 Can you hear me? Yes. Yeah, so it's, it's me here. It's me here at city hall and I'm with. I'm with Steven Whitaker. Okay. All right, I'm going to open up the meeting. And. My clock, it's a 633 or 1833 depending on how you count. And the first item on the agenda is to approve the agenda. So I assume that everybody's. Got a chance to see it and look at it. Approval. I hear a motion for approval and a second by. Second. Thank you, Sally. All those in favor signify by indicating I. Hi. Hi. Okay. And the next item on the agenda is public comments. Is there anybody in the public that would like to comment? And I think that includes Doug and Joe. Even Steven. Okay. Even has a public comment. Okay. One's, one's more is. I'd like to be able to comment on the plan later on is that. It's discussed if it's appropriate. Mr. Chair. Mr. Chief chair. This is more of a process issue. The. The warning meeting warning was not sent to the city clerk nor posted in city call. And that's, that's a violation of open reading law. And we need to be rigorously diligent about that. Especially when we're. Making efforts to legitimize public safety. Organizations. And we need to make sure that we don't seem to. Uh, wrestle with this issue. So, uh, That's, that's just for the record and for the minutes that. We need to make sure that. The town's both very mob failure. Uh, capital fire doesn't have a particular town call to post it in, but. That's the way the law reads. Understood. Understood. I can't have a valid meeting. But I don't think you're taking any binding action tonight. So you can decide. Kim, whether you want a candidate or not. Well, I think we need a. Properly warm meeting to take binding action. I think you stated that. Yeah, but you don't have any plan. I haven't reviewed the agenda. Do you have anything binding? So maybe wait and approve the minutes. At a subsequent meeting. Or Jardie do that. No, we have not gotten there. Yeah, I see there's a. Doc you sign account. No, those are just balances. There's no. I don't know. You decide you're running the meeting. Kim can advise you chief. Well, I'd like to hear what the rest of the board feels about the issue of store that we continue with a meeting or we. Cancel it for a subsequent three. I'm not sure that. That's the right thing to do. I think we can continue. We've got two people here to discuss the project at the very least. We owe it to them to, to hear what they have to say, I think. I totally agree. I agree with that. Just withhold any formal votes. I want to. You know, with the people that showed up. Absolutely. I think we should hear. From Rick, I think earlier we discussed. 15 minutes or so. I want to hear from the very folks. Because I think they have a lot to say about this project. All right, having, having discussed that a little bit there, let's move on to the next item. Let me back up. Are there any other public comments? Not hearing anybody that wishes to. Offer any public comment. Glad to see Steve. We want the next time, which is to approve the minutes of June 10. 2021. We'll repass that. So you're going to be the designated second. Yeah. Motion made to approve in second. All those. Doug, Doug, you missed him. You didn't hear Kim's comment. He said we should pass that. If you don't have a proper warning, you shouldn't be taking any votes. I think all we should do is hear from Televay. And comment on the plan. Is that a legal opinion, Kim? Or is that just an opinion based on how you feel? No, I think we don't have a valid meeting. We shouldn't be taking binding votes. I don't want to deal with the minutes another time. I think the business of this meeting is to hear from. Dairy folks that have put so much energy and thought into this. I want to know what they think. Okay. In the interest of moving along and not delaying this anymore. The third item on the agenda approval of the minutes. Is tabled until the next meeting. The fourth item on the agenda was the approval of payments to. The, the last item. Poco. Donna. Brent. No. I go and tell him, Brent has. Brent has distributed the documents to all the board members for a. Doc you sign. I've signed it. I've seen where some others have signed it. Right. Has that pretty much been done? Yeah, it's everyone except. Everyone except myself has signed it coincidentally enough. So. That's where we're at. Okay. I think there's enough approvals. And. Unless anybody objects, can we get a motion to approve the. The payment. I'm not going to object, but I think it's a problem. I think these folks should be paid. We have an approval or not. Motion. It's our motion to approve payment. I'll move it. Anybody second it. No, I'm not. I'll second it. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed. Motion carries. Move on to item number five with this. Telecom report presentation by, by Rick and Dominic. Very glad you guys are able to get up here and join us today. And. Look forward to hearing what you have to add to our discussions. So I'll turn it over to you guys and do what you got to do. Thank you. Mr. Chair for sitting chair. And, and so before we get started, I, and we will, we have a presentation and be happy to bring it up, but be. Before we get started on behalf of myself and Dominic and everybody on the television, we really. You know, appreciate, we want to share our appreciation to CVP as a, and to all of the dedicated public safety leadership and other professionals who supported and participated in the needs assessment project. I can tell you to dominate our very impressed with the, the dedication and commitment. Of all of the folks that participated in this project. We're very grateful that they made themselves available. Openly shared ideas and recommendations and information. And, you know, you folks are. Are very amazing for what you do to support your community and, and the safeguard, the public safety. And the first responders who utilize the, the central Vermont communication systems. So, you know, we're, we're just, we're very fortunate to be able to support you and your assessment of your, your, your current status and, and to help provide. Ideally have provided some recommendations that, that will, you know, further support of your endeavor to, you know, to address the existing gaps in communications for public safety and your sort of the communities you serve. Dominic, anything you want to say before we get started. Well, I certainly echo those comments, Rick, and also want to thank the team for their outstanding hospitality during the time I was on site reviewing site. The site locations and taking measurements and got a ride from Joe on his four wheeler and we just had a great time. So with that said, I want to bring up the presentation. However, sharing has been disabled. So whoever set up the, the zoom meeting has got to facilitate screen sharing. I'm trying to do that right now. Thank you, friend. We have our chief technician that's going to take care of. Geez, I wouldn't call me that. Looks looks like that could looks like that. That's okay now. I just came up. Yeah. Okay. So you're able, are you, are you good? Yep. You, you did it. Okay. Whatever you did work just fine. All right. So let me see. Let me get this screen shared. Let me know when you could see it. As soon as you told me you could see it. I'll put it in the presentation mode. Yep, I can see it. All right. You can all see a larger screen now. Yeah, that's better. Thank you. Very good. Okay. So, so Dom and I are going to, we're going to share different aspects. So I'll get us started. Dom will participate in the middle and then. And, and, and then I'll take over and both of us will, we'll conclude. So, you know, you know, this project here, what we've, what we're about to, to convey to you verbally that, you know, we, we've summarized our report. And I don't know if any of you have had a chance to review it or skim it or studied it and have, if you have no one sent us questions in advance, but you know, I think what we have, we were or suggested that we do is that members of the board can ask questions at any given time and other questions could be left to the end, but I mean, we're willing to entertain questions. However, you, you best think, but with that said, Steve, go ahead. I'm sorry, I, I got in late. I just wanted to double check is the meeting being recorded Doug. I have to ask. Yes, it's, it's being recorded by Orca. So that should be, that should be good to go. Great. Thank you. Okay, so with that said, we're going to review the project objectives, the project scope of talk to you about the, you know, the interviews and the data gathering, present key findings, recommendations and next steps and, and then certainly an open discussion. But as I said, you know, the content is very familiar to most of you. So you should be, you should certainly know where we're going and what we're talking about, but, but don't hesitate to ask any questions. We can entertain those and still maintain the pace. So, I mean, the goal really here is recording in progress. I'm recording on my end too. Okay. Got it. Sorry about that. It's all right. I'm going to shut down that. I got to hide this. All the, all of the videos are covering my presentation. All right, so, let's see what we got here. Let me go back. Let's slide. All right. So in terms of project objectives, I, the, the CV is CV PSA request for proposal is very thorough. I mean, it's a comprehensive document and basically our, our objectives were to document and assess existing public safety communication systems and solutions. And as part of that effort, we certainly assess the central fire mutual aid system. The Montpelier radio communication systems and the, and the Barry city communication systems. And the, the city of Montpelier radio communication systems. We have the opportunity to evaluate it radio networks. And dispatch capabilities. Dom had a, had the opportunity to, to conduct a few days on site. Radio site visits and. And also visit dispatch centers and others. And so we, we were able to, you know, gather and document the information about your existing systems. systems and tend to determine options and costs to upgrade the systems to meet the end user requirements. And we've endeavored also in this presentation to provide some clear next step recommendations for you to guide you along this process. So these are the high level tasks. The way the RFP was written there were two primary tasks stated, and then within each of these, there was a number of sub tasks and we addressed each of those sub tasks within our report. And you know, I mean, I think this just this just clarifies the gold complete a region wide assessment of existing public safety communication systems and defied stakeholder requirements and then propose solutions with design and cost estimates for resolving indoor and outdoor radio dead zones in Barry City, Montpelier, and for the CFMAS service area. So that was what was documented there. This service area map we created along the way through our interviews indicate, you know, who was responsible for for serving what areas. And that there's a number of documents that we've created along the way that will that will be valuable to to you and we'll come, you