service
(updated 08/09/2001).

Image
Charles V. Tines / The Detroit News

Donna Ling of the Oakland County Sheriff's Department handles emergency
calls at Pontiac center. Oakland County signed a $32-million contract with
M/A-Com
to built a system to modernize emergency and everyday radio traffic.

New radio setup in works
Farmington Hills OKs first tower in project

By Mike Martindale / The Detroit News

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   FARMINGTON HILLS -- Twelve years ago, Oakland County designed a
state-of-the-art radio system envisioned as an aid to its deputies and
emergency workers
and radio-equipped employees in public works, parks and recreation and
other county divisions.
   But the November 1996 shoot-out at the Ford Wixom plant, in which a
worker killed a plant manager and wounded three others, dramatically
showed the shortcomings
of such a system, according to Patricia Coates, one of several people
coordinating a new radio setup.
   Coates is an administrator for the Courts and Law Enforcement
Management Information System (CLEMIS), a consortium of 80 police agencies
in and outside
Oakland County that are supervising the project.
   "The system was all right in communicating with county workers,
provided they were in light building cover and weren't inside anything
stronger than
a first-floor wood building," she said.
   "But portable radios, which most officers and even firefighters rely
on, were worthless. At the Wixom plant incident, police found they
couldn't communicate
with other departments just a few hundred feet away."
   Five years later, poor radio communications have been partly blamed for
causing thousands of deaths in the World Trade Center tragedy last Sept.
11.
   Firefighters, police and others rushed to the scene to help people
trapped inside the buildings but were plagued with portable radios that
didn't work
properly inside the buildings.

   Because of these and other concerns, Oakland County has signed a $32
million contract with M/A-Com to build a true county-wide system that will
modernize
emergency and everyday radio traffic.
   But first they have to put the towers up that will transmit and relay
the potentially life-saving radio signals.
   Last month, Farmington Hills became the first community to approve
construction of a 200- to 250-foot tower behind fire station No. 5 next to
the City
Hall. Other townships, villages and cities are expected to follow suit.
   "We're still meeting with communities," Coates said. "But we really
don't anticipate any problems in putting up towers.
   "This is a grass-roots system that had input from police from all over
the county on how it should be designed," she said.
   "It was developed by their criteria on what they needed to do their
jobs and protect the public."
   Coates said the county now operates eight towers, one of them leased,
which were built in the late 1980s.
   Six of the old towers could be modified for the new system, she said.
Eleven privately owned cell towers or buildings could be used as well.
   Fourteen new towers may be built in locations that have never had
towers and five new towers may replace existing ones.
   The new system will connect all municipal and public safety personnel
throughout the county's 900 square miles.
   "One of the main complaints in some communities in the past has been
lighting on a tower," she said. "But if it is under 250 feet high it
doesn't have
to be lit and most of the new construction will be around 200 feet high."
   The system is funded through a 57-cent monthly surcharge placed on all
telephone bills in Oakland County in 2000. The surcharge, to expire in
2006, will
generate $36 million.
   The system has taken six years to get to this point, largely through
the efforts of people like Farmington Hills Police Chief William Dwyer,
who in his
role as chairman of CLEMIS has followed the project through a seeming
endless number of meetings, reports and studies.
   "This has been a very long, long project and getting the funding was a
major concern and issue," Dwyer said. "Especially on the heels of 9-11, it
is
important we have a system in place in event of emergency."
   Dwyer said the real winners will be the county's 1.2 million residents,
who will receive better public safety protection.
   Other officials in and outside law enforcement can't praise the project
enough.
   Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said "it is especially
important in the post 9-11 world, that public safety works together on
these type of projects."
   Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson cited it as "just another
example of how Oakland County is a leader among local government in the
nation
in cutting edge technology."
   Construction on some towers is expected to begin in the fall and be
completed next year.
   Costs of individual towers, depending on hardware, range from $115,000
to $170,000. It is expected that the entire system will not be up and
operating
until October 2004.

You can reach Mike Martindale at (248) 647-7226 or
mmartindale@detnews.com.
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