July 6, 2005 Minutes
- Kelly Wolf, Solid Waste Management
- Status of Recycling Facility and Change Order-WR #199575 in the amt. of $4,100.00
- Bill Welch, Benchmark Solutions, Inc.; and Lou Colon
- Summary of the energy program.
- Coyle Schwab, Frank Smith, Kevin McGeary, Dan Raup, Larry Leaver, Donna Collins, Selina Lam from Motorola; and Ray Fuller, Roger Kohr, Jim Caldwell and Mary Doherty from M/A-Com.
- Wireless Communication Presentation
DAUPHIN COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
WORKSHOP MEETING
WEDNESDAY, JULY 6, 2005 10:00 A.M.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Jeff Haste, Chairman
Dominic D. DiFrancesco, II, Vice Chairman
George P. Hartwick, III, Secretary
STAFF PRESENT
Chad Saylor, Chief Clerk; Bill Tully, Esq., Solicitor; Marie Rebuck, Controller; Robert Dick, Treasurer; Carolyn Thompson, Esq., Court Administrator; Kelly Wolf, Solid Waste Management; Steve Suknaic, Director of Juvenile Probation; Jeff Patton, Juvenile Probation; Richie Martz, Commissioners' Office; Jena Wolgemuth, Commissioners' Office, Lena Martinez, Commissioners' Office; Diane McNaughton, Press Secretary; Bruce Foreman, Esq., Solicitor's Office; Dave Schreiber, Personnel; Kay Sinner, Personnel; Randy Baratucci, Purchasing Director; Edgar Cohen, Facility Maintenance Director; Tom Guenther, Information Technology Director; Garry Esworthy, Risk Manager; Melanie McCaffrey, Solicitor's Office; Greg Kline, EMA; and Julia E. Nace, Assistant Chief Clerk
GUESTS PRESENT
Steve Shaver; Kevin McGeary; Larry Leaver; Dave Murdoch; Dan Raup; John McCready; Vicky Chumel; Rick Pickles; Todd Gilcrest; Butch Potter
MINUTES
CALL TO ORDER
Mr. Haste, Chairman of the Board, called the meeting to order at 10:00 a.m.
MOMENT OF SILENCE
Everyone observed a moment of silence.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
Everyone stood for the Pledge of Allegiance.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
Mr. Haste: We have one set of meeting minutes that we will take up at next week's meeting.
PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
Mr. Haste: We are at the point in time of the Meeting for public participation. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to address the Board at this time? (There was none.)
DEPARTMENT DIRECTORS/GUESTS
Mr. Haste: We are at the time for directors. Kelly, would you like to come forward?
Ms. Wolf: Today I want to give a brief update on the recycling center. Basically, it is 99% completed. We are waiting for the equipment. We hope to have our collection employees out there within the month to begin utilizing the facility.
The change order that I have in front of you today is a guy wire that needs moved by PPL. The cost will be $4,100.
Mr. Haste: We met with Paul Navarro yesterday. What happened when they were doing the building they excavated soil away from the guy wire. When PPL came out they either wanted it relocated or they want a retaining wall built. It is actually cheaper to move it than to build the retaining wall. Is that your change order number, 199575?
Mr. Hartwick: Does that have a big affect on the overall project cost?
Ms. Wolf: No it does not. I actually have money in the budget to move to accommodate that fee.
Mr. Hartwick: And we are all set with all the internal equipment and do we have a scheduled start date?
Ms. Wolf: No, actually I meet with Dan Lispi and Andrew Giorgione today to review Paul's feasibility study of the equipment. We hope to make a recommendation to the Commissioners within a week or so based upon what type of equipment we want to put in the facility.
Mr. Hartwick: We're still in a good position with DEP with achieving the grant money necessary to equip the place?
Ms. Wolf: Yes.
Mr. Haste: Really what we are doing, is they are debating whether to go with a dual stream or single stream. Part of what we are looking at is not only what works well but also what will work well with the municipalities that collect it. We're trying to come up with a way as to what makes collection easier and what gets a better price in the end product. We're still looking at that.
Mr. Hartwick: Jeff, are we going to engage with an outside private business entity to run this facility?
Mr. Haste: That's right.
Mr. Hartwick: Do we have those?
Mr. Haste: Actually we did one RFP. We talked about what we may need and talked about going out again because enough time has lapsed and there is more information out there. I think that was part of your discussion today.
Ms. Wolf: Yes and we were able to decide whether to do another RFP based upon the equipment because you have to have that in the RFP for the operator.
Mr. Hartwick: Did we have a good response from the first RFP?
Ms. Wolf: No.
Mr. Haste: No.
Ms. Wolf: Several companies from New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania showed for the public hearing so to speak. Out of ten companies that showed, two actually submitted proposals. One did not have experience in operating this type of facility.
Mr. Hartwick: Keep us abreast.
Ms. Wolf: I will.
Mr. Haste: Is there a motion to approve the change order?
It was moved by Mr. Hartwick and seconded by Mr. DiFrancesco to approve change order/WR number 1995752 in the amount of $4,100 to move a guy wire at the Dauphin County Materials Recycling Facility; motion carried.
Mr. Haste: Mr. Welch.
Mr. Welch: I am here today with Lou Colon from the City of Harrisburg and Benchmark Solutions. Dauphin County participates in the natural gas program and what we want to do this morning is give you a brief review of what has transpired over the past three years.
I call your attention to page #1. On this page, we reviewed what happened in the natural gas market over the past year. In that time, there was a lull before the storm so to speak because in 2005 we've all seen the oil prices rocket from $40 to $60. The commodity price for natural gas has done the same. It has gone up to about $8.75 and in fact the tariff for UGI this year is anticipated to increase from $9.35 where it is today, to another 5% probably up to $9.80. That will be the highest natural gas price that UGI has had for as long as I could remember. That would be at least 20 years.
Number 2 on page #1, are the energy consumption costs in savings in the past three years that the County has participated in the program. In 2001/2002, you will see that the consumption for the County and MCF was $68,943. In 2003/2004, it did not change significantly from the base period of 2001/2002.
What is significant on this page, I would say would be the savings that we had been able to achieve for the County over the past three years. In 2001 the savings was $174,000 approximately in this program. In 2002/2003 they were down to $107,000 and that was due mainly to the sky rocketing price of natural gas in that period of time which we don't control as much as we would like to sometimes. What we try to do, as best we can, is lock in the prices- what is good for the client.
This past year the price of savings was $138,000 for the County. This coming year, we expect to see at least $138,000-$150,000 in savings from natural gas. For the most part, that is the important part of what it is that you will find in this booklet. In this booklet, there are also by facility the consumption and savings for each department and bureaus that the County has. We have one or two extra booklets for you gentlemen or for who ever wants.
If there are any questions, I would be glad to take them at this time or Lou can help to answer them about this program.
Mr. Haste: I'll take some time to look at it and I'll have our facility manager look at it. Of the facilities that we have, did any of them jump out at you going in the right direction?
Mr. Welch: I think frankly, one of the good things that has happened in the past year and half-two years, are the changes at the Manor where you use a lot of natural gas. That natural gas consumption has gone down with some of the renovations and improvements that you have done there. That jumps out at me because that is the biggest natural gas user that you have in the County.
Mr. Hartwick: I mentioned to you when we met yesterday, are there any other areas that you felt had potential possibilities to accrue additional savings and you had mentioned one specific area about the oil usage. Could you just explain that to the Board?
Mr. Welch: The Intergovernmental Cooperation Agreement that we have with the City and the other municipalities that participate in this program are able to get heating oil as well. Dauphin Manor uses heating oil when they change over from natural gas during cold periods. This past January when the meter was called to switch over from natural gas to fuel oil the County was using fuel oil under a program that they are in. We looked at the price of that after checking with the Controller at the Manor and found that our price was better. What I suggested was this, that if we are able to get a better price and what that meant for those couple days, was about $2,000 difference in price savings for the County. If our price is better, it would seem to me that the County might want to investigate using the fuel oil sources that we have instead of your fuel oil sources.
The other thing I think I mentioned to you, was trying to take a look at whether the senior citizen centers in the County could benefit from this program and the price of this program. They can always use savings. If we are able to save them money, that would be good for the County. You would be able to help the seniors and also help the budget.
Mr. Hartwick: As we discussed, I contacted Mr. Burns and you should be expecting a call sometime today from him.
Mr. Haste: Coming back to fuel oil, Mr. Colon and Mr. Baratucci, we bid that, do we not?
Mr. Colon: (Could not decipher from the tape)
Mr. Haste: When will that contract be up?
Mr. Colon: (Could not decipher from the tape)
Mr. Haste: I think what we ought to do at that point in time is make sure you submit a bid.
Mr. Welch: I'll talk to the gentlemen.
Mr. Saylor: Did you indicate to me that the Commissioners need to approve something, a contract or something that we need to consider or are you here just for the purpose of the report?
Mr. Welch: I'm here just for the purpose of the report. I think the participation is already approved in the Choice Program. I think we are okay on that.
Mr. Haste: At this point in time, I'll turn the microphone over to Commissioner DiFrancesco. He has been involved in this project.
Mr. DiFrancesco: We are at the point in the agenda where we're going to have the question and answer session with the vendors regarding radio communication project. Just to go over some ground rules, I think both organizations have been told, what we are not looking for today is a lot of history and a lot of revamping information that we already have or representing information that we already have. What we would like to do is try to hold the comments to as briefly as possible. Of course any new information that you would like to share or any last pitches, that's fine. That would be welcome but we want to allow as much time for Commissioners questions and answers as you possibly can. I'm sure all of you realize what we are dealing with here. It is very technical information and while we are all very competent up here, we're not technical experts. I'm sure each one of us will have a number of questions that we want to ask in order to get things on record and better understand exactly what it is that we have been reviewing for the past several months. At this time, I would like to invite the folks from Motorola. If you would, please state your name clearly into the microphone and as you speak, kindly remember to bring the microphone over to you.
Mr. McGeary: I'm Kevin McGeary with Motorola and responsible for our large project sales here in Pennsylvania. We have with us today, most of the members of the team that we had on the Dauphin County project for the past couple of years, as well as, our local installation and service facility representative, Mike Corkrin.
Briefly, we can summarize for you some of the reasons we think the Board should accept the recommendation of the Evaluation Committee to make the award to Motorola and take a look at what some of our other customers had to say about Motorola and some of that experience.
With us today to make our formal comments for us is Coyle Schwab. Coyle is our Vice-President of System Integration here at Motorola and has responsibility for all of the engineering, implementation, and project management. In other words all the resources from the technical side if you will that go into it from the design all the way through the completion and implementation of the system.
Mr. Schwab: First of all, I want to thank you Commissioners for letting us speak to you today. It's a delightful topic to talk about. We love the system implementation business and we're very anxious to get started.
I have a few comments and then we'll get into your questions. To recap, we feel very, very happy that twice now we have been unanimously recommended by your Technical Committee and the Evaluation Committee to proceed on this project. We're very anxious to do so.
We are proposing for Dauphin County a new current technology that is an open architecture. What that means is this Project 25 based architecture. It is a national standard. What that does for the County benefits, is that it promotes interoperability among all users inside the County as well as outside the County, the state and other agencies. Also, very important is the fact that this open architecture allows competitive procurements in the future so you're not locked into one vendor. Obviously, that causes us to keep our pencils very sharp, too, so that we can compete very well and favorably with the competition. So that reduces the ongoing cost of owning this system over its life time. Having open architecture is also looked on very favorably when it comes to funding for homeland security grants and things like that. That's generally a very positive attribute. As I say this system is very current fresh technology but it is that open architecture.
