E911 Board approves purchase of radios

Washington County Communications Supervisor Cara Sorrells told the E911 Board Monday that it would cost over a quarter million dollars to replace all the mobile and portable radios for the Washington Police Department and Washington County Sheriff?s Department. After hearing from Sorrells, the board members agreed that the mobiles should be purchased. The board members told Sorrells to look into the possibility of offsetting the cost of the equipment with a Riverboat Foundation grant.

The mobile radios refer to the radios in the squad cars and the portable radios refer to the radios the officers carry on their person. Sorrells said that there are roughly 45 of each kind of radio in the county and that they were all purchased in 2000. She said the cost for replacing all of them is about $260,000. She said that they are past their life expectancy, and it is showing in the way they operate.

?They need lots of repairs,? she said. ?We have had problems with reception.?

The life span of the portable radios is six to eight years and the life span of the mobile radios is eight to 10 years.

Board member Bob Shelangoski asked Sorrells if it would be better to phase in the new equipment rather than buy it all at once. Sorrells said that she is able to get a better price on the equipment when she buys it in bulk, so she said it was better to buy it all at once.

Board member Jerry Kauffman said, ?I don?t think there?s going to be any advantage to phasing them in.?

Sorrells said that replacing all the radios at once would make training new officers easier since they would only have one style of radio to learn.

In an interview Tuesday, Washington Police Chief Greg Goodman said, ?These portables are past their life expectancy and it?s time to replace them. We?re having communication problems. I have concerns about that. We need the radios to be functioning in the field. When those officers need something out there, it?s important for their safety and the public?s safety that they be able to communicate.?

The board and the communications commission learned that the sheriff?s department would be receiving new software for the computers in its patrol cars. The software is known as ?Mach? and will allow the officers to do a number of new things. It will allow them to see on a screen where all the other patrol cars are that are using Mach, which includes vehicles of the city police, the Department of Transportation and the Iowa State Patrol.

Mach will allow officers to run queries on driver?s licenses and license plates for information about those vehicles, such as to see if they are stolen. The software will also allow the officers to send instant messages to one another without tying up their radios.

The sheriff?s department hopes to have Mach up and running in four of the sheriff?s department?s cars in the next month, and that the department will have up to six in the near future. Mach software will be added to other cars as they are replaced.

Since more patrol cars will be using Mach, there will likely be more queries to process license plate information, and that the communications commission will likely see a higher bill for this processing service in the future. Sheriff?s deputies are being trained to use Mach this week.