HomeMy WebLinkAbout20121581.tiff THE WELD COUNTY REGIONAL COMMUNICATIONS ADVISORY BOARD
TUESDAY, May 22nd, 2012, 10:30 AM
Pawnee Conference Room 1 150 O Street
The Weld County Regional Communications Advisory Board met in session in on Tuesday, May
22°d 2012 at 10:30 a.m. in the Pawnee Room of the commissioner's building.
ROLL CALL:
The meeting was called to order by Chairman Sean Conway. Present were board members Sean
Conway, David Montgomery, Dave Bressler, Rich Strang, Carl Harvey, Roger Ainsworth, Mark
Lawley, Hugh Kane, Jack Statler, Rob Standen, Duane McDonald and Phil Tiffany. Jay McDonald
and Rick Brandt were excused absent. A quorum existed. Staff members present were Mike Savage,
Anita Scrams, Dave Mathis, Robert Olsen and Susan Johnson. Other present included Mitch Wagy,
Barry Schaefer, Dan Huerter. Roy Rudisill, Tom Beach, Gary Sandau, Ron Bateman, Ted
Poszywak, Bear Hulsey and Scott Wagner.
MINUTES:
Dave Montgomery moved Phil Tiffany seconded a motion to approve the minutes of the April
24`h, 2012 Communications Advisory Board meeting, motion carried unanimously.
Chairman Sean Conway announced that he needed to leave early — Vice Chairman Mark Lawley
would lead the meeting after Chairman Conway's exit. The agenda was rearranged to move
replacement of Tim Zimmerman first and Ground Channel requests second.
NEW BUSINESS
1. Zone B Fire Representative: Mark Lawley reported that the Weld County Fire Chief's
Association nominated Ted Poszywak to represent Zone B fire on the Communications
Advisory Board. Mark Lawley moved, Jack Statler seconded a motion to appoint Chief
Poszywak as the Zone B Fire representative on the Communications Advisory Board.
Motion carried unanimously.
2. Fire Ground Channels: Barry Schaefer addressed the Board representing the Weld County
Fire Chiefs who are concerned about firefighter safety. At issue is the limited number of
ground channels available for units to use on calls. Sometimes no ground channel is
available to assign. The Fire Chiefs would like 7 additional ground channels so that fire
agencies would have one apiece (except Briggsdale, Pawnee and New Raymer would share
one), and 2 overflow.
■ Sergeant Mathis has identified a few underutilized talk groups (See handouts)
which could be converted into ground channels.
o Five of the underutilized talk groups are owned by different entities (E.g.
RE3J owns 2, Fort St. Vrain owns 1, Ft Lupton owns 1, and Med Evac
owns 1). Sgt Mathis will contact CCNC and find out who these channels
are licensed to—the Fire Community will approach the owners about
obtaining the licenses from them.
o The others are distributed and managed by the Communications Advisory
Board. Roger Ainsworth will talk to WCSO about the channels they have
but don't use and Rich Strang will bring the issue up to the Police Chiefs.
o WLD WCFDADM3 is an Admin channel which Barry has been using as
a training and admin channel —it could be re-labeled as his Ground
'.aern Channel.
/o/a%g 2012-1581
o Wintag channels are available to anyone and could be used as the
overflow ground channels
• The Mayday button will continue to be on the Fire Primary for now
• When all channels are re-arranged then all radios will need to be reprogrammed
by Motorola
OLD BUSINESS
1. Staff Report: Dave Mathis presented the April, 2012 staff report [refer to Sgt. Mathis'
April 2012 WCRCC Monthly Report]. Roger Ainsworth asked if there are any standards for
law dispatching, as the Fire and Ambulance systems have benchmarks for dispatching calls.
No published standards that Dave is aware of It is still a goal to reduce call processing on
Priority One and Two law calls, but that has been on hold since the Spillman project began.
2. Spillman Update: Anita reported that in response to the problems we experienced in April,
Spillman sent 4 people to meet and plan solutions. They met with dispatch, crime analysts,
IBM, and did fine tuning on the Geo side of the system. The next patch is planned for June
6th
• St Mathis requested that the patch be applied either the day before or after the
6` , because of GPD's heavy platoon schedule on the 6". Anita advised that
Spillman would change their schedule around ours.
3. Long Range Planning: Mike Savage advised that the RFP is prepared; the first information
meeting for vendors is May 30" (next week). Other Long Range discussion centered around
having an interim plan for continuity of operations, in case dispatch is evacuated before the
35" Avenue site is finished.
4. Back up Center: Per Mike Savage the footers are poured and construction continues.
Recently he and Dave met with individuals concerning the phone switch. For the back up
center to be completely functional, either as a stand-alone or in conjunction with the regular
communications center, all phones have to function at both places. The investment to make
this work will be somewhere between $1.2M and $1.8M. Four options have been presented.
Once they have been evaluated, the Oversight Board, E-911 Board and Communications
Advisory Board will be apprised and consulted.
NEW BUSINESS
1. Google calendar for on-call: Dave Mathis explained that our center is the point of contact
for dozens of on-calls (E.g. coroner, road and bridge, social services etc.) Information as to
who is on call comes to dispatch in many formats, and is placed in a single large book which
gets passed around the Center. Dave proposed that dispatch use a standardized electronic
calendar for on-call agencies to post their own information on. Dispatch would no longer be
responsible for keeping the on-call up to date,just for accessing it electronically. It would be
secure, so it can not be accessed by outsiders, and on call agencies would only be able to
view their own information. Duane McDonald moved, Carl Harvey seconded a motion
that dispatch move the on call schedule to an electronic format and that individual on
call agencies would be responsible to maintain and manage their own information
within the electronic format. . Motion carried unanimously.
2. Fire Radio Protocol change: At last month's meeting Dave Mathis circulated a proposed
fire radio protocol change from dispatchers to address the fire channel when traffic is
overwhelming on busy days.
• The proposal: when the call load on the fire channel becomes too busy for one
person to handle, dispatch would split fire business into two parts: one - a
dispatcher paging new calls on Fire primary and two a second dispatcher
managing the units calling dispatch to go enroute, on scene, or to request gas
company,power company,helicopter,etc.on ground channel three.
• During normal activity periods the two channels (paging channel and unit
management channel)would be patched together and fire radio activity would be
just as it is now. If the fire load became unmanageable, the patched channels
would be separated and fire units would be notified that they need to check in on
Fire Ground Channel 3, the unit management channel, so new calls could be
paged in a timely manner.
• Tom Beach,speaking for the Weld County Fire Chiefs Association,advised that
the fire community is not in favor of this plan. They feel that it takes away a
ground channel,and if they are on GC3 responding to calls they might not hear
Primary Fire paging out new calls.They also expressed concern that a debriefing
has not taken place between dispatchers and firefighters where the two could
come up with solutions together.
• Sgt Mathis and Captain Savage stated this would be an interim plan,until radio
channel realignment would be accomplished, but the fire community did not
want to implement the plan. One of the concerns expressed with this as an
interim plan was that volunteer firefighters could be trained one way one week
and after the meeting between dispatch and the fire community,protocol might
change again.Because there are so many firefighters to train,they did not want
to risk conflicting policies between departments or firefighters.
• After further discussion, clear direction was set, Jack Statler moved, Carl
Harvey seconded a motion for the communications center to continue
business as usual on the fire channel during high activity. Motion carried
unanimously.
• The fire community will get together with fire dispatchers to work on a solution
for high activity days.
Carl Harvey moved, Dave Montgomery seconded a motion to adjourn. Motion carried
unanimously,meeting adjourned at 11:40.
Minutes recorded and submitted by Susan Johnson
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