The system that we have proposed to you and we reviewed in late April in this very room, basically it is the culmination of over two years of work between Motorola and your consulting firm that has been representing you and the County groups as well. You have very specific design requirements focusing tightly on system reliability and system coverage. I'm happy to say that we are in compliance within 100% of your requirements. We guarantee the coverage that we include in our proposal. What that means is, it will do what we say it will do or we'll make it do that at our own cost, not at County cost. The tools that we use are very mature. This is the fourth generation tool that we have used literally throughout the country and the world to predict what coverage the system will yield and validate that it does do exactly what we committed it would do. If there are any issues and sometimes there are in a system of this magnitude, we act very quickly and at our own expense to resolve those problems and fulfill our requirements to the County.
Our proposal and our design represents the least risk possible to Dauphin County. What I mean by that is one of the most critical parts of any communication system is the radio frequencies, the channels, necessary to operate the system. Those are under the control or under the distribution authority of the federal government. This system requires no additional channels. You already have the channels that you need. That is the most finite resource, the most critical resource. Having those channels and having those licenses, takes the risk out of the system for you. The coverage prediction is based upon the frequencies that you have today and they take into account any interference that might exist between putting this together and also external to the system. One thing that you called for in your specifications, was a very high degree of interoperability. This system will provide that with great capabilities. It is interoperable with the state network that is being built right now, the surrounding counties of Lebanon, York, Cumberland, Lancaster, Perry, and other counties nearby. Agencies within the county are also interoperable. It does that by having bay stations in low band and high band, different frequency bands than your system is using so that the systems can be interconnected for communication. Also, there is a capability for direct onsite UHF communications using your channels on fire grounds and other scenes where you would need that localized capability. Also, the ability to interface with others such as Lebanon and York County.
Motorola's solution includes the completion of all the detail design work, the manufacturing, the testing, the implementation and the training of your organization to use the system. With us today is a very small group of our experts in engineering project management and our service support organization including Mike Corkrin for K&C Communications. They are here to help answer any detailed questions you may have. Rest assured, we have assembled a very strong and talented team that will be able to execute with fidelity, the contract, deliver on time, on budget, on scope and meet or exceed every performance commitment that we have made to you in all of the proposals and presentations subsequent to that.
As far as our track record, we are probably the dominate force in public safety communications. We're very proud of the record. We work very hard to sustain that record of doing everything that we say we do, that we will do and even more. We provided a list of users of the systems and contacts for your teams to research. I presume a lot of that has already been done. Any vendor can claim that they do that but what we wanted to do today was take just a very few minutes of your valuable time. We have a very brief video presentation where you can see some users that sit in the same chairs that you do in other cities and counties and see what they have to say about Motorola's participation with them. (A video was shown.) We can leave with you copies of the videos and another short summary that Coyle will address with another 20-30 customer references, contact phone numbers, etc. We want to encourage the County to continue to contact and talk to them. With that, we are ready to answer your questions.
Mr. DiFrancesco: A couple of things that I think are very important to bring out here today and some of the questions will be specific to each vendor, some will be asked of both vendors.
This is going to be a very challenging project. This is going to be a project where you have to rely on a series of events outside of your control in terms of what we're doing to bring our tower sites up to speed and everything else. The comment was made, it will do what we say it will do or we'll bring it up to speed on our dime.
One of the issues that I want to get out on public record from both vendors is, once we figure out what that final number is going to be, what should our expectations be in terms of the not to exceed cost on this project? When I say that, I'm very certain that there will be things that come along throughout the three year period that anybody can make a claim and say, that we're behind because of this. I need to get a feel and I think this Board needs to get a feel at the end of the day when we set the price, that price has to stand. I would like a little feed back on record to find out, at least an expectation what we should expect over the course of the years.
Mr. McGeary: A couple of things that we would touch on drive the price. We believe that we proposed what we refer to in our oral presentation as a very realistic project schedule, because we have a lot of experience with this system. We know of some of the areas that can commonly run into delays, snags, whatever you want to call it, tower site acquisitions, those kind of things especially. We've allotted time in the proposed schedule around a twenty-six month timeframe. The length of time does drive the price because that is how long we have all these resources attached. We've built into that, particularly on the front end, things like final detail design reviews are taking place, those kind of things and an amount of time to allow for the County to acquire those sites, the other parts of the system, microwave, connectivity, etc. Of course, we think we have a pretty realistic schedule driving in part the cost in what is laid out in the proposed design. Along the way, some of the other areas that come to mind that were not like the situation we've had here, where we had a good bit of time to work with the staff and consultant to address ideas. For example, we built into our proposal some costs to allow us to go rent storage space in the event that equipment is ready to ship and the site isn't ready. That is just one example of some of the kinds of areas that sometimes get overlooked or in the drive to get the lowest price on the front end, might get pushed aside. In this case and at least in our proposal, we have accounted for it. I'm trying to think of some other areas. Certainly anything can come up along the way but we think that we've done a pretty good job, because of the way the project has progressed working hand in hand on ideas and issues of possibilities that come up and that we were able to build in.
Mr. Schwab: If I could just add, a couple of words. We're very comfortable in an environment where it is a fixed price contract. That is what you want to execute as I understand. We're very comfortable with that. What that means to us, is very simple, on scope, on cost. We know that we have to deliver the requirements at the cost and price to you that we committed. We're prepared to do that.
Mr. DiFrancesco: I want to shift and I don't want to call it "a baptism by fire" but certainly I've gone through twelve grades of education on this in a very short period of time. One of the issues that I want to raise because after all these meetings and all these discussions that I've had, I'm still not 100% certain, we have this great standard called P-25. As I understand with a P-25 radio the hurdles that still exist in terms of frequency differences from county to county, system differences from county to county, technology in terms of inscription, etc., how important is that P-25 rating in terms of, lets say we select you, you come in and you build the system, you put the defined criterion in place, in police radios and whatever it might be, can another vendor come in and sell radios within that system that will in fact work with your control technologies?
Mr. McGeary: To answer that basic question in a nutshell, yes, absolutely. There are a number of vendors who not only announce but are now shipping Project 25 compliant trunk radios that are fully capable of working on the system that we have proposed here to the County. Your question, I think cuts right to the heart of the whole Project 25, because we know it is very confusing and there is a lot of back and forth in the market place about Project 25, what it means and where it is headed. I think perhaps the question you ask is maybe the most important that I find from our customers, yes, Project 25 helps drive interoperability. One of the key reasons that the feds have mandated it for everything they buy, one of the key reasons that it is pretty strongly pushed in most grant programs but having said that, what I find day-to-day from customers that I work with especially the user level, what they really want in a new system is what they have today. That is competition and choices for the radios that they go and purchase on their own once the infrastructure and parts of the system are out there. Your question goes right to that. That answer is, yes. It is an open architecture P-25 compliant system. The encryption is compliant with P-25. Some of the other vendors operate radios on the system and the speech that I usually give and I'll mention their name once and then they are on their own to sell, Kenwood, BK Radio, EF Johnson and I'm sure I'm missing a couple of others. Those come to mind, making not only conventional but trunk radios compliant and operable on the system.
Mr. Haste: I want to ask that same question but in a different way to see if I get the same answer. If we put out a bid for equipment, whether it be a municipality or the county, and ACME, I'll just throw that out there, is the bidder; and it is P-25 equipment, when we go to install that, do we need to call you in for anything? Do you need to replace a chip, do you need to code something or at that point in time, can we say ACME you bring in the equipment and install it and it will work?
Mr. McGeary: You are absolutely correct.
Mr. Haste: I know a lot of companies get tricky this way. They'll sell you equipment but you still have to go see someone else to get it to work.
Mr. McGeary: Either that dealer that you would be purchasing it from along with it being P-25 and your staff will have the programming information and either program the radios themselves or give the dealer the information. We don't control that information.
Mr. Haste: We don't have to in any way go back to see you for anything?
Mr. McGeary: No.
Mr. DiFrancesco: You mentioned under the system there would not be any further channel needs. I want to go over that one more time. Two issues are capacity and channel frequency. I've learned again in a very short period of time, you can't just pick one up and move it. There is some study and detail that goes into that. We've got channels assuming that everybody comes on board.
Mr. McGeary: The loading projections that have been under discussion through the course of this several thousand or even more radios we're comfortable with the loading, as well as the frequency plan that the County and SSI have already worked on and licensed. We don't need any additional channels to support that as it is proposed here.
Mr. DiFrancesco: In terms of interoperability, could you in a nutshell tell us what we can expect, because we've already decided that there are certain limitations that cannot be overcome. So, when we talk about interoperability, you mentioned it would work with the state system, you mentioned it would work with I think a couple of the other counties and I'm not sure which ones you mentioned, when you say it will work with, what is going to be required? What is in the system that accounts for that interoperability and what will we have to buy in addition, if there are any?
Mr. McGeary: Within the County first of all, of course a huge degree of interoperability, all users now being on a common backbone, but even within that, you want to manage that interoperability and the system gives you the tools to do that. For surrounding users, whether it is other counties, state or what have you, part of the proposed system design includes essentially an interoperability subsystem or switch. Included in the price is links to each of those surrounding counties either through connections to radios that would operate on those surrounding systems or the state system, or through direct links back to the surrounding county dispatch centers. Each of those vary based on the inputs that we have from the consultant and staff here on the most appropriate way to make those connections. In addition to that, some of what we would refer to as the existing or legacy equipment, some of the conventional equipment will certainly remain in place into the new dispatch console as part of this system and we can directly connect through (patch, if you will) the console those existing frequencies into the new system. Important not only through transition, because you just don't overnight pull the plug on these thousands of today's radios to the trunk radio but a good bit of that we'll phase out. Some of that will be left in place for interoperability past the transition stage for entities from surrounding areas that might come into the county. We've also supplemented some of that older equipment with several new base stations in the interoperability subsystem on high band and low band which are pretty common, especially fire and police frequencies from surrounding counties. If some of those other entities come into the county on those frequencies, we have stations in place on all the commonly used frequencies that again can be patched or connected into the trunk system in the appropriate group.
I think we got all the tools there and the other part of it you will recall at the meeting a couple of weeks ago, I think Chief Konkle did an excellent job of summarizing what we all learned over the past several years as interoperability has become the buzz word coming out of the events of 9/11, is that it is not just the technical tools. They are important but the very important part now is managing it, preplanning, setting up the scenarios so that I can have incident management and that kind of thing. If I don't have scenarios where everybody can talk, I have a huge incident, of 1,000 different users pour in and are all trying to talk at once, didn't achieve anything any good either. I would just echo his comments, that is still the other half of the story. With the tools now that this system will bring, that will be a very important part of ongoing management that we will work with the county and SSI on to help. We want very much the user community involved in helping to develop those plans for each of the various scenarios that might occur and how that connectivity will come into play.
Mr. DiFrancesco: I have one final question from my list. In terms of our partnership, if we would move forward with you, what resources could you bring to the table to help us find other funding streams, state and federal money, to help offset some of the incredible cost associated with this project? I ask that specifically in terms of the agreement and partnership. What resources do you possess, without additional cost to us, could you utilize to help us build a plan and strategy to bring federal and state money into this project?