know, we'll transfer them over to you after after this presentation over the next few days. So what I wanted to do is for those of you who are familiar with or and those of you are not familiar with the interoperability continuum. This interoperability continuum is an important, you know, represents a best practice guide for advancing public safety communication systems and practices to reach a greater state of regional local interoperability. And this this enter this continuum has actually been a guide to many jurisdictions and to us as a company in in assisting jurisdictions and regional independent local and regional and statewide efforts on advancing interoperability. So there's there's, you know, those these five key tenants governance, you know, which CVPSA has really done a good job of developing a governance, a standard operating procedures to guide use of communications and how you communicate with whom you communicate when you communicate with them during day to day and large scale events. The technologies that public safety uses to to advance public safety communications and there are there are two breakdowns here. One is is on the data elements. And so it's bifurcated through data and through voice. And, you know, basically, you know, we swap radios or we have a gateway or shared channels or a proprietary shared system or standard base shared system. There are these these are basically milestones that you would reach to achieve the highest level of interoperability. And we've got training and exercises and then just use of the networks. And so whenever to elevate supports are our public safety clients on their public when they're communication requirements, you know, this is really a foundation for us that we can assess where you are relative to these tenants and then to provide recommendations and and and solutions to advance communications along the way. And so this is this document was developed or this this continue was developed a number of years ago by the Department of Homeland Security and has become kind of a standard best practice for all of us in this industry. Any questions about that? All right, so with that said, let me talk about the stakeholder requirements survey. So what we did is what we facilitated interviews, direct interviews with stakeholders. And we also conducted an online survey. The idea of the online survey was to broaden the scope to give more stakeholders in the community an opportunity to provide information. And and we, you know, we had a successful online survey. And we'll talk a little bit more about that in a second. Basically, the requirements was based on regional public safety stakeholders and other interested party participants. And I've got a list of who participated in that. Our goal is really to facilitate an open discussion and communications to define critical requirements for public safety communications and identify the gaps. And importantly, we wanted to use this as a means to build constructive relationships. You know, we we, Dom and I took a great deal of effort to develop questionnaires and and and and to facilitate conversations and to, you know, build some trust within the community. You know, coming in as an outsider of the community, experts in the industry, we wanted to be sure that we were able to convey our knowledge and to ensure that the community was felt good about sharing their ideas with us. And so we had a great great participation for all the stakeholders. So really turned out to be a valuable exchange of ideas and information and certainly supporting that. I mean, and and and Joel's worth and others were really instrumental in providing us, you know, a tremendous amount of information about the existing systems. It was it took us a little bit of time to get it all straight. But we eventually figured it out. And so it was very it was documented. But the information that was provided became the foundation to the to the ongoing work. So in terms of information and requirements gathering, here are those that we had direct conversations with. And, you know, from from obviously the key leadership and public safety on the fire and police side, medical services as well and potential partners in the region, CV Fiber and West Washington Electric, the Vermont Electric Company to other interested parties and stakeholders in the community. I was really grateful for Carl Rinker to participate. He he operated known to a number of radio towers and he's since retired. But, you know, he made himself available. Joe also reached out to and made himself available. And we had a good conversation with him about, you know, his thoughts on on available radio towers for, you know, for the network. So, you know, we we really had an important and very involved participation from the stakeholder community. And the information that they provide has really created the foundation for for the report and, you know, documenting of requirements and recommendations. So we have a question. Yes, sir. Do you have an inventory of the equipment? We have an inventory of some of the equipment. I'm not Don and Don man's better at answering that because he did he did the site visits. Tommy available. I'm sorry. I was on me. Yes, we have a high level inventory of the equipment at the sites, the site locations and the equipment there. We have a rough estimate from the survey of the user equipment, the mobiles and portables. And I noticed you suddenly meeting. Approximately 250 new radios. You have an inventory of the ones that need to be replaced. No, we don't. No, we don't know that. Those numbers were provided by by the stakeholders. So we, you know, we didn't our process. Our program wasn't capable of identifying all the existing radios. But but Joe and others provided numbers that that we, you know, we took as as a basis for for estimating the cost to replace those radios. Sorry about that. I jumped out of the slide. But as you can see, we, you know, we had what is it? A total of 20, 30, 30 responded, responded to the survey. And as you can see on the left, that's who the responders were. I mean, the Capitol Farm, the participants were, or, you know, definitely the most represent the most of the responders to the survey. And we did include in the report and an appendix, an assessment of of the those who participated in their comments. So that is in the report as an appendices. And we, you know, we summarized some of their responses. But we took into consideration everything that was told to us through an interview, as well as what was provided to us via this survey. All right. So that said, you want to talk about requirements and recommendations that came out of the report, came out through the findings through the, you know, what we interviewed and what we defined as the requirements of the stakeholders and then, you know, recommendations that we developed within the report. And I'm going to I'm going to take over for this section here. Great. Thank you, Eric. Welcome. Yes, it was it was obvious as we talked with the stakeholders. Right. As we were talking with the stakeholders, identifying a number of specific requirements and that led us to various recommendations that were quite evident as we worked through the project. Certainly one of the primary recommendations and key items for improving communications within Central Vermont for the fire and EMS personnel was a regional system, a regional LMR system. Of course, that should be standards based P 25 capable. Those of you who are familiar with public safety communications know that P 25 is standard developed many years ago by Epco. And it is been adopted by numerous agencies. And it is currently a requirement to comply with P 25 in order to receive some funding sources. So certainly P 25 is a recommendation. The network we would recommend would be what we call dual mode or be able to support both P 25 or analog communications. Your current system is an analog system. So the radios in use today support analog. So having both would allow you to do a gradual transition as radios can be replaced and that are P 25 capable. Of course, we want to we'll talk a little bit more about the number of sites and the base stations and towers in order to provide sufficient coverage throughout the service area. There is currently interference experienced on the capital fire system from other users of the same channels in different parts of the state and northern part of the state as well as experienced from Canada as well. So certainly having sufficient channels and interference free channels is a key necessity for reliable public safety communications as well as full dispatch channels. Currently something we don't see too much any very often, but currently the capital fire and the city of Barry fire use the same frequency for dispatching and communicating from the field. It's not a frequency pair as we typically see. It's a single frequency used in what's called a simplex mode. So the same frequency is used to dispatch to page and to talk back to dispatch from the field that creates congestion and some self interference and recommendation is to migrate to a simulcast repeated system as we'll discuss a little bit later. Additionally, to extend the coverage, we recommend utilizing vehicular repeaters. And also there is a concern of being able to monitor activities on the on scene on the fire ground. So we recommend additional receivers for the tech channels so that dispatch can monitor activity. The dispatch consoles used a dumb kind of time in it before you move on. I'd like to be really direct here. Your current radio network is is is certainly not serving the needs of your first responders in your community. It is it is barely functional. And the way it is functional is because there's been a tremendous work arounds. You know, their first responders have figured out how the network works and how it doesn't work. And they've employed some some creative means to ensure that they get communications delivered both from simulcast from the dispatch centers to and from the the first responders in the field. So it is your network is is one of is certainly at great risk to to your communities and your first responders. So the way it's currently configured. And I don't I think I'm telling you anything that that was not known before, you know, before we were asked to come in and do this report. But but I just want to the recommendation here is is that networks and there's actually, you know, the way it's designed. It's a, you know, they're they're they're independent networks. So they work together. But but what the cities have and what CFM ASAP are really, you know, just barely functioning, in my opinion, at the stage of the game. Yeah, I absolutely agree. It's just a testament to the public safety team there in the area that they've been able to make it as effective as it is. But the tools that they have at their disposal right now are far from state of the art. Also, we would recommend upgrade to dispatch consoles. There are both the consoles used at both the dispatch facilities, both the city of Montpelier and Berry City are out of manufacturer service, no longer supported. And they are and they are different manufacturers, different models