Worden addresses communications before chamber

BREWSTER – Mike Worden, the chief deputy for special ops/communications for the Okanogan County Sheriff’s Office address members of the Brewster Chamber of Commerce at their regular meeting on Wednesday, August 7, on the subject of the infrastructure improvement initiative that will appear on the Nov. 5 general election ballot.
The measure asks voters to approve a two-tenths of one percent sales tax increase to pay for upgrades to the county’s emergency communications facilities. The Okanogan County Commissioners approved the ballot proposition at a July 5 public hearing. Worden has been speaking before chamber and council groups to raise awareness about and support for the system improvements.
Worden advised chamber members that the existing system is nearing the end of its useful life and needs the upgrades to accommodate the future needs of citizens who rely on a fast and efficient communications network to ensure public safety. Some components for the current system are no longer manufactured and maintenance support will end in 2020.
The current analog system forces all services – emergency, fire, law enforcement, and medical to use the same single channel on an infrastructure that has not undergone any significant improvements for several decades. Worden compared the present system limitations to lightbulbs with individual switches in a room.
“If you switch on one bulb it illuminates that immediate area but does not light the rest of the room,” said Worden. “Our current system can only handle one message to one location at a time.”
Worden used an example of multiple events involving medical, law enforcement, fire, and EMS calls occurring in the same time frame and the difficulty maintaining fast and efficient communications during concurrent emergencies.
The proposed design for an upgraded system calls for a four-channel, simulcast, public safety radio system with the capacity for a law channel, fire channel, EMS channel, and an emergency/public works channel. The new system will include multiple repeater sites in a zone that can broadcast simultaneously so that all zones can hear the radio traffic.
The approved measure would provide an estimated $5 million that would “be used solely for emergency communications systems and facilities,” the commissioners resolution said. the funding process would include the creation of a 161 Fund to ensure the dollars are used as intended in coordination with an advisory committee comprised of commissioner, sheriff, fire, EMS, and city law enforcement representatives.
The four upgrade priorities in order of importance would include:
1. Improve communications infrastructure capacity and efficiency;
2. Offset operational costs;
3. Replacement set aside;
4. Dispatch facility planning.
The infrastructure timeline projection predicts:
2019 – Establish advisory committee.
2020 – Finalize system specs/design/bid/contracts.
2021 – Frequency coordination.
2022 – Start system build
2023 – Complete system build.
Worden said the benefits of the new system would include improved services for all users and better coordination between agencies; reduced liability exposure; and improved planning for future needs. The latter would include planning for the next hardware refresher in 10-15 years without the need for outside financing. Worden projects that the upgrade will result in a 60-65 percent cost reduction to the cities in 2021.