Mr. McGeary: We certainly recognize that the cost of the systems today for all of our customers are quite high and again, quite a bit driven out of the events of 9/11, homeland security, and all the attention that is there. Quite a few grant programs, some come and go, some have been ongoing like the assistance to firefighters, to help our customers with that. We've hired at Motorola several consultants that work directly for us and their job for us is monitoring and identifying grant programs and then the knowledge to help us put together and work with our customers the applications or proposals to go after those grants. While we can't ultimately submit them on behalf of our customers, we certainly have resources in-house to do that. We also have a Motorola Government Relations Office in D.C. At the federal level, they often get involved especially in helping to pursue earmark grants. Just a couple of names to drop on success stories or potential success stories include Westmoreland County with the $5.8 million grant that they were able to get in a very short term window for an interoperability grant program that we came across through the resources that we have. We helped them draft the proposal. They took it from there with actively, not only getting that submitted, picking up the phone, chasing down each of the resources, that we're going to touch that to make sure that they had their ducks lined up so to speak. It worked out to be a good partnership. They got that money.
We're, currently through our Government Relations Office, pursuing earmarks for Lackawanna County and Monroe County mainly through Santorum's and Specter's Office for about $3 million. Right now it looks like Lackawanna so far will get, it has stayed and a little less money that we're helping through our Government Relations Office Monroe County. They haven't fully made it through. Hopefully the budget will be approved by October on the federal side. So far, those earmarks we've helped get in for them has stuck. We think we have a good partnership program available and we can provide the help, resources and emphasis that the county needs to certainly get active there as well.
Mr. Haste: That is a service you offer at no additional cost to your clients?
Mr. McGeary: Correct.
Mr. Hartwick: You talked about some potential earmarks and you talked about a $5.8 million grant that you helped to achieve for Westmoreland County. Did that grant that you received help with the overall project cost that was bid to the county or was that interoperability part separate from what we originally bid and a part of the county's package? We're looking for help with the actual proposal. We're not saying we'll find something else outside of this $33 million that we might be able to find some additional business. We need money to offset the actual cost of the project. In this specific case, was this work done in addition to the actual initial scope of the project or was this something that was assisted with the entire project cost?
Mr. McGeary: The $5.8 million, they were able to use to fund probably about 80-90% of the cost of the subscribers in their overall system. They have already moved and purchased the infrastructure which included a very similar system to here, Project-25, console dispatch system, an interoperability subsystem similar to what we have described. They were still trying to figure out basically how to fund the subscribers side but had gone ahead and moved in implementing the infrastructure. This grant, the justification and the program that we helped them write up was straight forward. And basically by getting this grant we could immediately provide the subscribers to the user community and instead of buying lower tier basic radios could buy slightly higher tier multimode radios that would not only support interoperability within the county but give them some other modes of operation to some of the surrounding counties and users.
In writing these things up, it isn't building rockets. It's doing the work and showing the good justification. To answer your question, it essentially was obvious the system is no good without the subscriber, it was a key part of helping them overcome their next sticking point which was, how do we now get the subscribers out there and purchased and acquired?
Mr. Hartwick: Which raises another concern, what other sticking costs outside of the first $30-33 million are we facing in trying to move this project forward? Are we not going to have subscriber costs that we need to be considering as we move this project forward that we need to encounter outside of the original bond issue? Are there any other costs outside this proposal that we're going to have once we have the infrastructure in place, once we have the technology, once the radios are done, everything within the scope of the proposal, is there anything beyond that, that we're going to have to take on financially in order to put this thing and get it out of the station?
Mr. Haste: My understanding is most of that has already been taken into account. It's in there. I think that is part of why you see equipment and radio, etc. from municipalities in the project. That is really a question for our folks as much as anybody. It is my understanding that has been thought of already and that is part of this cost. Am I correct?
Mr. McGeary: I'm of the same understanding. I find each political entity goes after these things a little differently. In Westmoreland's case, their approach was go after first what is typically the overall number which was the funding for the infrastructure. They succeeded in getting that. Then they elected in their case for the connectivity. Some of the other pieces, they elected to use leased connectivity instead of purchasing microwave as you are doing here. Then of course, finally, how do we pay for it? So they were kind of stepping through it piece-by-piece where in this case as Commissioner Haste said, the picture that you are looking at I think it is $33-35 million overall including all the other components beside the radio itself and subscribers, is a little more holistic, broader based approach, probably a little more realistic on the front end of what are the real costs here to not only acquire the system, but put it in and get it underway with units out there.
Mr. Hartwick: My only concern is, when we do these initial costs, I guess we need to put it on our people to say, what is next? What is the plan to add whatever you need to add beyond this initial bond issue and what is going to be a financial commitment to the county, what is the lifespan of the system, what are we going to have to do in yearly investments in order to maintain the system? That is something that I want to be clear as we negotiate and talk about this, the real cost and part of the real discussion. As I come back and I see $1.5 million budgeted in addition to this bond issue next year, what can we expect next year, what can we expect the following year, how much is this thing going to cost beyond this original issue? I would like to get a real hard and fast number on that.
Mr. DiFrancesco: One point that I have to make clear, too, for the record. It doesn't go directly to the question you're asking right now but it does go to the prior discussion. When we put this proposal out and from a responsible standpoint, the County looked at it in a holistic approach to say that we want to make sure that we put the radios in the providers' hands. In my mind as one member of this Board, I'm not looking at this project as it is going to definitely move forward as one package as outlined. I'm looking at it saying that it is going to give us a picture of everything that needs to be done. The Board has made a commitment to make sure that the users have radios but at the end of the day, we're going to have to evaluate, it is a three year phase project, and we may end up having to do exactly what some of the other counties have done and that is phase it in over time if it makes sense and there are reasons for us to do that.
Mr. Haste: We'll look at the whole picture.
Mr. DiFrancesco: What we are doing today, we're getting a presentation and we're running a project so we know at the end of that project, what the total cost is going to be to the County. The steps we take in getting there have yet to be decided. That is going to be based on some logical approach, what makes sense, what given time, how much does the Board want to bite off in the bond, are there means...as you know this project has been under way for some time now in terms of site upgrades that the County has been footing the bill on. At the end of the day, we're going to have to take a real hard look once a selection is made which technology we're going to use and which way we're going to go. What makes the best sense for the taxpayers of Dauphin County given the fact that ultimately it has to meet the criteria of the project for the emergency service community. At the end of the day, how we bring that project to be is what is in the best interest of the taxpayers of this county.
Mr. Hartwick: I want to commend my colleagues. This is a tough pill to swallow. It is tough for us. It is something that we talked about during the campaign. It was something that was ignored by previous Boards even though they committed to this project. We find ourselves in this position having to bite off a whole lot in upgrades and communication. We actually understand the importance of this. We want to invest in the first responder community. We value the folks who put their lives on the line every day but in phases, I read horror stories where other projects have problems with technology and we have people saying lets rip these things out and put in new ones. I don't want to be in a position that we make this big investment and then we do this thing in phases and have the first responder community saying, those Commissioners they didn't invest in this thing the whole way and all of a sudden it is not working, we've got major problems that exist because we've taken the steps in order to make sure that we invest in the system. I don't want the people to blame us because we didn't invest enough. We didn't invest in the right ways, the timing from our perspective. We always hear if you're selected as the vendor, it is not our problem, the technology is there, it is the problem with the funding, I don't want to be blamed in this process for all the problems and things that exist when we're sitting here saying, we understand the importance of this, we're going to invest in it. The first responders are going to be saying, why didn't the Commissioners invest more? That is the challenge that I find in this process. If we're doing it piecemeal, if it is not up and running, and if it is not working appropriately, where is the blame going to be placed?
Mr. Haste: I would hope when I look at this project, it actually started before we came on board. It really started at the grassroots level with the committee. I would hope that a lot of those concerns have been and were addressed, because I quite frankly will be shocked to sit here and the first responders or the police chiefs come in and say, you know what, if we spec out the equipment, and it turns out that it doesn't work, I'm going to look at them and say, then why did you recommend it to begin with? I personally have stayed out of this process so I could hear an objective view because I was a volunteer fireman at one time, too and I know how territorial they get. So that I wouldn't get caught up in that system, this has been the recommendation from them. So if in fact those situations occur, I'm really going to look to those folks that made the recommendations and to you folks, whoever the vendor is, and say, why isn't it working because this is what they've said, this is what you said, etc. We have to put some reliance on the folks that use the equipment everyday. If I'm wrong, I want someone to correct me right now. It is my understanding that from early on in this process the end users have been involved in the selection. It is my understanding some of their frustrations is the fact that we felt a need to do due diligence and look at this harder. I think they have already looked at it.
Mr. McGeary: I think the initial presentations and the user committee that was put together that made the original selection was late 2001. It's been pretty much grassroots driven and cooking quite a while now.
Mr. Hartwick: As we look out to the folks that have come to us to say that we support the system, we need your continued commitment with your folks, the first responder community and this says the Commissioners had faith in you in order to allow you to make recommendations for equipment and needs. We don't need people coming back here and saying, when didn't you do this, why didn't you do that? You need to exert that same sort of leadership as we go through the tough process of developing this system, implementing the system and knowing that we partnered with you in order to take the big challenge on in moving this project forward in light of the financial difficulties that the County continues to face. Without that kind of support, this project is going to be very challenging.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Let me address one thing, maybe ask that question that George asked a little differently. I've heard the use of the term, forklift upgrade which I have no idea what that means. What I think it means is that at some point this technology has a limited life and it has to be upgraded in a major way with major reinvestment. What kind of assurance can you give us at this point that this technology is going to last us, that it is not going to require major upgrade investment at some period of time?
Mr. McGeary: The technology that we are proposing is relatively new technology. Of course being compliant with Project-25 and open architecture and multiple vendors supporting it helps us drive the fact that this will be a technology and a standard that is maintained for quite a while. There is a huge amount of support now in the market place for it with the multiple vendors offering products, but the mandate by the feds particularly of the standard several years ago. They have really helped to drive it. The backbone and the pieces that make up our system and what is proposed uses a substantial amount of what is referred to often as commercial off the shelf equipment; meaning very much like everything else in the world that communicating in any fashion, IP based, off the shelf routers, etc. utilizing Motorola software in this case Project-25, signaling and that sort of thing. A lot of pieces here, between compliance with standards such as P-25, as well as just normal network standards and an IP environment make all of the equipment here and the system itself quite flexible. Secondly, what we proposed here in our terminology calling it a platform, is our newest generation of that backbone or infrastructure and is the infrastructure that we're currently just beginning our ongoing development of some of the next generation type features, etc. You are starting at the beginning of our newest release, if you will.
Mr. DiFrancesco: You would consider this to be your..this is the technology that is your primary investment right now?
Mr. McGeary: Absolutely.
Mr. DiFrancesco: You're not preparing to turn a corner and go in a different direction?