currently. We would recommend common consoles to facilitate backup and redundancy and also, of course, upgrading to get current equipment that is supported by the manufacturer and not subject to failure. Also, one of the key things that the central Vermont team has done there is created a connection, a fiber connection between the two PSAPs between the Montpelier and Berry City Dispatch Centers, which has helped certainly in coordination and use of that single frequency resource and reduce congestion. And some we certainly applaud that activity and we recommend making that circuit redundant because that's going to play even more important part in the recommended regional system. Please, Carl. We also there was a recommendation both from dispatch and from, you know, fire and the police regarding a computer a dispatch system. The what you currently have is more or less a records management system, the BALCOR system, and it is not a standard CAD system. And, you know, dispatch certainly is more effective when they operate utilizing a CAD system. So what we did find out on Poco informed us earlier this week that the state of Vermont has advanced a relationship with VALCOR to develop a CAD. And there's information that Poco is going to make available about making that CAD system available to local jurisdictions. So we should follow up on that because, you know, it's been, it's been recommended as requested and recommended that we recommend that you have one. And perhaps there's a there's a shortcut to getting it through a collaboration with the state of Vermont. Great, along with the upgraded system that we are recommending the regional LMR system. As was mentioned earlier, we would recommend that the radios be replaced as well. Many of these radios have served their users for many, many years and are reaching end of life and also to support the additional features and to support the recommended P-25 standard. We recommend updating the radios and also having a cache of spare radios that would be used for distributing to additional potential users during a critical incident or to other users who have come in from outside of the central Vermont area to assist in a mutual aid scenario. Also on the police side, while the police system is operating and for the most part meeting the needs of the law enforcement within central Vermont, there are additional requirements for an additional site to improve coverage, primarily in building coverage. The coverage requirements of the city of Montpelier and Barrie PD are much more limited than the fire, capital fire requirements, of course, because they go out throughout the entire county. The city requirements are more limited, so generally meets their requirements except in building situations. Some of the additional sites that we are recommending for the fire regional system could potentially be used to enhance coverage within the city of Montpelier. Also for additional coverage enhancement, vehicular repeaters would also be a good instrument to use for police. And finally, we recommend and creating a regional task force to help in increase interoperability throughout the area, both for the city police, the county and state as well. Can I ask a question? Just the term interoperable interoperability. Can you explain what that means to a neophyte like me? Interoperability refers to the ability different users or different agencies to be able to communicate together effectively. Just to add to what Dominic is saying, we have an ongoing and we're resolving it, but we've had an ongoing problem in this country regarding public safety communications. Agencies were using VHF, UHF 700, 800 megahertz, some are conventional, some are analog, somalcast, some are trunked, some are full somalcast systems. So the variety of different technologies and frequency bands that are used has created disparity between first responders and their ability to communicate with one another. For example, even in central Vermont and throughout the state of Vermont, you have fire departments in central Vermont on using the VHF frequency. However, the police are using the UHF frequency. So in order to facilitate a direct radio-to-radio communications between those two disciplines, you have to build a bridge, a gateways. And so the same is true, not just it's between the regional and the state. So within your own region, you've got the Capitol Police and you've got a number of first responders from on the fire side and police and they all have different radios and frequencies. So you have challenges today in facilitating an interoperable communication between them. On the data side, it gets a lot more challenging on data, but just on the radio, you already have some challenges within your own community. Thank you, that helps. I appreciate it. Yes, sir. Pleasure. I wanted to bring out too, for on the police LMR, Montpelier Police Chief did put in his budget in an additional radio site. And we were able to review that. And it also requested some additional vehicle repeaters. The police in Montpelier do use some vehicle repeaters, but they're not in all their vehicles. The third item on the tactical force, that's in the regional tactical force, they also have disparate radio communication issues that have to be addressed. Okay, Don. Thank you, Rick. Yes, sir. Another opportunity to enhance the public safety communications within the region is to utilize, make utilization of broadband systems and applications. As many of you may be aware, there is a current trend for public safety agencies to embrace broadband communications. And there are many applications being developed that support police and fire operations. Some of those that we commonly see are situational awareness applications that assist law enforcement departments, building plans and pre-plan opportunities that support fire departments, and also the capability to transmit securely transmit patient information for EMS departments. Those are some of the applications. This of course does require broadband connectivity and broadband cellular coverage, which is a challenge in the central Vermont area much as the LMR coverage is. But there are ongoing efforts to improve that. There is an organization known as FirstNet, the first responder network authority, which was developed, which was instituted by an act of Congress back in 2012 to enhance broadband communications for public safety. There was a plan put together for each state to enhance the coverage and to provide priority access for public safety for broadband connectivity. So we would encourage the state to work with the chosen provider for FirstNet, which is AT&T, work with the chosen provider and the FirstNet authority to get regular updates on the improvements in coverage that FirstNet and AT&T are working and provide input to FirstNet to help improve coverage within the central Vermont area. Once you have more reliable broadband network, you can implement some of those applications I discussed earlier. Another application is push to talk over cellular, PTT over cellular and a special condition of that, which is mission critical push to talk, which is directly applicable to public safety. Once you have coverage, those types of applications can be used on responder smartphones and can help improve the access to push to talk services for the users. And can potentially expand the coverage of the LMR system to other areas that could be covered by a broadband system. So we would recommend developing a strategic plan to address these issues, the coverage, the specific application requirements by the different disciplines, how the data will be controlled, how it will be housed and secured, and also how it can be shared between agencies. You know, if I could add to that, we brought attention to both the push to talk over cellular and the mission critical push to talk. The mission critical push to talk application capabilities are only gonna be offered by FirstNet. Push to talk over cellular is also offered by Verizon and AT&T. So AT&T FirstNet, they'll provide a mission critical push to talk, but there's, the number of committees that we work in, Verizon is much better a provider of broadband service. So in those environments where Verizon is better, push to talk over cellular is a preferred application for push to talk over the broadband networks. The push to talk over cellular and mission critical push to talk can be interoperable with your land mobile radio network. So users that have those applications and services on their smartphones can have a direct connection and communicate directly with a land mobile radio users who are responding to an incident or otherwise. And that's the advantage of these. They give you another tool in your communication chest that can be used. Unfortunately, the issue for central Vermont is that outside of your city environments, there's not good service. So you don't have reliable broadband service from any of your providers throughout the extended geographic area. So there may be, the use of these might be restricted to managers, to leaders, to chiefs and deputy chiefs, but it is an evolving tool. It's a lot cheaper than minor radio in some cases, but it does provide you a potential alternative to provide interoperability with land mobile radio. All right, Tom, you wanna keep going? Sure, absolutely. Another area that we explored and documented in the report was the opportunity to partner with other central Vermont entities. Certainly the improvements that we are recommending that are necessary for public safety communications within the area require assets and require ways to implement that. There are other entities within the area who have similar objectives and require similar connectivity and communications. We spoke with a number of them and we did confirm that there are opportunities for sharing of assets and sharing of objectives. CV Fiber is one entity that is deploying broadband connectivity to various areas throughout the state, including the central Vermont area. They are focusing on currently underserved or unserved areas. And we did evaluate their proprietary under an NDA. We have evaluated their proprietary build out plans and found out that there are some potential opportunities to provide connectivity to some of the proposed communication sites that we are recommending for the regional system. Similarly, Washington that uses LMR communications as well. So they have radio tower assets and there's also a potential for cooperating with them as well. We spoke with them. They are interested in working with the CVPSA and helping out public safety however they can. Similarly, Velco or Vermont Electric Power also has a statewide radio system for their operation. It is an LMR system. They have a number of towers in the central Vermont area. We specifically, they identified three towers that are recommended for the regional system, which they have fiber and or microwave connectivity to. So that's a very key issue because not only is it required for the regional system to outfit and develop a number of tower sites, but we also must have connectivity to those. Obviously they all need to be connected into a regional network. And given the terrain in the central Vermont