E-911 suffers setback
Board unsure of projected
start-up date
"You know, I built a bicycle
when I was 11 years old. It worked, but it never worked as well as the
one that came from one company."
— DENNIS WRIGHT, Blaine
County Commissioner
By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer
Implementation of Emergency 911
services in Blaine County has been set back from a projected July
start-up date.
It is unclear at this time when
the E-911 infrastructure might be in place to begin serving county
citizens, said Blaine County Communication Center Board Chairman Ron
LeBlanc.
The Blaine County Commission voted
unanimously on Monday, March 22, to authorize the communication center
board to spend $30,000 on consulting services with a Minneapolis company
called GeoCom.
Under the contract, GeoCom, which
under a separate contract is cataloguing Blaine County’s streets and
addresses for a central E-911 database, will recommend what electronics
equipment the county needs to implement the service.
However, the vote was identical to
one the commission made in January.
"In January, we had arrived
approximately at that same position," Commission Chairman Dennis Wright
said. "We also thought that sometime down the road, we need to be able
to bypass that, provided that the group of five (governing board
members) were willing to sit through a presentation."
Wright said he did not sign the
authorization papers following the January vote so that communications
center board members could sit though a presentation from CML Emergency
Services, a company that manufactures E-911 communications systems.
That presentation occurred Friday,
March 19.
Wright said he believes Blaine
County should strongly consider a company like CML because it can
provide all of the equipment and support that is needed.
"I’m just fully confident that
they’re a company that knows what they’re doing," Wright said.
But under the contract, it is
GeoCom that is supposed to "help the governing board with these
difficult decisions," said Ketchum Fire Chief Greg Schwab in January.
Blaine County Commissioner Sarah
Michael pushed Monday for quick approval of the contract with GeoCom.
"The board has sat on this
contract for two months," she said. "It seems to me that we should move
forward with this contract unless both of you (fellow commissioners)
feel like you want to move forward with CML."
Though he voted for the GeoCom
contract, Wright said he is concerned that the consultant might
recommend an electronic infrastructure that is put together from
different vendors.
"It would seem to me, it’s not the
smartest way to go to buy a work station from one vendor and a smart box
from another," he said. "You know, I built a bicycle when I was 11 years
old. It worked, but it never worked as well as the one that came from
one company."
GeoCom’s work will be funded by a
$1-per-month tax on telephone lines that was approved by county voters
in November 2002 for the express purpose of establishing an E-911
system.
By December 2004, the land-line
and a separate cellular telephone tax are predicted to bring in
$626,600.
LeBlanc said Geocom’s street and
address catalog is on schedule for a June completion.