Mr. McGeary: No. Back in the early to mid-90's Motorola and we still seem to get part of this..it's Motorola's way. It's propriety and that's changed now well over 10 years as digital radio systems began in the mid and early 90's be seen as something that really could be done. At that point in time, all the trunk radio systems out there, everyone of us was in the propriety. If you bought a Motorola system, you only bought Motorola radios. If you bought a M/A-Com or at the time, Comnet or Erickson system, you bought their radio. We came out at that point in time and there was a big drive for standards from the user community and we said you can't look back, what's done is done. In the analogy world and propriety, looking forward we're going to change our stripes a bit and say that we will support standards. We've done that ever since. We've been very involved in the standards process along with most of the other manufacturers and numerous users. The point of all that is if we have tied ourselves to the standards effort, that technology and what is mandated, we are no longer developing any of our preceding propriety systems that were called SmartNet, SmartZone Motorola, etc. Our offering for the past several years now and I expect it ongoing in the future.we've tied our destiny to Project-25 and that development. As that standard evolved we're committed to evolve with it and evolve our platform with it. This is in that sense the latest and we believe the most flexible system that is out there for us to offer.
Mr. DiFrancesco: How long has this technology been available?
Mr. McGeary: We started shipping our first fully compliant Project 25 systems about 2 ? years ago with some early predecessors that still use some of our propriety technology but at the same time offered some P-25 compliant and then as the standard was fully completed and it took us of course a few years once it was completed to fully develop products that met it. We've been shipping them now and most of the systems that you saw some of those folks talking to were all the same similar generation fully compliant P-25 system.
Mr. Haste: As George knows, a yes or no answer is acceptable. If I understand this, when we talk about other counties, whether it be Lebanon, Lancaster, Northumberland, or any of our surrounding counties, will the link that you are talking about, is that a wireless link or a landline link?
Mr. McGeary: Some of them are wireless and some plan to be wire line. There is a mix.
Mr. Haste: Would we have to buy equipment to place into those county operations so that we can do that or do they have equipment now?
Mr. McGeary: Any of the equipment that is required is in this proposal. So in the case of the wire line links, I think some of the discussion, for example into Lancaster is that it will be a common meeting point to come off of the microwave backbone for Dauphin and to tie into Lancaster and then from there feed into their console and then once that link is in place be able to patch at will. Each of them vary and we'll work through that with the consultants on a case-by-case basis.
Mr. Haste: When we talk about equipment, there is an amount of equipment in this. Do you have a problem if we pull that equipment out and bid it separate from the contract? There is some furniture and some equipment that is included in here. Wouldn't we be better off, price-wise, pulling that off and actually going to someone that specializes in that? Is there a problem with that?
Mr. McGeary: It depends on what equipment. Some things like console furniture for instance probably not a big problem with it. The same time our pricing is based on the total picture, equipment to implementation.
Mr. Haste: Some of that appears to be high.
Mr. Schwab: Certainly per commodity type of things, there is no problem at all with doing that. The hesitation is some of the really technical stuff has the custom software on it and that would probably be detrimental. But certainly as we go through the final negotiations of the contract if you choose to do your own towers, your own commodities, absolutely.
Mr. Hartwick: That would change the price?
Mr. Schwab: That would change the pricing and it would come down for the items.
Mr. Haste: One of the statements that I heard you make early on, was if there was a problem with the project system even after the project was up and running, that you would act quickly to resolve that problem. That is an easy statement. How would you act quickly? Is there going to be a person assigned to this? Is that person local?
Mr. Schwab: The answer is yes, there are people assigned. In fact there was a program manager that is here with us today, Larry Leaver, who will be leading the project on our side all the way through its implementation. Once the project is completely done and all your folks are using this system everyday, it passes into a different mode, a maintenance mode. Mike Corkrin will be our primary contractor on that. He is located right here and he'll be the avenue into Motorola for any issues that might come up in the system, after the system is accepted and in the air. When there is an issue we deploy engineers and technicians and we will resolve it very quickly because we understand how critically important it is for the system.
Mr. Haste: When we are in that phase, do we sign a maintenance agreement with you? Is that how that works?
Mr. Schwab: Yes.
Mr. McGeary: Included in the price is a one year warranty after system acceptance. So it doesn't start until the County has signed off, we passed all the testing, etc. Then at the end of that warranty, the County has an option, but obviously for a system like this, it is strongly encouraged to go into a maintenance mode. We quoted prices in the proposal for that maintenance mode. In terms of a response and knowing that something is wrong in the system, that is included through the first year warranty, is a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week monitoring facility in our headquarters in Illinois where we monitor hundreds of customer systems like this. Quite often, even minor problems down to a board level, we are aware of before your users or staff are aware of it especially in off hours and can actually dispatch or report back to them a minor problem that might not have even been noticed. That can be part of the warranty program.
Mr. Hartwick: Excuse our cynicism when it comes to long term agreements with consultants and their ability to follow-up from the computer side, we went through an absolute nightmare with our assessment company and their ability to deliver the software that would enable us to do billing. It is always interesting when you have consultants that come in upfront and make promises and then once the contract is completed those promises tend to not be as big a priority. That is why we need you to get on record up front as to what you plan on doing. We will hold you accountable. This Board has been stung more than once.
Mr. Schwab: We expect that.
Mr. Hartwick: The four major concerns that I have and I'll try to make it quick. Obviously cost, interoperability, long-term flexibility and the life expectancy of this particular product.
The first one related to cost. If you in fact are given the contract, would you be prepared within a certain time structure, because I would like to require your government staff and you to provide an itinerary, an outline, and schedule of what monies you feel may be available, how you plan on achieving those dollars, and what we need to do as the County in order to put ourselves in a position to achieve those resources in order to off-set the cost of this particular project? Because one thing that this Board has asked continually, what outside funding sources are there besides going to the taxpayers of this County to support this project? We've been told on numerous occasions, while no one is willing to provide that information until they are selected as the vendor. Which made me feel uncomfortable.
If in fact you are selected as the vendor, how long would it take for you to come up with such a plan for the County, could you in fact come up with that plan and have reasonable expectations that it could be delivered?
Mr. McGeary: I would say, within a month or less because we pretty actively do monitor the programs that are out there and that kind of a thing. We can pretty quickly put together at least a current snapshot of the programs in some of the areas that we might suggest the County look at. Similarly we have a lot of raw material to work from in terms of just what I would call the executive summary, typically the starting point of most of those. That would be some kind of program narrative. Here is what we are doing, here is the objective and now here are the things that we need money for. We have a lot of raw material to work from. There is no sense in reinventing the wheel, if you will. That material exists. I would think in a month or so we could certainly start putting that together and have something in front of you.
Mr. Hartwick: We're not just talking government funding opportunities to put cell towers, or whatever, what type of private funding may be available to help offset any of these expenses? I know we've run out of space on cell phones, etc. Is this all considered under this calculation?
Mr. McCeay: We haven't addressed anything in that area. I'm not sure. I imagine that SSI and the staff have probably, looked at any opportunities that might be there.
Mr. Schwab: I think the question was is there an assumption in the proposal that there was some revenue to be generated?
Mr. Hartwick: Private agreements?
Mr. McGeary: Nothing that we have looked at.
Mr. Hartwick: Are you familiar with that?
Mr. DiFrancesco: I know that specifically on the system that has not..the consultants have done other places. I don't know at this time. If you are asking if there has been any out reach done for these towers, the answer would be, no. Are the consultants aware of that if it can be done, yes. I believe recently Commissioner Haste had a meeting where he had information provided to him where there is actually a pretty substantial amount of revenue that can be generated off these tower sites without any interference or without compromising any security to the tower sites. It is something again, once we get past the first phase and decide what technology we're going to go with, from there we'll decide okay this is what we're buying, how can we use it and is there a significant revenue stream that can be generated off of it.
Mr. Hartwick: We need to travel down all paths for revenue sources.
Mr. DiFrancesco: There are ways to do it without messing with the integrity of the system or the security of the system.
Mr. McGeary: Typically the area that we would get involved in, would mainly be to what you just touched on Commissioner and that is if you have someone who would like to use the cell company, whoever, our ability to take a look at what frequency they want to bring, run the interference we would be able to come back and support the effort and say, yes that would work fine or no, there is a problem here or here is the equipment that meets your needs. You need to dictate to insure there is no interference.
Mr. Hartwick: Steve, I know that you're in the back of the room. Please make sure that is part of your plan.
Mr. Shaver: It sure is.
Mr. Hartwick: Second one is, the big concern that I have, if you think about communications, that has to be the number one most important piece to anything post 9/11. If you can't communicate to your folks, how do you expect them to respond? We understand and value the importance; and me in the position of being the Mayor of Steelton with so many dead spots, my fire chief beat me up, my police chief beat me up saying we need to do something about it. I understand the importance of this project. My big concern is that it always takes the federal government so much longer to understand what is critical and important to the first responder community. I'm afraid and if there is any talk, we need to know about it now, that the federal government is going to come out with some gold standard to say, hey, if we are really going to invest in communications, the federal government may need to step up and define where we take this. In the process of the federal government saying, we need to bite the bullet and fund this which may be a "pie in the sky". If in fact that does occur, and we're building a stand alone system, what are our chances of long-term flexibility that we won't have to come back and recreate the wheel if the feds come out with the gold standard communication system?
Mr. McGeary: It really goes back to the discussion of the Project 25 standard driven by AVCO. It's driven by three major customer participants, AVCO, National Association of State Telecom Directors and the Feds. Anything going on with any development on the federal side is pretty well evolved to take place through the Project 25 standard setting process, which to us even if there are future directions and the standard will evolve as technologies do, you're already building on a system and platform that underlies whatever is coming along next. We think you have that flexibility. I would also point out that I don't see anything coming different from the feds. They are right now in the middle of a monstrous procurement project called "I win". It is a nationwide high band Project 25 trunk network bid that they have out. Again, they pretty much mandated all of their agencies, whether by conventional or trunk, to move to Project 25. This latest monstrous project they are doing maintains that.
Mr. Hartwick: Can you put on the record what you view as the life expectancy of this particular technology?
Mr. McGeary: Just our experience with trunk systems that we've been doing since the early 1980's kept maintained and properly kept up, certainly easily twenty years and more. A big part of that, these are truly modern computer networks as much as they are radio systems today. As I mentioned, just like with the computer systems within the county keeping them up-to-date, keeping them doing the applications you can make them run a long time. Along the way, you may elect to do upgrading as there are new technologies, etc. as things come along. This kind of a system can be maintained easily twenty years and longer.
Mr. Hartwick: They will have some further communications. I know out of respect for the audience and folks here, we've asked enough questions. The other ones I have I'll make sure we share with others.
M/A-COM PRESENTATION
Mr. DiFrancesco: We're going to move right into M/A-COM. I would like to invite them to come up. The same guide lines please if you will, state your name for the record and also as you speak, please shift the microphone so that the record will pick up what is being said. I think the presentation took about 12-13 minutes. There are points for keeping it to ten but certainly if that is not enough we give you the flexibility. New points, not history and we'll go from there. Also, I don't know how you kept notes but a lot of the questions will be the same questions. We can try to push it along as best we can.
Mr. Saylor: Before they get started, I just want to state for the record, I want to extend my apologizes to M/A-COM. When Mr. Wentzel and I spoke we had agreed to allow them to be the first presenters today. Unfortunately, I forgot to convey that to Jul and when she did the agenda, I guess we flip-flopped them or put them in the order that she was given them.
Ms. Doherty: We will stay within our ten minutes. We want to thank the Commissioners and the County for granting us this audience. We have had the opportunity in April to provide a presentation to the Technical Evaluation Committee. The feedback that we got and obviously from what we have seen, we apparently were a little too technical so today we will definitely keep our remarks non-technical in nature. They also will be brief and not sales oriented, comments as requested by Commissioner DiFrancesco.
