Subject: [NEXTEL-1] ETSB to help county pursue radio grant

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2003 05:13:22 -0400

ETSB to help county pursue radio grant
By Kevin Simpson
Pantagraph staff

BLOOMINGTON -- The Emergency Telephone Systems Board has approved a spending up to
$733,000 so McLean County can pursue a federal grant to pay its way into a
statewide emergency radio system.

The ETSB's approval of matching money followed the county board's decision on
Tuesday to work with St. Clair County for the grant. The two counties would share
a $6 million federal anti-terrorism grant to pay for their joining the StarCom 21
radio network Motorola is building for the Illinois State Police. The StarCom 21
system would allow McLean County to replace the trouble-plagued E.F. Johnson
800-MHz radio system. McLean County's share, based on population, would be $2.2
million. That amount would require $733,000 in local matching money to secure the
grant.

Federal and local funding would be used to buy communication consoles, equipment
that would link various radio systems and radios for the McLean County Sheriff's
Department, Normal police and rural police, among other agencies. Rural fire
departments would continue to be alerted by a 100-MHz paging system. But, ETSB
member and Bloomington Police Chief Roger Aikin questioned whether his department
would later be allowed to share in the equipment purchased through the grant. The
city of Bloomington declined an invitation to be included in the grant proposal,
said Aikin.

Last year, the city of Bloomington asked the ETSB to reimburse the city for
$365,000 in radio equipment purchased by the Bloomington Police Department. The
city quit using the countywide 800-MHz system more than a year ago, and later
submitted a bill for its new radio system to the ETSB. The ETSB tabled the
request. "Who's going to foot the bill if Bloomington wants to join?" Aikin said.
"You haven't paid the last bill we brought to you for radio equipment." The ETSB
voted on Tuesday without settling the billing issue, in part so the county could
pursue the grant in time to meet the Aug. 1 deadline.

Bloomington City Manager Tom Hamilton, contacted after the ETSB meeting, said the
city is content with its 400-MHz system and that he was unfamiliar with the
StarCom grant proposal.

The Normal Police Department also spent more than $100,000 to upgrade its former
400-MHz radio system, which is still in use. Police Chief Walt Clark, also an ETSB
member, said his department wants to join the statewide system.

http://www.pantagraph.com/stories/072303/new_20030723006.shtml

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