area, the connectivity is challenging as well. But they did identify three specific towers that are currently proposed for the regional system where they have connectivity already. That could be a very huge asset to the CVPSA as they look to build out a network. Given that they have microwave, it's possible to share that microwave and not have to add additional antennas to the towers at those sites. And as Rick mentioned earlier, there's the opportunity for the CAD system that we recently found out about just this past week from the Velco system, the opportunity through the state and the state may have access to radio towers as well. So there certainly are opportunities to cooperate with a number of entities to help achieve the goals of improved public safety communications within central Vermont. All right, so I'll take over for a little while. What we wanna talk about is certainly regional interoperability. In order to achieve broad communication capabilities across a wider area with a number of jurisdictions and a number of disciplines, a documented communication plans are certainly recommended. What channels, what frequencies, who communicates with who, how do we communicate with them? It's good to really have a detailed documented communication plans. And then to maintain annual periodic communication training and exercises to ensure that all the users understand how to use the radio under what conditions, what channels, who they can talk with and both the tabletop and physical exercises are beneficial. And we would recommend that you undertake those beyond what you have been doing. Some work has been done, but it'd be good to enhance it and do it with an extended group and do it more frequently. Certainly operating procedures, network operating procedures are valuable and in building a new radio network that'll have additional capabilities to be a good opportunity to also define and to develop robust operating procedures. CVPSA governance was certainly not within the scope of our project. However, it's being the leading tenant on the interoperability continuum and because governance is so vital for sustaining and for achieving and sustaining robust public safety communications. We endeavor to provide some recommendations and we developed and heard some requirements from folks, but certainly CVPSA needs to define its role and funding and procurement and operations of the communication systems within the region. And perhaps a charter change to support town membership, that was a conversation that some of the leadership had mentioned. Also, there was a request for greater fire chief participation on the board and that's something that should be considered going forward. Committees and subcommittees and working groups, they can provide, extend your capabilities to assess and to deliver precise information to guide executive board decision-making. And we would certainly recommend that you leverage those to the best interest of your ongoing efforts on communications for public safety. So with that said, we'll let Dom talk about the regional land mobile radio network. So what we started out was to provide a plan. I mean, we assessed the existing networks and plan networks and we had a chance to visit sites. So we wanted to provide guidance on the future evolution of the radio network and Dom will take us through a few slides and talk about that. Yes, thanks. Certainly since the regional network for capital fire is such a key recommendation to improve communications we want to go into a little bit more detail about how we feel that should be structured. Much of this concept too has already been discussed and envisioned by many of the key stakeholders within central Vermont. They have been working on similar goals towards this network. So this was something that we had discussed with them and had maybe taken an extra step to further define what we feel the regional system should look like. Essentially we are recommending what we're calling a dual simulcast system. Simulcast for those of you that don't know uses multiple tower sites to transmit information to expand the coverage of an individual tower site. We use multiple sites and instead of using different frequencies at the different sites utilizes the same frequency at each site. So it's simultaneously broadcasts the same information over a larger area. That's where the term simulcast comes from. This would be a great advantage over the current system because the current system while using multiple sites only is able to transmit off of one at a time and it is kind of a complex scenario. It lengthens the response time when multiple agencies, for example, have to be alerted of an incident. It may take repeat of the page or of the dispatch over multiple sites that is difficult, it is prone to error and also lengthens the response. Simulcast would eliminate that. You would be able to broadcast the information throughout the entire area at one time and it would eliminate a lot of the congestion as well because all agencies would be hearing the same information. Now we refer to it as a dual simulcast system because we feel it makes sense to have the capital fire response time in the rural areas out into the outer towns, as I'll call them, to be separate from the activity within the city areas. The city areas have a little bit, they have somewhat different requirements in terms of greater in-building coverage. So we feel it makes sense to have two different simulcast cells. One would be, we feel would be a three-site simulcast system for the city. It would provide greater in-building coverage in the city where it's needed, where you have more robust building and building instruction. The outer area for the remaining towns would be a nine-site simulcast system to enhance coverage greatly from what you have today. In addition to that, we do recommend the expanded use of vehicular repeaters while the coverage would be much better than what is experienced today. Due to the terrain, there will still be some areas that will be difficult for a portable radio user to communicate back with dispatch. And those scenarios, a vehicular repeater can extend the coverage and create that link from that portable radio user back to dispatch. As we mentioned earlier, we think separate frequencies are key to reduce congestion from what you have today and to provide the necessary communications capability for the two different areas. Even though there's two different areas, excuse me, this, we recommend a common core and voting system so that that would be an efficient use of the equipment and reduce duplication necessary. So the diagram on the right side of the screen, I'm sorry, on the left side of the screen shows the common voting system, common core, and the two different climate gas cells. Most of the dispatch facilities would be connected to the government infrastructure so that this would efficiently utilize that equipment and also provide redundancy for the activity. So either dispatch facility, very city or non-pillier would be used to dispatch and to communicate either in the city area or in the more rural town areas. So if one, if there were to be a catastrophe at one piece half the other could take over. And is there a question? No, maybe we need to get somebody on mute here. Can I ask everybody to mute themselves? Thank you. So I'm not sure where that's coming from. Go ahead, Rick, next slide. Okay, I'm sorry. So I just want to make sure we're clear. This is one regional network managed by one common core with two summer gas cells and there are separate dispatch channels for rural and for the cities. It's a, right now you're dispatching everyone off of a common channel and there are challenges with the ability of responder Stephen here because for central fire responses they have to affiliate with a given tower. However, due to geographic conditions and terrain issues in central Vermont, they might need to, they could be bouncing off of one tower or the other. And they may not really get the transmission communication to and from dispatch and to one another that they need. Okay, Rick, I have a question. All right. I wonder if we should give time for the Barry folks and other participants to comment on where we are. Yeah, sure. I don't know what you're covering, it's just a summary of your report. Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's not a question of time there's a way to do this, like Steve did, he's got his hand raised. So anybody that wants to do so, I'll be more than glad to recognize him. Steve? Yeah, could I, could again, for the neophyte common core, what does that mean? That means one core or one centralized switching facility for the radio system. So even though there's two simulcast networks or simulcast cells, as we call them, they would both be controlled by a common switching network, which would also allow both dispatch facilities to utilize either of those simulcast networks. Thank you. It's kind of the brains of the operation directing the communication paths. Right. It's a computer-based decision-making process. And I will point out that, you mentioned the separate frequencies, Rick. I will point out that we did review the frequencies available in the central Vermont area. Some of them currently in use, some of them identified already. The stakeholders within the area have done a lot of work towards this goal and have identified a number of the frequencies. So we believe that there are options to identify the frequencies necessary to facilitate this type of network. Yeah, and I'll add to that. So we were evaluating a designs and ideas regarding simulcasts that were in process. So while we worked with Joe, Joe Ellsworth was gracious enough to make himself available on a number of occasions, as well as others in the community. And they're already advancing the analog simulcast network concept, and they were taking a path, a three-procurement path, you know, Central Fire of Barry City and non-pillar radio upgrade network, as well as the dispatch console. So the concept of consolidating them all into a single procurement and single effort makes a lot of sense. And we'll talk about that a little bit further in the presentation. But if anyone wants to raise a question or bring her, certainly as Doug suggested, raise a hand and please let us know your thoughts. I do want to point out that we did develop what we call as a conceptual design for this type of system and mentioned the two simulcast cells. So we did predict the coverage that would be provided by those cells and by the sites that have been identified. Some of these are existing sites in use today and others are some recommended by the stakeholders or identified during our site visits. So this particular plot shows the anticipated coverage within the city of Barry and non-pillar with the city system. This utilizes three sites that are shown there, Barry Auditorium, which is a current site, Hill Street and also the Central Vermont Medical Facility building, which we were able to tour. This particular plot shows what we call a medium in building coverage. So this is a fairly substantial amount of signal that is able to penetrate inside buildings within this area. So you can see it