You should all have received a CD which has examples of what we have done. We can talk about that in the questions with respect to you getting funding, M/A-COM's capabilities, etc. If you want to see references and things like that, you have the CD's and we certainly can provide some and we will provide the proposal to you.
We were also planning to do a brief radio demonstration so that you can see and hear what not just interoperability is; but internetworking to see what a higher level of interoperability would need, not a patch but a switch to see features that are very important to first responders. That is something that we will do toward the end of our remarks.
My name is Mary Doherty. I am the area director for the northeast. With me is Roger Kohr, who is our area sales manager in Pennsylvania and Ray Fuller from Maryland and also Pennsylvania.
I will turn it over to Roger Kohr who is going to do our brief remarks.
Mr. Kohr: Good morning, Commissioners. On behalf of M/A-COM, I would like to thank you for your commitment to this initiative. As a first responder in the area for over twenty-five years, I can assure you that reliable radio communications is extremely important to first responders. Simply put M/A-COM has produced the best design that offers the most reliable coverage which is guaranteed. Our technology offers the smartest interoperability solution as well and we're offering the best price.
First let me talk about the design. We took your fourteen site plan. We did some regrouping of the towers and came up with a design that provides more coverage and located an additional fifteen frequencies for Dauphin County's use. What does that mean overall? First of all, it means less risk. It means less interference and it also means that our proposal doesn't require risky frequency reuse. Our proposal is public safety rate. Our experience has been reuse is going to be too risky for Dauphin County simply due to the size of it. Our frequency plan is guaranteed, as well as our coverage is guaranteed.
Second, M/A-COM's interoperability solution is more robust and will provide the first responders with more features and benefits. This interoperability plus and here is why, our solution provides for caller I.D., encryption and emergency capabilities. This means that a responder in your County that is traveling into Lebanon County pushes that red emergency button, they will be able to communicate with somebody and they will be heard. That is very important in an emergency situation. Most significantly, our interoperability solution covers both voice and data. This feature is absolutely critical for first responders. For you the Commissioners, this feature could emerge as a major factor in securing federal grant dollars for this project. In your Q&A session we could talk more about specific instances where this feature has been the difference for some jurisdictions like Dauphin County who have applied for federal grant money. In fact, we brought along a radio to demonstrate this technology for you.
Third, we offer the best value for your constituents. In a budget conscious environment, our proposal allows you to stretch hard earned tax dollars further. Here is why, our significant system discount brings the total price well below the $22 million. In addition, we are confident that the lower life cycle cost will significantly be lower because of our positioning and leveraging assets that are already in the region. In the next fifteen years, your taxpayers could see millions of dollars in savings with the ability to tap those assets already here in this region.
Lastly, we guarantee our price. There will be no cost overruns. Our track record proves that.
Commissioners, we have a significant presence here in central Pennsylvania. Our presence will deliver the results that the first responders and residents of Dauphin County need and require. I will encourage you to contact our customers including Lancaster County, Lebanon County, Cumberland County, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. They will tell you what we are able to deliver.
Commissioners, no other vendor will offer such a robust technology for the value price that we proposed. We are happy to entertain your questions at this time.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Additional fifteen frequencies, where do they come from, where do they stand, and how did the finder guarantee them? Where are they coming from?
Mr. Fuller: We hired a frequency consultant to go out and they located additional frequencies that we thought would be needed to reduce the risk associated with the frequency plan that we were given by the County. Those frequencies are public frequencies. They are not our frequencies. They have been reserved. Obviously, the quicker the frequencies are licensed the quicker they are available to the County. But they have been reserved for the County's use.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Would that be a part of the price?
Mr. Fuller: Yes, sir.
Mr. DiFrancesco: The overall price?
Mr. Fuller: Absolutely, all the way through licensing of those frequencies and it is my understanding that your current frequencies haven't been fully licensed all the way which will require license modifications also. So we are fully prepared to partner with the County doing that licensing process for your current frequencies and also the additional frequencies that we have located.
Mr. DiFrancesco: You say the frequencies have been reserved does that mean from an agreement standpoint or does that mean the FCC would have already cleared them, in fact to be used within Dauphin County if we would be able to purchase them? Have they been cleared or are they just frequencies that are out there?
Mr. Fuller: Our frequency consultant looked at them and de-conflicted frequencies with surrounding and co-channel users. So in fact, they can be used here on the system. Unfortunately, I'm not very versed in the whole process of frequency licensing and everything. But, the frequencies have been identified and set aside and the consultant is ready to move forward in licensing the frequencies on behalf of the County. When I say licensing, coordinating with the FCC and the regional frequency coordinator to begin the licensing process. But the frequencies have been identified, that is the key point. We recently did the same thing Cecil County, Maryland just right across the border with some frequency issues they had last year.
Mr. DiFrancesco: You mentioned the red button in the presentation. I think if I heard you correctly and I apologize, I think you said if someone goes into Lebanon County, they could hit the button and they would be heard.
Mr. Kohr: That is correct.
Mr. DiFrancesco: What about if they would go into Northumberland County or.the distinction that I'm trying to make, would it work by virtue of M/A-COM having a system in Lebanon County that would be similar to ours and if that were the case would it also work in Cumberland with the 800 MHz system? Would it work in a county like Northumberland which I'm still not certain what they have there? I just don't know. And the state system as well?
Mr. Kohr: When we reviewed what technology we felt would be best for application here in Dauphin County, we reviewed P-25 which we offer as well as EDACS? Lebanon County to your east has gone with an EDACS system and UHF. So the frequencies would be the same and we felt proposing the technology as EDACS would be the same. From that standpoint, basically your users, their footprint, their coverage footprint would now if you were to network the Lebanon County system into the Dauphin County system, basically a user traveling from the west shore area of Cumberland County through Dauphin County, through Lebanon County and into western Berks County based upon coverage that is already there. On a daily basis you have users that travel from Dauphin County with the medic units and fire trucks and police cars that respond into Lebanon County for assistance and vise versa. With having the like systems there, it basically would expand your coverage footprint.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Let me expand that. Obviously in the first presentation, they mentioned that it is part of their program they've already included the interoperability with the other counties as well. Is that part of your overall plan at this point? Would that be an additional cost?
Mr. Kohr: It was listed as an option that was selected by the pricing model. Yes, that was included.
Mr. DiFrancesco: The option cost.
Mr. Kohr: Yes.
Mr. DiFrancesco: So it included that information, okay.
Mr. Fuller: Even without the option, because both systems are like systems, the user can actually log onto the Lebanon County system and continue communicating with Lebanon County. Obviously, networking the systems together allows that user to communicate back to his or her own dispatch and home base. That is what the internetworking is about.
Mr. DiFrancesco: And specifically again, of course with regards to Lebanon County because it is the same frequency and same system. There is no big deal there but again going from Dauphin to Cumberland, it will be a challenge because of the 450/800. It is not as invisible, I guess.
Mr. Kohr: With the Cumberland application, if the networks are tied together, the switches if you will, the same type of technology we would be using in Lebanon County, you would still have caller I.D.; you would still have some of the other features; the emergency man down; but what you are relying upon is where the current coverage model, the coverage footprint if you will, would stop. So, if your current coverage footprint would reach the whole way to the Borough of Carlisle then the units responding from Dauphin County and going into Cumberland County, if they are within coverage of your coverage footprint they would be able to network back through. Our basis for operation would be the IP networking between the switches, the Cumberland switch, the Dauphin switch, the Lebanon switch, the state switch. So again, it is another level. It is a higher level. It is internetworking or interoperability plus. That is where you are getting your caller I.D., your emergency man down capabilities. Even though they are on different frequencies as long as the Dauphin County user is within their coverage footprint from their network, they're going to enjoy interoperability with people on other frequency bands using other air link technology.
Mr. Haste: Does that exist between Cumberland and Lancaster now?
Mr. Kohr: Cumberland County currently is. We have tested it in the lab. We are getting ready to roll it out on the Cumberland system to connect into the state system. What we need to occur right now is the I.T. departments are actually working through firewall issues and deciding who's picking up what equipment and making sure the addresses line up. From a technology aspect, that is what is left to be completed. Certainly with Lancaster coming on line when they are ready, I can also tell you that Lebanon County is doing the same thing with the Commonwealth as we speak for the UHF system.
Mr. DiFrancesco: The EDACS system, it is not P-25 compliant, correct? How would you say this system is able to compete with the flexibility of the Motorola system?
Mr. Fuller: It is not compliant to the P-25 trunking protocol. I would like to add that the P-25 standard is an interoperability standard. The competitive procurement of radios in my opinion is just a by-product of the fact that it is originally designed of an interoperability standard. When you talk about competitive procurement of radios, our proposal includes 2,500 or so radios as part of the bottom-line cost, 1,700 pagers, etc. So when you talk about competitive procurement, you're talking about radios purchased subsequent to the contract as the system is being employed throughout the life cycle. There are various ways to purchase radios competitively, state contract, and in this particular application, we offer a price guarantee for $1,250 radio that a volunteer fireman could buy. In your contract you can negotiate a price guarantee for as long as you want. That's the beauty of contract negotiations.
Lastly, radio management on a conventional system like you have now, yeah, a user can go buy a radio and get the frequencies, p.o. tones, and use the radio on the system. When you migrate to high tier trunk systems, there is a real key to control and manage the radios that come onto your system. You don't want anyone just going out buying a radio and coning and breaking into your systems. In my mind, the County would be managing the radios that actually come onto the system and be quite involved in all purchases of radios that are actually being used on the system.
The last thing about P-25 and you talk about competitive radios there is one little other myth in there that seems to be avoided a lot. There are three levels of P-25 standard radios. The levels are, the standard P-25, all manufacturers design to it; standard options, all manufacturers design P-25 options; then there is what I call the wild card. The manufactured specific options that makes it propriety. And all manufacturers do specific options. For instance, the ability to roam between sites and the ability to do their own programming. Those things are manufactured specific options. So, yes, you can go out and purchase another vendor's P-25 radio and it will do some basic trunk communications but all those high tier feature functions that you purchase in your trunk system, if it is a manufactured specific option, it will not be included. So P-25 is an interoperability standard basic voice traffic. Remember that, basic voice traffic. Feature function options, yeah, encryption over the air, re-keying, those are P-25 standards. But manufactured specific standard are the wild card when you talk about procuring other vendors radios that work on the system.
Mr. Haste: I think some of our smaller municipalities may not need all those high end radios.
Mr. Fuller: Roaming from site to site, over the air programming and the ability to save man hours by physically not having to come back and physically touch a radio when you program it. Those are some significant cost savings that may outweigh a potential competitive advantage that you get from different prices of a radio.
Mr. Haste: I guess one of the things I was looking at is, I don't want to, and I have concerns with us making decisions that basically ties our forty municipalities to one system and give them the ability to make their own decisions, about specs or whatever they decide they want to do. So if I heard you right, if we go with your proposal, in fact we got to buy radios from you for a while.
Mr. Fuller: Yes, sir. But again, competitive pricing through state contracts and competitive pricing contract negotiations are price guarantees.
Mr. Haste: We use that and sometimes a state contract is good but there are many times when you can beat the state price also. That is usually a standard by which we start at.
Mr. Fuller: It is a good opening point for contract negotiations.
Mr. Haste: Right.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Which has yet to come. So we will be sharpening the pencils.
Mr. Haste: Roger, you're a first responder from over on the west shore?
