From the Lees Summit Journal....Today
If the tornado that hit Lee’s Summit in July had been a big one, not only would damage have been worse, but the city’s response would have been hampered by out-of-date radios, Police Chief Travis Forbes says.
Forbes and Fire Chief Rick Poeschl at Thursday’s Lee’s Summit City Council meeting requested money to improve the city’s communications system and to relocate Fire Station 3 to a larger facility farther north in town.
The new communications system is estimated to cost $6.5 million to $7.5 million, Forbes said. The fire station would cost about $5 million.
The council agreed to ask its Finance and Budget Committee to work with the city’s Finance Department on suggestions for paying for the improvements.
Forbes said that all of the cities and agencies surrounding Lee’s Summit are on the Metropolitan Area Regional Radio System. It extends over the region on both sides of the state line.
“All of our partners are digital,” Forbes said. “We would have communication issues; our system will not work with their systems.”
In 2010, city leaders decided to upgrade the department’s radio system, spending about $2 million financed through a bond issue. The city at that time chose not to join the regional network as a cost-saving measure.
It did upgrade equipment to meet Federal Communications Commission standards for “narrow banding” but is still using a conventional radio system, while other departments are using digital systems.
Narrow banding was a change in regulations for using radio frequencies that the federal government mandated to clear up airwave congestion.
Forbes said Lee’s Summit’s current system isn’t “garbage” and works well within the city. Where it fails is when police try to coordinate with other departments.
Forbes gave examples.
He said several months ago, Independence was pursuing a murder suspect who fled into Lee’s Summit. Independence dispatchers had to contact by telephone Lee’s Summit dispatchers, who would relay information to Lee’s Summit officers, instead of the officers hearing information being directly broadcast by Independence.
Forbes said the delays made it more difficult to apprehend the suspect.
When Independence had a mass disturbance at a shopping center, its police department called Kansas City and Blue Springs for mutual aid. Lee’s Summit had officers who were close by in the north part of town but weren’t called because of the communication snags.
“It increases safety to police and firefighters,” Forbes said.
Then there was the EF1 tornado that touched down near Chipman and Douglas, and lesser storms in other parts of the city.
“Had it caused more damage, it would have caused a lot of communication problems,” Forbes said.
He said field sergeants have some dual-use radios with conventional and digital capabilities. That helps, but doesn’t correct other inadequacies of Lee’s Summit’s equipment, like lack of redundancy in case part of the system fails, Forbes said.
If a natural disaster or other problem takes down a radio tower in Lee’s Summit, for example, it will leave a hole in communications.
The metropolitan area system has other advantages. The city could use it for other departments and it would make radio communications easier between all employees and other cities, Forbes said.
Poeschl, in an interview, said the fire department faces the same difficulty.
“We are unable to communicate directly with other agency units,” Poeschl said. “We have to go through their dispatch center, who relays the information to their units. This can cause not only delays, but the possibility of misinterpretation of the information. That is not an optimal situation.”
Councilman Derek Holland asked Forbes to further research future technology, so if the city does invest money joining the Metropolitan Area Regional Radio System, it won’t be in the same situation after five years. “Are there other technologies that will make MARRS obsolete?” he asked.