totally covers the Barry City, the corridor between Barry and non-pillar, and the vast majority of them non-pillar as well. Next, Rick, we have predicted coverage for the broader system that would be used by Capitol Fire out in the town's area. We're showing three different levels of coverage here because there's different capabilities. Coverage to a mobile radio is shown all the way to the left. And this envisions the coverage from dispatch to a radio mounted in a mobile vehicle with an external antenna, as well as the coverage back from that mobile radio to dispatch. That is considered a balanced system where the mobile has high power. They can be up to 100 watts and communicate as far as the infrastructure can. So you see this shows nearly complete coverage throughout the county, Washington County, as well as the additional towns necessary, such as Washington and Williamston, and part of Orange, et cetera. Somewhat. The dom's frozen. Question. OK, portable outbound, outbound being, again, from the dispatch to a portable radio. Sorry, it looks like I may be getting some internet connectivity problems. Yeah, you are. You were frozen for a few seconds. OK, sorry about that. So it's slightly less coverage than you'll see to a mobile radio, but still very broad throughout the entire coverage area. The toughest link for communication is inbound with a portable. A portable has much less power, of course, than a mobile radio or the base station and also has an antenna that is at a lower height and can be shielded by the body when worn on the hip. So that shows a little bit less coverage in that situation. And that is the areas of terrain where there is limited coverage here is one reason that we recommend using additional vehicular repeaters to help fill in those areas in those situations. But that's the predicted coverage from the nine site outer system, simulcast system, as we would call it. And also one of the items that we looked at beyond that two site simulcast cell was to improve the communication from the ambulance in the field to the medical facility. We spoke with users at the Central Vermont Medical Facility, and they commonly have difficulty being able to talk to and to hear responses from the ambulance as they are transporting patients to the hospital. They confirmed that they would be able to improve service greatly and to be able to better prepare for the arrival of the patient if they could hear the ambulance more reliably. They are using a particular frequency used for medical communications. And right now it is only being transmitted and received from that one location, which is in the city of Montpelier, the CVMC or the medical facility. So that's the predicted coverage today shown on the left. There are from that single facility. We would recommend adding additional receivers at some of the other sites that we are recommending for the regional network to help broaden that coverage so that the medical professionals at the hospital can hear what's the needs of the patient as they are being transported. So that would require just adding additional receivers at three locations in order to greatly broaden that coverage and to pretty much blanket the response area for capital fire. And that's the plot we show on the right of the screen. And one more thing I want to discuss regarding this process. There has been some discussion as to how to move forward, what are the next steps for this regional system design. A typical LMR project will follow a three-phase effort as we are familiar with. There will be the first phase which is identifying what the needs are, what the public safety practitioners in the area need to enhance and to provide them with reliable communications. That's the first phase, the needs assessment. And that typically also includes a concept design as we have shown here, which is a high-level design indicating how the needs can be met. We would normally transition to a phase two, which is shown in the center of the screen, which is the procurement portion. But the procurement also includes engineering from the vendor and a more detailed design. It's still high-level, but it's a more detailed design. So during that procurement process, the users identify what their needs are. They capture that in an RFP, which is sent to interested vendors. The interested vendors normally go through a fairly lengthy design process using their specific equipment so they can identify exactly what is needed to meet the requirements specified in the RFP. That's what we recommend as the next step, to move to the phase two procurement and vendor engineering process. And then that phase typically ends in a contract between the municipality or between the procuring entity and the vendor. Then phase three would be even further detailed design. So detailed design down to the nuts and bolts of what it's going to take to implement it and actually performing the implementation. So what we have done here in our report is documenting the needs and providing a conceptual design. So essentially the phase one of the process and recommending moving forward to the phase two and eventually phase three. Can I ask a question there? Yes, certainly. Vendor engineering, does that include all the connectivity, media diversity, redundant routes, geographically diverse routes? Are they basically becoming telecommunications engineers as well as equipment salespeople? Or is there two different engineering tasks there? No, that is the engineering task of the vendor. The vendor or the land mobile radio providers, such as L3 Harris or Motorola, they have dedicated engineering teams that are part of the procurement process or part of their proposal process. So typically this RFP process will be multiple months. Could be two or three months during that time frame when the vendor would go through that design process. They would visit the area, tour the sites. They would identify what connectivity options there are if there is fiber connectivity or they will engineer microwave connectivity where possible. So yes, they will go through that process and they will document all of that. So that they can put together a design proposal with their cost proposal as well. So that's a pretty detailed process. Thanks. OK, so let's transition to system cost analysis and recommend it next steps. Any questions before we move on? I know we're taking a little bit more time on the presentation that we anticipated, but we're answering some questions. But this brings us into the home stretch. And we've been requested to provide these recommendations. So let's cover some of the key considerations. Through our telecommunications assessment project and validating what has already been presented by a number of knowledgeable people, there are existing communication gaps for public safety that require immediate attention. There is an issue of safety not only for the communities that are served, for the first responders who are relying on those networks to do their work, with a particular focus on the firefighters within the central Vermont. So CVPSA and its membranes need to agree on a viable source of funding. And there are multiple options on how to do that. And I'll talk about that a little bit in another slide or two. As I mentioned previously, the management of a procurement of a regional system through a single RFP has certainly has financial, administrative, and operational benefits. And we recommend that what we are going forward and that you consolidate this to the best of your governance ability. There are certainly additional opportunities to forge partnerships with utilities and broadband municipal entities. And they should be further explored. We've got a good beginning on those. And we've identified the contacts. And they are interested at both technical and executive leadership level to assist the view in the region, however they can. And certainly, they should be further explored. Does that have to happen before the RFP is put out in order to inform the RFP? You're talking about for the partnerships? Yeah, especially Washington Electric, which is building fiber along all of their right-of-ways. We would highly recommend what we've begun and what we've documented is a good beginning. But our goal really was to identify if there were parties that were interested and would they be interested in. Yes, it should be part of an undertaking to determine what they have. We've had a couple of meetings. Well, we have one meeting with CBFiber and a follow-up discussion with them. I know that Washington Electric may have some help, but they had just made a change in their director of technology. And that new individual wasn't as up to speed as we need for them to be. But they're very interested. The Vermont Velco has got a lot more. It's very promising. In fact, as Dom said, they actually own, I think. They own three of the towers, or do they own those towers? Dom, are they just using them as towers? They own one of them specifically, and they're located on three of them. They have a generator at one of them that could potentially support the regional system as well. Yeah, I mean, right now we have a single connectivity to our tower sites, typically for public safety grade. You connect two, most of your sites are connected back to dispatch via a telco connection. And it's coming from one central office, typically in public safety, you'd have a ring network, so that you'd have at least two connectivities per site. Right now, you're fortunate to have one, but yes, redundancy could be achieved using a microwave or some of that fiber as well. So yes, those relationships should be further explored. They could be done in parallel with putting together an RFP. Well, Rick, why this is relevant is that the existing general manager of Washington Electric is now the chair of the state new broadband board. And the Velco guy who built the fiber network, Dan Nelson, is also on that board. So that state board is gonna have $300 or $400 million over the next few years to play with. And this would be an argument for integrating public safety planning into their efforts. Yeah, I appreciate that insight. They, Washington Electric was very, very motivated to want to participate. They, we had meetings with their engineers and they had their VP of engineering or the system VP on who made them available to us. So that came in very late. We tried to reach out to them earlier in the process, but in the last few weeks of finishing the report, we were able to make contact with them, had a couple of meetings and yes, we certainly recommend that they can be very helpful. They could help reduce some of our costs and also provide some partnership. However, their radio network is in a different frequency band. It's in a non-public safety band. So we can't really use their frequencies, but we could use their backhaul and towers and other support that they're already providing to some other public safety entities in the state that they shared with us. All right, so utilize established governing structure. I mean, you have a very solid governing structure right now. I mean, you put a lot of commitment into your governance. You meet on a regular basis. You have functional activities. You've supported