Mr. Kohr: Yes.
Mr. Haste: I've seen you at different buildings. I guess one thing that keeps churning at me and I'll just be blunt about it because I don't know how else to ask it. If all the things that you are saying and you were saying in your presentation, these are critical to the first responders. I haven't come across a first responder yet that says this is the best way to go. What am I missing? Or what are they missing? How could we come to the point if what you are saying is that this is the best proposal for the first responders then why aren't the first responders coming here and saying, this is the system we want? Because most of the responders I hear say, this isn't the system we want.
Mr. Kohr: I think a lot of it comes down to education. I think quite frankly we were late to the party. We didn't spend 2 ? years educating and working with the first responders and making them aware. For many years, we've gone into various places throughout the state of Pennsylvania and people don't even know that we exist. As we get out and talk to people and we demonstrate the technology. We certainly have not spent a lot of time working with the first responders here. I think that is a lot of it. When you compare features and functions between the P-25 systems and our EDACS system, our first EDACS system was delivered back in 1987. Many of the features and functions that we have on EDACS meet and exceed those standards that are found on the P-25. When people see them, they work with them and they look at the P-25 offering. We have some customers that must purchase the P-25. We offer that as well. But in this system again because of Lebanon County that is why we chose to go with EDACS. I think a lot of it is imperative for us to get out and educate people that we do exist. For many years, they knew us as GE Land Mobile Radio. We have a lot of bay stations, a lot of master two and a lot of master three bay stations in mountain top sites. I think our competitor certainly has a marketing presence which may be a lot larger than ours. That certainly is an advantage that they have. They've certainly done a better job with that.
Mr. Haste: Where I sit and actually I'm one of the ones, really all of us, when we came on board, basically the decision was made. Then you folks knocked on our door and then we said okay, we want to hear you out because you were saying you thought we needed to do due diligence. So, we put the committee through it again and had it run by them. They came back with basically the same recommendation. In my mind and if we were to select your proposal and I was one of the locals, I would be saying, there goes big government again telling me what is best for me. When we had the users saying, this is what we want. I guess I'm trying to find, if we do that, how do we get around that? The other thing that has everybody on notice is the state system. However, you want to spin it or whatever anybody wants to say out of being a good program, PR wise it hasn't been. We hear about cost overruns, we hear the delays, etc. Let's not sugar coat it. I want you to address those issues, also.
Mr. Kohr: If I could answer you second question first, the IXP study when it was done on the state system as far as cost overruns, we have not had any cost overruns in the initial contract for $95 million. To date, we have yet to bill them for the $95 million. Until the final system acceptance is done, the contract was for only $95 and that is what we are on budget for at this point. They have come forward and they have asked us to work other projects such as thread on a local facility here on the July 4th weekend a few years back we were asked to do an additional project above and beyond the state project for the radio system. So that was a separate purchase order that was issued. But again, as far as the main project there have not been any budget overruns.
Mr. Haste: So the media reports and the legislative reports weren't accurate.
Mr. Kohr: The most recent IXP Study that had come in the media and also the legislative reports have been correct in the fact that, we as M/A-COM have not had any budget overruns. There were other vendors that were involved in the overall contract. There were four major vendors that were involved in that. I know for sure that was at least one or two out of the four that there had been cost overruns in their areas. But not in ours. Again, that many misconceptions have been out there.
Secondly, as far as the first responders and getting out and talking to them, I think from an educational standpoint and I think making people aware, it is amazing as we travel around the state of Pennsylvania and people touch the radios and feel and talk on the radios that are on the state system. The typical comment is, not bad, I didn't think it worked. Yes, it does and it works very well.
Mr. Haste: Did you give the committee an opportunity to look at the radios?
Mr. Kohr: We have never been in front of the committee, as far as your first responder committee besides the oral opportunity. So we have never met directly with the committee as a group.
Mr. Haste: The six people that did the evaluation, you didn't meet with them?
Mr. Kohr: There were people that we met with from SSI but certainly without knowing who all was on the committee and was part of the selection committee. I can't say for sure we have.
Mr. Haste: The folks from SSI had a chance to work your radios? Did they go out and test them?
Mr. Kohr: No.
Mr. Fuller: We were actually involved in the process via the state because when I look back at records the County was trying to make a choice between going on the state system, doing a stand alone with the state, or just doing a stand alone. So all of the proposals that the County saw that SSI evaluated were proposals being offered by the state via M/A-COM. So in essence, unfortunately the state was doing the talking for us during that two year process and then the latest document that I've seen was October, 2004 which was a list of questions that the state answered that the state provided to the County. Shortly after that we realized the County was going to do a stand alone system and became involved in that process. That is when the County and the Commissioners got the letter asking for us to be involved.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Talk to me if you will on the issue of not to exceed the pricing. I posed a question to them in the confines a lot can change in this project. A lot of it moving forward is dependent on other entities. I want an expectation I guess put out there publicly in terms of the price guarantees that you are making, what that means to us and what we should expect.
Ms. Doherty: What we provided to you is a comprehensive term key proposal. That is a not to exceed price. We do have and you can talk to all of our customers. We do have a history of providing turn key solutions not to exceed and sticking to those. Obviously other than unforeseen site acquisition issues or something like that which are out of our control. We do stay on schedule and budget. To your earlier comments, we have never required a forklift upgrade to any of our customers. We have customers that have systems that are 15-20 years old that are still able to buy radios, newly manufactured and new technology that they can use on the old platform. So the life cycle cost which is really what you are getting at, is what you are seeing in front of you.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Actually it is two different questions. The life cycle ongoing cost is another issue. But really I'm looking at it up front to say, do you feel there are conservative contingencies built into your program so that if we do have a problem with a site acquisition, we won't get a change order or a cost increase based on what has been proposed?
Ms. Doherty: Being in the business that we are in, all the uncertainties of site acquisitions, etc. we always do build a certain amount of litigation for that. Also, with respect to our design we tend to design very conservatively as well. We are guaranteeing our coverage and feel very, very confident that we are going to meet that coverage. Obviously, if we don't it is going to be at our expense.
Mr. Kohr: I would like to add some additional comments. Doing that with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's site acquisition issue, because we were contracted with them to provide a system design and hardware, they chose to work with a consultant for their site acquisitions and they've had issues in that area. We continue to work with them and again our budget hasn't changed. Lancaster County has some issues with the same manufacturer that was selected by the Commonwealth for tower sites. They've had some issues with them going bankrupt. Certainly, we've been there, we continue to work with them. Cumberland had issues with site acquisition and again our prices did not change.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Getting back to the channels, your saying that you are fairly certain that those fifteen channels can be used for this.
Mr. Kohr: Yes.
Ms. Doherty: Not only are we certain that they can be used, we're certain that they are needed as well for a viable public safety system.
Mr. DiFrancesco: In terms of interoperability, I mentioned to you that when the report came back to us, I was a little surprised because of one area that I thought there would be a given to M/A-COM because of the neighboring counties was that particular area. What is your pitch to us based on why you think your system is better in terms of interoperability and what can it bring to Dauphin County?
Mr. Kohr: I think when we go back to some of my initial comments as far as interoperability plus the internet working, the man down capabilities, the caller I.D., using the IP backbone between your system and the Commonwealth, Lancaster, Lebanon, Cumberland, certainly providing that as far as interoperability goes.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Go beyond that because we have Schuylkill, Northumberland, and other counties as well and we have to make certain that all the ground is covered. There are a lot of our units especially Pillow was one that contacted us and said, we go into Northumberland County as much as we stay in Dauphin County. We have to be convinced that this system will work when we go across that county line. It is easy to talk about Lebanon. Talk to me about the other areas.
Mr. Kohr: A piece of equipment needs to be purchased there and implemented at the county level. I can also tell you that the Commonwealth is working diligently on an interoperability plan for application throughout the Commonwealth. What that holds is yet to be seen due to the fact that it is not completed at this point. It certainly, hopefully be able to leverage some of that. But as far as going into the other counties, you have 64 links in your proposal so as far as being able to go into some of these other counties and establish interoperability networking there, the capability is there depending upon which counties you're referring to. Are some of those counties possibly looking at purchasing a system in the near future that would include one of our switches to connect into the state and things like that? So the internetworking capabilities are there as well.
Mr. DiFrancesco: So again, to be clear, you're saying it's got to be looked at. What is in the proposal, what has been looked at, and what would be the additional cost?
Mr. Kohr: We currently have the 64 links or 64 cards, if you will, connections into the other counties around you. So determining what the needs are typically when you have a unit that is responding out of the county and going into an adjacent county, chances are they probably have a radio that they are using currently today. With somebody sitting on the border like that normally and we'll use Cumberland as an example, there are units that respond from Cumberland County into York County. In their case, they're planning on keeping their current unit so that when they go into York County they'll have that connectivity. At some point Cumberland is going to be able to establish internetworking with York County when York County purchases their new system. When the user leaves Cumberland they will still be able to communicate back through the system into York. Again identifying exactly what frequencies they would like to speak on. There is equipment that has been put in the proposal that has the capabilities of doing that. There had been numbers set aside for doing that.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Talking about the technology, where do you see EDACS now? I know the company is working towards the OpenSky being sort of like modern technology that you are developing. You mentioned about the other communities that you've worked with that have shown that this technology is lasting, it is not going to need the upgrade. How do you answer the question in terms of the life expectancy? How long will this system be supported by M/A-COM and will it become sort of the old technology as we move closer to Open Sky and do we have to be concerned at all about support going forward?
Ms. Doherty: When we talk about technology, the technology that M/A-COM has invested in and will continue to invest in is IP technology. All of our products EDACS, Open Sky, P-25 will all be based on the same platform. We probably didn't do a good job in explaining it but all of those technologies will have a common switch so they will have the same brand if you will. Just the RF portion will be different. We won't have different platforms. It is all one platform with applications. So if you will think of it in different terms of Microsoft that you have excel, power point and word. You have that one computer or one switch as in our instance. Instead of excel, or word or power point, you'll have EDACS or OpenSky or P25 depending upon what your particular needs are. We are not going to be doing away with technology. We're going to be enhancing it and bring it all to an end to end IP infrastructure. With respect to the future, I guess what I can say is that we have a history and a culture of designing and migrating our customers not in this forklift fashion or not so that we obsolete whole platforms or applications but those evolve over time so you can keep your same infrastructure. As you need to replace radios we have historically and there is no plan to change that because that is how we operate our business. Our newer radios will still operate on those older platforms. An example of this is that we have a multimode radio which will operate in P-25, sky and EDACS. So that is our culture and that is our business plan to have all of these essentially what people call technology platforms/applications. We'll have multi-radios.
Mr. Hartwick: Could you go on record by saying what the life expectancy is of the technology and current system?
Ms. Doherty: What is your definition of life expectancy?
Mr. Hartwick: How long are we going to be able to use the system that you are proposing? How long is it going to take for us.if technological changes are coming, are we going to have to reinvest in that technology and with your current system, how would we be able to use that system and use it to the same standards that we're setting forth in the proposal?
Ms. Doherty: As I said before, we do have EDACS systems that are still in existence from the 1980's that are able to use and procure new radios so they are able to add some additional bay stations if they need coverage, etc. So they still have their same system. So for 15-20 years, they have systems. With respect to P-25, if we were to provide you our P-25 solution, what we would be providing you is phase I, phase II is being defined. So it is unclear when phase II will be defined. They are saying a couple of years now. That's going to be moving to a completely new platform. You're going from a different type of air interface. I can speak to EDACS and Open Sky.
