Communications problems
Strong feelings are mixed into the discussion involving the dispatch center and overall communications issues in Marion County.
This isn't surprising. Dispatchers have saved property and lives by quickly and coolly sending out emergency responders. When there are real or perceived problems, people should respond strongly.
The most important problem is that some hand-held radios don't transmit to the dispatch center. While the person making the complaint focused on the northern part of the county, it's not unique. Nor, unfortunately, is it new.
I've covered county commission meetings for almost 15 years. Trouble with radios has been a topic since the start.
So what's the hold up? Money. Updating frequencies and replacing radios is expensive — thousands and thousands of dollars.
Commissioners have learned to be mistrustful of radio vendors, whose equipment always seems to fall just a bit short of their promises.
For example, Michele Abbott-Becker, communications director, said one vendor told her some portable radios won't work well depending on how they are held. For goodness sakes, let's budget $10,000 for a series of radio-holding classes for our volunteers. If they have to take them off their belts (or leave them on) when they talk, let's make sure everybody knows that. A better option, of course, would be to never buy that vendor's radios; emergency responders have other things on their minds, and need radios that don't have to be coddled.
An excellent proposal commissioners are considering is to have a communications expert (not a vendor) draw up specifications for what the county needs. Then bids are sought for that equipment. But it still comes back to whether all cities, districts, and county departments will have the money to make a major equipment switch. It definitely takes more cooperation and talking for this to happen.
As for the other issues brought up, some deserve investigation, even if it's just to state formally that nothing has been done wrong.
The issue of a communications oversight board is troubling. Abbott-Becker emphasizes that it is an advisory board. If it is strictly advisory, the makeup of the board shouldn't matter. If it is a governing board (requiring a majority of members to be in law enforcement), then it needs to govern. Otherwise, we've produced a committee to fulfill a paperwork requirement, not to accomplish productive results.
And the issue of not providing copies of communications reports to members is just silly. If this committee is needed for the communications department to function, it comes out of that budget. This issue smacks of turf war and personality conflict, not good government.
But those are minor issues compared to having good, clear, consistent radio communication countywide. All sides agree that is a worthy goal.
So the commission needs to take action to move toward that goal, and we need to accept that it will cost money.
— MATT NEWHOUSE