developing this needs assessment and you now have more tools. But what is the role of the CBPSA going forward? And it could be there to facilitate decision making and procurement and ongoing operational support management, but these are decisions that you're going to have to weigh and evaluate. And I've got some more insight on that coming up. One of the things we certainly recommend, I mean, obviously you've got to find capital to build this, you know, to upgrade your communication systems. But you also need to identify adequate annual operational funding. All too often, we see that, you know, we find money to build and to deploy a new system, but we overlook its ongoing annual operations. Who's paying to maintain it? And something that, you know, you want to be sure that you don't overlook the operational expenditure needs in addition to the capital expenditure needs. All right, so what do we want to do now? So I want to give you go over a little bit about the funding. You know, what we've, our goal really was to segment the investments required into line items that, you know, could stand alone and you could decide on them independently. We're always, we're also asked to give telebates recommended priority for these. And, you know, certainly these are just the recommendations. You're going to need to make these decisions based on funding availability and what your community thinks is, you know, are the priorities. So, you know, our highest priority, we believe, is really the regional radio network. As we mentioned, Steve, you have a question, sir? I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah. Just backing up to your last slide. Yes, of course. Yes. Yeah, the first bullet, communications gap, communications gaps require immediate attention. Could you put that in context in terms of what are those gaps and what does immediate mean? I mean, is that three months, six months, 12 months? Well, you know, we wanted to raise some urgency to this need because this is a conversation that I believe that your region has been having for some time. The urgency is that particularly for your, your particular capital fire and regional communications as well as there are problems downtown and buildings for the cities. But they do not have a functional radio network. And it is, they really have to do a lot of workarounds to get that system to perform properly. So when you say they, you mean capital fire? I'm talking about the firefighters that rely on that network for providing service. Yes. And of course, the dispatchers within Barry City and Montpelier that need to dispatch to them, it also creates a burden on them as well. So they are, you know, they're all part of the same network of communications. I appreciate that they represent different communities and funding pools. But overall, we looked at this as a regional effort. The needs in the city in terms of communication are in building coverage or some limitations on in building coverage that need to be addressed as, and so in the region within the service area of capital fire, the service issues are even more degraded. And so immediate attention really means as quickly as we can foster the time and identify the funding to advance this is what immediate needs. It's already been bounced around a long time, and we would encourage you to use this, recommendations of funding in this report to build upon them as quickly as reasonably possible. And I can't tell you what that means, but I wouldn't let this simmer too long. Unfortunately, we have seen communities where they were sitting on a powder keg with their communication systems and an incident that didn't go well because communications and it became a finger pointing who's responsible and why didn't we fix these, what we knew already? And we'd hate to see you fall in that kind of situation. Thank you. You're welcome, sir. All right, so here, so as I said, line items on these items here, and we were asked for television to prioritize them, as I mentioned, and we used the one, two, three, highest, middle, lowest priority, but whoever assesses this may have a different opinion, but we certainly placed the Lambda Warrior Networks as the highest need here, and that includes, in our budget there, includes radio networks, support for the procurement process, project management, some governance, and of course the construction of the network. The next item here is tower upgrades and reinforcement, and we put together a budget of 330,000, but we can't validate if and where these are required. You know, for instance, tower loading analysis, we visually inspected towers and reviewed them, but we can't tell you if those towers need to be upgraded or reinforced to support the additional loading that could come about from a new radio network. So we put a budget together here based on potentially new towers, reinforcing existing towers, leasing, and upgrading of radio equipment towers. So they'd have to be done in conjunction with the build out of a new radio network. The radio consoles for Montpelier and Barrier City Dispatch are, they have been out of life cycle for some time. They are quite old, I wouldn't say they're antiquated yet because they're still working, but they are not of the latest technology and are not directly supported by the vendor. Vendor's any longer and they're at risk right now, and so they need to be upgraded right now. Excuse me, Greg, I think Michael may have had a question before. Yes, who's got a question? Akko, did you raise your hand or? I did. Who's gonna go? I'll say, I just wanted to make a comment to Steve McKenzie's question. And this is from myself as project manager and my exposure to this project. And Steve, I'll be blunt from what I've seen. When we talk about gaps in immediate attention, I think the fire services radio in central Vermont is problematic and needs immediate attention. The lack of in-building coverage for firefighters in Berry City and Montpelier is a problem. And the congested frequencies and interference for capital fire system is a problem and those need immediate attention. Thank you, Pako. Majela, you have a comment? Thanks, Pako, that was helpful. One more to ask you a question. Yes, sir. Okay, I just had a couple of minor technical questions but I believe, I'm driving right now so I believe my background noise is probably causing you some additional problems. So I'll ask all my questions and then mute my speaker. Have you put into the system something to get rid of the squelch shield? I know some systems can do that. We used to have something called the reversed home burst that get rid of the squelch shield with the static squelch that happens at the end of each transmission. I always found that problematic coming from a system that didn't have it. And also, are the ID tones, are they gonna be audible? That can create the same problem. That's one question and second one is, will dispatch be able to simulcast, not to simulcast off the towers for every transmission but can dispatch simulcast off the multiple channels for emergency announcements and so forth. Could be dispatch channel, by ground, command channel, whatever output channels are set up on by ground 10 years down the road from now and they make an emergency announcement it should go over all frequencies. And the last point I had was, Chief Brent last week mentioned you beep up with the transmit power of the air radio system. You get to feel the other hospitals. Was any given to activate them? Or maybe they've already done it. But there's a second here channel. I progressed, you used to use the air dispatch channel which was absolutely illegal and I did it for 20 years. As far as I know, the entire stage using here one, which is one, one, two, three, four, one, nine, oh, which one? But in any event, was there any, we put that into this whole mix to activate a second air channel? I'll mute and listen. Thanks for those questions, sir. Tom, you wanna take a stab at something? Yes, yeah, if I can remember those. Well, they hear frequency checking on what that was. We did discuss the multiple options there. What we are recommending is additional receivers for the here channel that's used for communication between the ambulances and the hospital. And that is the 154. I'm trying to see what, which one that is. Tom, while you're looking, I'll answer. Here too is one that we identified that is potentially available. We didn't specifically recommend that for anything at this point, but that was something that has been discussed and is possible option enlisted in our frequency channels. Some of the other questions, one was the squelch tail. We would recommend transitioning to a digital system, to a Project 25 capable system, where you would not have that, you would not be hearing the squelch tail. The digital communications does not have that type of, you wouldn't hear background noise, you wouldn't hear the squelch tail and that would improve your communications when you are able to transition to P 25. And the dispatch facilities would have the capability to sign myocast off of all of the two different networks that we are proposing at all towers at once. So the nine site town system or the three site city system, they would be able to simulcast off of those and would be able to do that on both of the recommended channels or dedicated channels for those two systems. The global alerts could be sent out over any of the channels designated by a dispatch. So they could communicate through a global transmission to anyone who's active on the radio network. Yes. Did we get all your questions to something else that we may have missed? I don't think he's there anymore. I mean, if they are, but he's just listening. Okay, all right. Okay, so let's see here. You got my questions answered, I had the mute again. All right, sir, thank you. Appreciate your interaction. Okay, so tack channel receivers, I mean, we, you know, this one was a very interesting request from the fire departments, the member of the capital fire, they typically use a fire ground channel, a tactical channel that cannot be heard, backed by dispatch. The rationale behind that is that you don't have sufficient over the air, over the network channels and also, you know, their processes to go to fire ground to ensure that they've got reliable communications. But they would, you know, certainly they would be safer if they could be, you know, monitored by dispatch. So the idea of placing tack channel receivers at all the sites would allow that reception to be received and to be transmitted or to be, you know, communicated back to dispatch. So they could listen in the event there was an incident and they needed additional help. So that is, we put together a design for that and a budget. So the same as Dom just talking about for the medical coverage and interoperability, those three, those receivers that Dom mentioned, I'm not saying that they're not needed, but they were, in our opinion, a little lower priority. And I'm not sure of who would pay for those, but that's, you know, that's certainly another item. Portable and mobile radios. Yes, I mean, you have a new radio network if you don't have viable radios, you can't communicate them. They have to be a higher