Mr. DiFrancesco: The other area that I want to raise again with you is once again a little more detail on how you can help us to build a strategy to access state and federal dollars. I know you have mentioned the examples of where you have done them in the past. If you can say specifically again, what resources are available within this contract that wouldn't cost us additional money to help us access state and federal dollars?
Ms. Doherty: We do have resources that we have used for clients where we, as our competitor said, will help with respect to writing the grants and obviously ultimately you do provide those grant applications in the end to the federal government. But there is also a lot of funding that is coming through the state, the homeland security funding is coming through the state. It is also changing. What we are seeing and what we are hearing our contacts with the federal government is that the grant funding will be geared more toward specific threat areas, certainly Dauphin County with Three Mile Island would fall into that criteria of having significant threats. As we did see a couple of years ago, Roger was talking about back in July there was a specific threat to Three Mile Island. I think in light of that there is an opportunity for the County to get that funding. We certainly do know how to navigate and advise you with respect to putting together grant applications. We've been successful with a couple. Just to name a couple, Maryland eastern shore which is a nine county region of interoperability which is another trend that we're also seeing and hearing with respect to funding. They are looking more to regional interoperability with respect to providing that successful funding to grant applicants. So they are no longer looking for, we're just going to help you Dauphin County to provide interoperability amongst your municipalities. They are looking for a more global and holistic approach in terms of what interoperability can you provide into the area. So those are some of the things that we will look at. Data also we're hearing as well is going to be very significant in the next year or two. So these are just some of the themes and obviously our proposal does provide an opportunity for you to be very eligible for that funding.
Mr. Hartwick: What was the dollar figure that you were able to..?
Ms. Doherty: $5.7 million.
Mr. DiFrancesco: There was a price given on the radios for fire department use that I think was different than what I'm looking at on my equipment list. You said you made a guarantee to the fire departments that they could access radios at some cost?
Mr. Fuller: Yes, and the County asked us to do that for subsequent purchases. That was our P-5130 radio at $1,250.
Mr. DiFrancesco: That was outside of the contract?
Mr. Fuller: Yes, what you are seeing is what we call above the line inside the contract.
Mr. Hartwick: I feel the same way and have the same position as Commissioner Haste and I'm sure Commissioner DiFrancesco in saying that this Board has always been one that has said, we don't want to come...for instance we're doing something in Northern Dauphin County right now for the Human Services Center. We don't come as the Board of Commissioners and tell northern Dauphin County what we think they want. We partner with the local community that knows their community the best to define how we can be partners in achieving what they want. In this case, we've asked the first responders to step up to the plate and define to us, as the end user, what you feel is the best technology out there. We went through it as a series of evaluations over a number of years and what I've heard continuously was Motorola was the product that the end users are most confident in. I need also if we were to go with M/A-COM's proposal, because I look at it from a Commissioner's standpoint that the pricing was better, I hear some components with the interoperability with surrounding counties that are attractive. As I take a look here, clearly based upon this evaluation in the area of proposed technology, the coverage and interoperability based upon the evaluators you fell very short. If you want to address anyone of those specific areas, particularly the technology and the coverage which I think is something that should be easier to define why you based upon the evaluators' comments fell very short in those particular areas based upon the evaluation in front of us.
Mr. Fuller: That is hard to define because we didn't know the evaluation criteria. We were given 14 sites to design around. We thought we did some very innovative things with the 14 existing sites to produce what we felt was more coverage than what the County was expecting. Also doing the oral presentation, in our technology presentation, we explained to the County the difference between bounded and covered design. We felt the County really understood that. The only puzzling thing to me when I sat through my competitor's presentation the next day, my competitor briefed the use of 15 sites. We were pretty much mandated that these are the 14 sites. It matches our frequency plan, matches our microwave plan, we got to do apples to apples comparison, 14 sites. So 15 sites means more coverage, more RF's in the air. It is as simple as that. Are there more sites out there? Yes, give me a whole list of potential sites and let me go back and do a redesign. Don't tie one of my arms behind my back and tell me you got to do 14 sites. I think we will be competitive on coverage whatever the coverage criteria may be.
Mr. Hartwick: So are you suggesting that the competitor had other additional information that was not provided to you that didn't allow the playing field to be level in the process?
Mr. Fuller: I was told we have 14 sites and my competitor is at 15.
Mr. DiFrancesco: That was at their option.
Mr. Fuller: I was told you have to be at 14 sites. Our microwave plan agrees at 14 sites. Our frequency plan agrees 14 sites. I need an apples to apples comparison, 14 sites. And here are the sites.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Again if I understand correctly, they threw in an optional site on their own that wasn't the heart and sole of the project. It was a backup in case additional coverage would be necessary.
Mr. Fuller: It was my understanding, and I could be wrong, that the optional site was included in the coverage analysis.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Steve, with a short answer without any detail whatsoever was that critical to the integrity of the coverage or was that an option?
Mr. Shaver: Basically, it was included in the coverage that they provided to the County. We did not look at it and removed it from the mix to see what the percentage would be.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Why did they feel it was necessary to add that 15th site when there were 14 available?
Mr. Shaver: The only thing that I can think of is basically, I don't know if Motorola is still in the room, they put some pad just in case they do need an additional site as far as coverage is concerned. When we went into propagation we did not see the necessity for that site previously that is why the site was not there. What we've done as far as the consultants have done, if we can get the coverage level that we need within the county without that site.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Now with a yes or no answer from, Motorola for a moment, is that pretty accurate?
Mr. McGeary: Yes, the 15th site is included in our proposal. As Steve said, they specified the 14 and their feeling that coverage could be provided by 14. Our coverage projections predictions, we felt left some areas down in the southern end of the county that required an additional site. So we went out looking and identified an area where a site would go and included that in our proposal and price.
Mr. Hartwick: I guess there, in fact, remains that was the difference that was explained in the coverage which is a significant amount from the evaluators' standpoint based upon that additional tower site. I don't think it would make a difference in the overall suggestion of the group but that was a significant difference. I thought coverage would be more easily measured.
Mr. DiFrancesco: That issue, again would have an impact if in fact we go back and allow for that 15th site under M/A-COM, obviously there would be an impact on price. One is going to offset the other. Is that not true?
Mr. Fuller: It would depend on how many channels the site requires. We would need to know some specifications for that site.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Give me a ballpark.
Mr. Fuller: $200,000, depending on if you don't need tower shelters, generators, $200,000-300,000.
Mr. DiFrancesco: You're going to need that though. You will need that at every site.
Mr. Fuller: Not necessarily, depends on what the site is. If it is at the top of a building, then you don't need the tower. You use an equipment room as a shelter. The building could already have backup power. It is hard to say. I would say to give you a range $200,000-500,000.
Mr. McGeary: The site that was plugged in by Motorola included the shelters and buildings and all that other stuff. The other thing, too, is the fact that we don't even know the proposed site. I would imagine the utility would be, we would have to sit down and discuss. Nobody has negotiated with anybody yet as far as that site is concerned.
Mr. Hartwick: The other area that was extremely short changed and a big disparity from the evaluators' standpoint was the proposed technology. Judging by your earlier comments, you attributed that to bad PR, a lack of education?
Mr. Kohr: I think possibly a lack of education. I think that is part of it. I think the other thing is, going back and looking at it. If it would be the County's desire to go with Project 25, certainly we could go that way. There were three of us that took the vote at M/A-COM as to which way to go. Two of us chose to go with EDACS because we felt it would give you a bigger coverage area. There was one person that stood out and said, that we're going to bid P-25. Being a democratic society, he lost out. Hindsight being 20/20 we probably should have listened to Ray and his knowledge.
Mr. Fuller: The key is coverage, bottom line. You're buying coverage. At the end of the day you're buying coverage. If coverage already exists in Lebanon County with an EDACS system, that is just within my mind what I call a forced multiplier. That is just free coverage. EDACS gives you a clearer interoperability road map with Lebanon County. Operate out of the national capitol region, the DC area, in the 800 MHz world, in the national capitol region, my competitor has opened to ten systems out there for various counties, jurisdictions and municipalities. On 9/11, the whole key was the casualty fighting associated with the Pentagon was a success if you want to call it a success was because of the ability for uses in different jurisdictions to share each other's keys and log onto each other's system because they are all of the same frequency band, 800 MHz and my competitor's systems. Equally, here the ability to log on to the Lebanon County system to use that coverage that has already been purchased by Lebanon County...coverage didn't stop at the border. Coverage extends well into York County and back and forth to Derry Township, etc. That's really why we elected the EDACS technology for that coverage. Because you are buying coverage!
Mr. Hartwick: I asked the competitor also to define, if in fact they could, put a strategy together and a plan in order to gain outside funding. I think you answered that in a small way. Besides that, that one particular branch that you have been able to achieve, we heard a whole lot in the beginning of the presentation that Federal P-25 standard is obviously required in most of the grants and the proposals that they submitted with using the EDACS technology. Again if this is done as a stand alone system which you said there has been major emphasis on trying to be involved with a more regional system which may in fact be used in application if you'r talking about Cumberland, Lebanon, and Dauphin. Could you provide some comments?
Ms. Doherty: There are a lot of myths and misunderstandings in terms of what is available for federal funding. The federal government has not mandated that it has to be a P-25 system. What they are saying is that it needs to be P-25 compatible. Their goal is that it provides interoperability for whoever receives the funding. So, there is no P-25 mandate. With respect to finding additional funding, it is irrelevant whether or not you have a P-25 system. It's how you are going to be providing interoperability for your region or for the area. Newsome, Maryland's eastern shore is an example of that. What we provided was network first which is our interoperability product.
Mr. Hartwick: How quickly could you come up with a plan if in fact you were selected to provide, again, as I said, an itinerary or a list of objectives for the County to seek out resources?
Ms. Doherty: Similar, 30 days.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Just to be clear, within the price that has been offered, is that interoperability built into that contract price or is that additional to the contract price?
Ms. Doherty: Interoperability has been added into the number that you have seen, yes.
Mr. DiFrancesco: The numbers that we are looking at include that?
Ms. Doherty: Yes, there is additional interoperability as well which we can provide given the time frame that we are all working with the County. We have not looked at leveraging assets that the Commonwealth may have with respect to interoperability that would provide additional avenues for funding as well.
Mr. Hartwick: That makes sense. I'm going to ask this question and I know I stated it earlier, and Commissioner Haste also stated, what would you say to the first responders, who said in this process that clearly Motorola was the clear choice and you guys chose M/A-COM and there are problems and the reasons why? There are problems because you guys didn't listen to us.
Ms. Doherty: First of all, I would like to hear that from the first responders. I have not had the opportunity to talk to them other than in the oral presentation. I would love to hear what the first responders are looking for. With respect to the evaluation, etc., in their critiquing of our system, the only exposure that they have had to our proposal was in that one presentation that we had in April. Obviously given the timeframe that the County is working within, you know what you're seeing is that the first responders and the evaluation committee naturally are comfortable working with one vendor. So it is natural that they're going to be much more familiar and educated on that. Given that we just came into the process in the October timeframe, and that we did not have a specification to respond to, created a lot of ambiguity. So, I think that is what we are seeing with respect to the evaluation. The ambiguity that we didn't have a firm document to respond to. Typically when we do respond to RFP's it is a lot more clear in terms of what the needs of the first responders are.
Mr. Haste: The only comment I have is, you were doing well until you went there. As Ray reminded us, you have been at the table for a while. You were behind the shield of the Commonwealth. But to sit here and say you were surprised or didn't know what you were bidding on, is not very accurate because as long as I've been on this Board, in fact a year before I came onto this Board, the community of first responders and police chiefs have been talking about this. In fact, it was discussed with the Commonwealth and members of M/A-COM for years, probably up to four and one-half years already. So to say that you were surprised and didn't know what you were bidding on, can't be accurate because it has been out there.
Ms. Doherty: What I said was typically, there is a specification, very specific features, etc., that we respond to.
Mr. Haste: In the SSI document, the stuff that they put together, what the County was looking for, has been there. I saw it before I was a member of this Board. So, people can't say it wasn't out there. It was clearly out there. In fact, I can tell you, people from the PEMA staff had seen it. As a matter of fact, it was the director of PEMA who came to me and said, wait a minute, there is something else we can do here. He had seen documents. So there were clearly documents out there.
Ms. Doherty: There are documents out there. What I'm talking about is a specification. There was nothing that is typical to the industry in terms of responding to a specification. There are certainly documents. There certainly were sites that were provided to us. Again, I'm not faulting the County for this. I'm just saying, it's a function of having worked with a vendor to develop a system. So when we came in with respect to this procurement, this particular proposal, there was already a design in place that we were already bound to. With respect to our discussions and activities with the Commonwealth, that was a very different proposal in that, that was going onto the state system. So they are really apples and oranges to compare those two.
Mr. Haste: But the state clearly knew what our intention was. They were in a position of trying to persuade us otherwise.
Ms. Doherty: I'm not an employee of the Commonwealth.
Mr. Haste: I know but you were a partner with them. At least your company was.
Ms. Doherty: We responded to requests from the Commonwealth. Those are very different metes in terms of going on the state system.
Mr. DiFrancesco: The real challenge over the past few years has been that M/A-COM placed all the eggs in the state basket because at any point in time we could have been approached to say, we have an alternative product. Because really the last evaluation that was done on the state system was the second evaluation that was on the state system. So at the point in time when they made the first evaluation and said we're not interested, that was another open opportunity to come in and say, we're interested in having you check out this or...
Ms. Doherty: That's fair. I guess what I would say to that, is you talked earlier about partnership and we do partner with customers and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a customer of ours. Likewise, if we were to engage in a contract with Dauphin County, you would be a customer and a partner. If Harrisburg for an example were to go out and do their own system and you wanted them to come onto the County system, it would be comparable that we would work with Dauphin County to try and provide a solution to Harrisburg so that they did not go off independently. That is essentially what we are talking about.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Ultimately, I wasn't trying to fault you for that. It was just a strategy that sort of or not necessarily a strategy or a philosophy that you employed which again I'm not faulting you for it. But it is one of the issues that brought us to this position where the process is not as clear. It is sort of like the hindsight look back. When Dauphin County first started talking about this project, there was only one vendor in the market that was interested in doing it. That was the vendor that has been on it for three years. For over the three year period, other vendors have either acquired technology or.but at the same time realistically as a Board we have to look at it and say, it's not our fault that your opportunity came late in the game. That's not our fault. We have to sit back and some how with confidence identify what we feel is going to be the best proposal moving forward. It is a challenge to us and it is certainly a challenge to you. Although I am more concerned about our challenge because we need to get it right. You have your business reasons for wanting to be selected and everything. But we ultimately at the end of the day have to get a system built in the county. That is in fact, the best system for the first responders. To a degree, I do understand that the user community, the first responding community has a history and confidence in the competitor. I don't know how you ever overcome that. That is part of you business strategy as to how you reach out to them. But clearly, we have seen and I'm sure you have seen it, where there is a strong commitment there, at least in Dauphin County for those first responders towards Motorola. There is no doubt about it. Again, ultimately that's up to you to reach out to them and show them why the radios that you have work better or whatever it might be that you are saying that they would be as comfortable using.
One of the issues on this report, that jumped out, and again, the three mile coverage outside of the county, one of the comments that came from one of the reviewers, said that at your presentation they never got a clear answer on whether or not in fact there was going to be coverage for three miles outside the county all the way around. Can you answer that question today, whether or not the plan that you offered has that?
Mr. Fuller: I do not remember and I could be wrong, I do not remember the question about three miles outside the county. We provided coverage maps with our proposal. Typically, we design for coverage that exceeds the boundaries of a particular geographic area because users have to cross that boundary. I would like to get back with you and let the county know where we stand as far as how much coverage exceeds the geographic boundaries of Dauphin County. I do not remember that question. A lot of questions were asked that day.
Mr. DiFrancesco: That probably would be one of the reasons why somebody would come back and say they didn't clearly answer the question. They never really posed the question clearly.
Mr. Fuller: We would like to provide that information for you.
Mr. Haste: Is there anything else? (There was none.) I would like to say for my benefit to the first responders and the folks that are here, thanks for what you have done up to this point in time. I would also ask that having sat through this, if any of you have a difference of opinion of where we ought to go or if you have an opinion of where we ought to go and haven't communicated to date, I would ask that you do that. This has been an ongoing process. Part of it was this evaluation, part of our evaluation was the presentation by our consultant and part of it was today. In my mind the final part of my decision making process will be feedback that I've gotten from those in the community and those who will be dealing with this now that the information is out there. I would encourage anybody who has an opinion on this to let us know.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Once again, if the three chief's organizations can actively engage with their membership to make sure that we get that feedback, the feedback is critically important. The window is open right now but it is obviously closing. We're going to come to terms and make a decision on this very shortly. We don't want anybody to be left out there without making comments. We want to take it all in and understand exactly what is being said, why it is being said and at the end of the day, we want to make the best decision for the taxpayers and for of course the first responders, because obviously they are the ones that are putting their lives on the line everyday. They are the reason we are doing this.
Mr. Hartwick: We encourage your comments.
Mr. Saylor: Commissioners, for the record, as you know at every point in this process, we have shared information with the responder community with packets that have been presented to us. We have copied and shared with them and the evaluation has been shared with them. Commissioner DiFrancesco has been to all three chiefs groups. We have been keeping abreast of all of our meetings and sharing information with them.
PERSONNEL
Ms. Sinner: The first thing I have in the personnel packet are the salary board requests. Emergency Management is reclassifying their law enforcement coordinator position and creating an assistant manager of public safety & communication. Juvenile Probation is eliminating a supervisor in the electronic monitoring unit and creating a second assistant director position. They are also eliminating a juvenile probation officer II position and creating a juvenile probation officer I position.
Mr. Hartwick: I have some questions on all of those. Explain to me the reason behind the EMA change. Is this just a change of title?
Ms. Sinner: Apparently, they have updated the duties and responsibilities in the position and do want to compensate a person in the position. Right now the position is vacant. They'll be posting this position I presume to fill it.
Mr. Hartwick: Which position is this? The law enforcement coordinator?
Ms. Sinner: Yes, it is vacant.
Mr. Hartwick: They're just changing the title to add additional duties and responsibilities?
Ms. Sinner: Right and then paying a higher rate of pay. It is a higher pay range.
Mr. Hartwick: This is not going to include any additional county funds according to the funding source?
Ms. Sinner: No, it is Act 78.
Mr. DiFrancesco: It's 100%. But again those resources are limited.
Mr. Haste: It is 100% as long as they are still there.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Right.
Mr. Hartwick: What is the increase salary again?
Mr. DiFrancesco: $15.51 to $17.12.
Ms. Sinner: The person that was in the position is earning $24.96 so it is still less than what they were budgeted for. That was to give you an idea as to what was budgeted for that position. Plus it has been vacant for several months now.
Mr. Hartwick: I see Jeff Patton out there for the juvenile probation one. They're creating a second position that's similar to your position?
Mr. Patton: That is correct.
Mr. Hartwick: I know we are doing a whole lot more with electronic monitoring. We feel that's going to fall under those duties of this newly created position?
Mr. Patton: By taking four of our electronic monitoring officers and separating them into different units, and our second supervisor will oversee the unit.
Mr. Haste: The entire project, meaning the unit?
Mr. Patton: The project is the electronic monitoring.
Mr. Hartwick: What precipitated the change?
Mr. Patton: The employee numbers and the organization and they need to supervise ten folks, which is too many for one person to supervise as well, this means I will supervise five, and the other supervisors will supervise four.
Mr. Hartwick: From a budget standpoint, again I'm sure I'll get the answer, it's a revenue neutral move but what does this mean in the case of an additional salary for this particular position? Electronic Monitoring is going from what to what?
Ms. Sinner: That is $1,000 less based on what the other person was earning.
Mr. Patton: Dave Sheely will be retiring and the savings will be approximately $1,000 in salary.
Mr. Hartwick: For this year?
Mr. Patton: Correct.
Mr. Hartwick: I'm going to have some additional questions on that one as well. The elimination of a probation officer II and a creation of the I, what precipitated that?
Mr. Patton: We don't need the probation officer II position and we could utilize a probation officer I. In Harrisburg we don't need the premium pay position.
Mr. Hartwick: Okay, that one I can understand.
Mr. Haste: Jeff, between this week and next week, when you say you supervise nine, that is too many to supervise struck me as odd. Nine doesn't seem to me to be too many to supervise. Show me why.
Mr. Patton: I supervise ten.
Mr. Haste: Ten still doesn't seem to be many. In previous lives, I've supervised more than that and it worked. So convince me.
Mr. Patton: Right.
Mr. Hartwick: I would also like to take a look at that.
Mr. DiFrancesco: I'm convinced.
Ms. Sinner: There are several vacancies that we are requesting to fill; a per diem LPN at Spring Creek; program specialist I in Children & Youth; four caseworkers in Children & Youth; and a part-time caseworker intern; District Attorney's office is requesting to fill a deputy district attorney; and the Prothonotary's office has a vacancy in a teamsters clerk II position that will be up in August. They are requesting permission to fill it. Actually, there is a hire for that position in here also.
There are several positions approved by the President Judge that they are requesting to be filled. Domestic Relations an enforcement officer client service rep; department clerk II and department clerk I; Juvenile Probation a supervisor position, JPOII; assistant supervisor and two juvenile probation officer I's for intake and then a juvenile probation officer I for after care.
In the new hires, I will ask that you pull #21. Are there any questions?
Mr. Hartwick: I was wondering since Jeff is here, all the juvenile probation vacancies are they through attrition? Are they a result of Title IVE hiring? And this is sort of a trigger affect?
Mr. Patton: They are all through vacancies.
Mr. Haste: Are there six vacancies over there now?
Mr. Patton: We're asking for four.
Mr. Haste: No, you're asking to fill six.
Mr. Patton: We're asking to bring people from the outside.
Ms. Sinner: Some of them are being promoted from within.
Mr. Haste: Which will create another opening?
Ms. Sinner: I forget how many openings will be left.
Mr. Patton: Two will be left.
Mr. Hartwick: Which are created by the two promotions?
Mr. Haste: Right.
Ms. Sinner: An assistant supervisor is going to be promoted to a supervisor position.
Mr. Haste: Yes, there will be two vacancies left.
Ms. Sinner: Item #21 is to be pulled. This person has decided not to accept the position. Item #30, please change the start date to 8/29/05. Do you have any questions on the new