priority. The vehicular repeaters, equipment in the installation and vehicular repeaters would be installed into apparatus, fire engines, fire operators, chief buggies, the police are also currently using them. They'll allow you to distribute a high power RF in the buildings and increases the reliability. They, you know, they're very beneficial, but you know, we could put them in a lower priority and see how the new radio network performs. But that's certainly a need. The redundant link between the dispatch centers, you know, having redundancy is certainly mission critical, mission critical grade communication. And, you know, in the event that you only have one connectivity there and you have a backhoe fade and you lose that connectivity, it's certainly more robust to have a redundant connectivity and perhaps some of those relationships with the fiber entities in the state might be beneficial there. Public safety broadband applications. I mean, right now, I mean, we are, your community has got issues with radio, with your radio communications. And if you have limited funding, you know, if you don't have the full amount of funds to do everything that's been recommended, you could certainly deprioritize broadband applications and commercial or mission critical push to talk. The computer e-dispatch system, you know, it's, you're not, you don't have one, you know, you need one. Could we get by without it? We'd certainly love to see you have it and you want it, but it could be a lower priority. So these are budgetary items for, you know, for what we've, our recommendation. And with that said, I look, you know, thinking about, you know, the CVPSA next steps to, you know, to decide and implement the network. Now, we'd certainly encourage you to maintain the momentum, you know, we've been working on this a while. We now, you know, there is a document, a report, some findings that have been established. And so it's critical to maintain the momentum. However, yes, I see some questions here. First Steve McKenzie and second Dave Rubikawa. Yes, sir, Steve. Yeah, Rick, just a general question on the cost. Yes. I understand those are budget costs, but I just try to understand what they reflect. Are those basically the hard costs? Do those include any soft costs? An allowance for soft costs for, you know, for the design and actually getting to the implementation phase? Yes, sir. Steve, in the first line item here, we included some funds to, you know, to assist, you know, to put the procurement together. Obviously, you got to write an RFP. And so there are soft funds for that. There are soft funds for the project management to implement a new radio network, as well as with, you know, some, you know, for some guidance to support governance. Construction would be included in the, you know, the radio infrastructure. You got to install and maintain it. Well, you know, you're not maintaining it, but you got to construct it. So those costs are in there. So in that line item, it does include those. In others, we've identified installation costs. So anything here on broadband, there are a number of soft costs and applications that we've identified. I mean, you got to host applications and you need IT support and others. So we do have some budget in there for that, but you're absolutely right to point out that line item one includes a variety of soft costs to support the overall purchase, implementation, and cut over into operation. The other part of that question is, do these budget costs include some either explicit or implicit contingency or for funding planning purposes should, depending on whatever the authority wants to support and try to move forward, should there be some contingency added to that 6.4 number? Or is that contingency again, part of that number? Don, we typically do a 10% contingency. Did we include that for this? Yes, in the majority, if not all of those line items, certainly the regional system, we do have contingency included in that. Yes. Thank you. Dave, please go ahead. Dave Hyde. Hi. For those of you who don't know me, I'll quickly introduce myself. I'm David Rebcobb. I'm a firefighter paramedic of Berry City, and I'm also a reserve dispatcher with Berry City. A minute ago, you spoke about the TAC channel receivers for a fire ground. Yes. And I'm looking at your report. Is it your recommendation to have a single fire ground channel that's monitored? No, we have to identify the number of TAC receivers, TAC channels available, and we have to ensure that we've got receiver capabilities for most. That's not all of them. OK. Was it part of the scope of the project to examine the volume of traffic, specifically on the fire channel? Well, we didn't study the records, but we threw conversation and through best practices. Since you're dispatching over that channel, and firefighters are also communicating in a route because they don't have any other channels, that channel is overly congested. So what we recommend it was that there be a separate over-the-air communication channel. So you'd have one dispatch over and an additional channel that would be used for over-the-air tactical communications, pretty much communications in route to the scene so that you would take the traffic, that traffic, off of your dispatch channel. OK. I'm just experiencing. We have 20-plus departments on that one channel. I think even having one dispatch channel for them and then even with removing Berry City and Mott Player on their own channel, I'm wondering if one fire ground channel is still going to support the future needs. The list of frequencies that we've identified shows on the order of five frequencies available for fire ground, I believe. Thank you. Is there any standards or recommendations for the number that we should have? Well, FCC licensing requirements. You have FCC licensing requirements and you exceed those. In other words, you can't request and have licensed a frequency unless you have X amount of users. So you meet those requirements. The best practices are going to be determined. You got to customize them. So we work in some communities where there are 20, 30, 40 volunteer firefighters and fire departments in a county, a given county, and they tend to have some of them have their own tactical over fire ground channels and others share them. So ideally, you would have a scheme of the share of those channels based on some geographic separation of the end users so that they aren't necessarily stepping on one another, even over their fire ground. Thank you very much. My pleasure. All right. Any other questions I may have missed? My apologies if I missed your room. My screen only allows me to see six individuals at a time and there's 14 here. So I have to keep moving my mouse to find out who's hiding. Yeah, don't be shy about speaking up. All right, so next steps. As I said, you got to maintain the momentum and your challenges, you're a small community and you all have full-time responsibilities. You don't have folks who are dedicated to one particular item here. So in order to do, in order to maintain the momentum, we're going to have to find a way to dedicate the time. I think you have the energy, but do you have the time and who are those folks? And coming slides, we'll talk a little bit more about it. But there's also a need to reach consensus on a strategy to address and mitigate public safety communication gaps and requirements. I have a lot of strong minds there, a lot of brilliant people who have good ideas and how do we achieve consensus on which way to go? You know, ideally the report will help consolidate that and provide you with guidelines, but reaching consensus in a strong will and talented group of people is not always easy to do. And that's going to be important challenge for you. You know, we're recommending establishing stakeholder working groups as it's a common best practice in public safety. And making decisions and managing communication systems. So, you know, you're going to need, we're going to need to provide technical recommendations, secure funding and governance, structural roles and responsibilities. And then, you know, ongoing further once we have the network and even today implementation and operations of the radio network. So these are, you know, these are key, you know, next steps that also, you know, you're going to have to, you know, I'm prudently managed. So, you know, what we have provided are some next step recommendations before I go on. Does anybody have a question? All right, so what do you do next? I mean, you've got to make a decision. We've given, you know, the report consolidates requirements and identifies recommendations. So those requirements puts a budget, it gets you some budgetary numbers for them. What do you do? Well, you know, we're recommending a technical working group be established. It should have, you know, broad membership, but it shouldn't be too big that it can't, you know, function, but there's some recommendations on who the members should be. And as we know, and as we, as Tel Aviv has witnessed and many, many markets worked in, same people tend to always be the ones that step up. And so you're, you know, the technical working group would evaluate the various technical solutions that have been proposed, prioritize them, and then, you know, document and provide your recommendations to a board that's going to make the final decision. In parallel, recommend a finance working group that should have membership from the cities, from CFMAS and from, perhaps from the towns, if they're also invited to come in. But, you know, you've got to have folks that understand funding and how to secure funding. They need to assess funding options for both capital expenditures, CAPEX, and operational expenditures, and certainly to advance the most viable of those options. We've got to match the funding plan to the technical working group recommendations. So the working group says we need all of these incentives and other, you know, that's a six million plus budget. If we narrow the focus and say, well, we can start here and over time expand, then that budget changes, but we've got to match our funding options to the recommendations. And then we got to determine a procurement strategy. You know, will the procurement be managed by one of the cities or the other or another entity? But, you know, you're gonna have to reach agreement on that. And perhaps it's one, perhaps it's multiple, but these are the decisions that really, I think it could be and should be advanced by a finance working group. Are there really on a governance working group? The governance working group, you know, could start sooner or later. I mean, the two working groups above got the most important heavy lift in the beginning, but governance is also a challenge and it becomes a foundation and structure to what you're doing. So membership, CVPSA executive board, city legislature and the towns, if they can join, I know they're not members of it. They're CV, the capital fire represents the towns, but there's been discussed by some board members that it might be prudent to invite them onto and modify the charter. But, you know, do you need to change your organizational structure? And what is the role, ongoing role and responsibilities? Also, you know, there has to be a decision made on regional radio network operations. Who's gonna be the entity responsible for the operations? And I know you have that fairly solidified right now, but you might reconsider it going forward. And then another long-term doesn't need to be done now, but there are some activities that could be done on their operations side, but an implementation and operations working group that manage and facilitate system implementation, develop, recommend standard operating procedures and provide oversight of operations and maintenance, the O&M oversight. All right, so with that said, that concludes our presentation. And I don't know if there is some, Doug, if you'd like to, you know, facilitate some open discussion, this would be a good time to do it. Well, first of all, Rick, can you on-share your screen? Yes. There you go. Great. First of all, Dom and Rick, thank you very much for your fine efforts, not only tonight, but over the last few weeks. Put together this report. I think it's gonna take a few minutes for everybody involved to digest it. And I would certainly encourage good folks like Doug and Joe. Sally to share the report with their constituents. I think getting feedback from the folks that are in the field to make all the difference in the world. You may hear something that you didn't hear when you were doing the original stuff. Having said that, if there are any questions that any other people have, this would be a good time. Terry, Paco, Paco raises hand. Yeah, Doug, I just want to make a quick comment. First of all, I want to thank Joe Wallsworth, who did an exceptional job at helping. We lost you, Paco. It's so hot outside that Paco's frozen. Very good job. They were very easy to work with. It ended up being, I think, a comprehensive report. But more importantly, it was a report that met all of the provisions of the contract. And I want to make that clear. They delivered what was asked of them as stated in the contract. So thank you all, everybody. Thank you everybody. Chief Brown. Can you hear me now? Yeah, I hear you now. Great. I wanted to say with everybody on board here, what a great job Rick and Dom did. I really think that they came to Vermont. And I mean, however they came either via computer or actually set foot on the ground here, they really did a good job at summarizing what's going on here, what our weaknesses are, and where we need to go with this. I think they hit it out of the park as far as their report goes. And I wanted to make sure that the CBPSA members knew that their money was very well spent, that Montpelier and Berry's money was very well spent. And we got a heck of a good report. And I just wanted to put that on the record. Thank you, Chief. Thank you very much, Chief. Thank you, sir. Sally, you got anything to add in here? Yeah, I don't have a raise my hand thing for some reason tonight. But anyways, my only, I just had a couple of comments from the communications committee that had reviewed this prior to tonight's meeting. A couple of things. One, the dollar amount is a lot compared to what Capital Fire was looking at. So whatever there is for funding, there's gonna have to be, I would think, some grants or something like that. I think it's gonna be a hard sell for some of the small communities if we can't get some outside funding. And the two simulcast systems, I think that got answered. So if they can be patched together, because otherwise we're kind of going away from what we were looking at as far as having one channel, not having to constantly switch towers. And is that correct? Yes, simulcast network, you won't have to, the network will determine where you are and you won't have to pick a radio tower. And we didn't want to scare you away with the pricing. I mean, obviously we reviewed the previous proposal that was provided and understand the pricing of that. The new proposed network has three additional radio towers that in collaboration with Joe, we identified a number of other holes that he was familiar with and he felt that the original design wouldn't satisfy and we modeled those. And so this, the new network does have more towers. And that 2.9 also includes probably a half to three quarters of a million dollars in additional soft expenses. And then my only other comment is, as far as the Valcor system goes, I know Paco said that they've got some dispatch stuff coming unless they've got a miracle coming in the next few weeks. State police is going live September 12th and as a dispatcher, it's horrible. It's not a computer aided dispatch system at all. So they've got a lot of work to do to make it user-friendly. That's it. That's unfortunate. I don't know if Paco's talking to somebody else or talking to us. Hey, he's not muted. He's not muted. So I think he's trying to talk to us, maybe. Oh, okay. He's trying. There you go. No, still can't hear you. How do you say go ahead? Yeah, move ahead. All right. Anybody else? So two questions, comments? Kim, yes, sir. Yeah, Doug, I just want to add my support for the work you've done. And you've clearly outlined the problems ahead of us that you've given us a way to think about them. And I think with goodwill, we can do it. Sally funding is always a critical issue. And there's got to be various sources that we can work on as far as I'm concerned. That's our job in the next three or four months. See if we can come up with some proposals for a town meeting that at least could have started on that road. I don't think we'll have a solution in that time period. But I think we can be well on the way to seeing a way to move forward. Yes, Sally. Sally, go ahead. One more question. So yeah, as far as that goes, I know the communications committee in our discussions have said that by spring of 2022, we would like to be moving forward actively. This is a dire situation, as they've said, but dire, we don't think can wait a few years. So we'll see what we can do for funding. I think that's a great goal. And we should work towards it. I agree with you. This is desperate. We need change and we need to move it quickly. Joe, Osworth, you've got your hand up. Go ahead, Joe. On mute, Joe. There you go. Well, I've had the unique opportunity to work with Dom and Rick, probably from the get-go in Paco. And I mean, they did have identified weaknesses in the system, which we are taking steps slowly. But I think it's important that the report solidifies the work that has already been done. And now it gives some really meat on the bone to move forward on. So I just, I appreciate Dom and Rick. I don't have any other questions because I was able to ask my questions immediately and get the response that I needed. So I just applaud both of them. They did exceed the RFP and it was a pleasure to work with both of you guys. Thank you, sir. It's a pleasure. Certainly a feeling is mutual. It's working with a dedicated and exceptional personnel like yourself that makes us enjoy what we do. Steve, do you have any other questions, sir? It wasn't a question, more of a comment. I don't know what funding availability there will be in the infrastructure bill coming down the pike. But that, we'll certainly have to examine that as a potential funding source. Absolutely. Sounds like you might want to be the chair of the finance committee or the finance working group. I'm retiring in 10 months. I don't see it in the cards. Actually, if we don't have a procurement out on the street and make a decision within 10 months, we will never meet Sally's objective to have the network, a new network up and running in 2022. That's why I say, this is urgent. You folks are sitting on a powder keg over there. We already know the burden that you're under. So hopefully, the idea of having a tool in hand now a document that helps guide you. But just to reiterate what Joe Alsworth said, we did validate what work was already being gone. So we want to give credit to where credit's due. The first responder community in central Vermont was advancing a viable plan. And we've enhanced that plan, but it was a good work in process. And I think you certainly revalidated that. And with that said, if there's no more questions, I just want to again, express our appreciation for the opportunity to work with you on this project. I want to give special thanks to Kim Kinney, to Donna Bade, to Doug Hoyt, certainly to Joe Alsworth, Chief Brent, and to Paco Almond among others that we interacted with on a regular basis. So we, Paco gave us a lot of important insight regarding central Vermont, regarding CBPSA, and facilitated a variety of meetings that were critical. Joe, from Dave Wong, he was kind of running the show. I mean, he provided Dom enough insight that we were able to figure it out, but we would regularly come back to him and try to understand how this or that worked. And he's the brain trust over there. He along with Chief Brent, they really understand their radio communication systems. And so we really appreciate having worked and having the opportunity to work with you. Ideally, funding is available and we will be able to maintain our relationship with you all going forward. But it's been an honor. We've created some, you know, what I think are lifelong friendships with some of the people that we've interacted with. And I have been to Vermont enough times to know that it's paradise. Summer, winter, spring, fall, you guys are beautiful. It's a beautiful place to be. I admire you all for where you live and the place you're living in, the Green Mountains of Vermont are near and dear to us. So thank you again and hope whatever we've done is beneficial to protecting the, you know, the communities that you serve and the first responders that serve those communities. And you're most welcome, guys. I really, so we appreciate it. I'd like to go back to the agenda. The next item on the agenda is item number four. It's approved payments to Francis Paco-Hallman, $2,325 for a Tel Aviv project management and federal grant. Lost part of that. Donna Bate, $146 for CVPSA post office box 634 annual fee and the Brent householder $278.89 for CVPSA zoom account and $158.89 to CVPSA doc and sign Brent's distributive of the warrants. I'd like to believe that everybody, except for one board member has signed them. I'm not so sure I'm buying into the concept that just because I didn't get posted on the city parks bulletin board, I think we can move forward and approve these payments to the people who have served us well. In that case, I would entertain a motion to do so. And all the board members signed their consent. I have. I have. Everybody has except for myself that I plan to do so. Then I move payment. Second. Second. Yeah, I second. Okay. All right. Number five, which we have gone through very well. And number six is the board needs to accept to elevate, approve and approve final payment. This is a big ticket item. And again, I'm not necessarily having a great deal of heartburn over the fact that the notice of this meeting did not make it onto the city parks bulletin board. And I can assure you that the board will look into that as to why that did not happen. I guess I would ask Dom and Rick, if they have an issue with us delaying the payment for a brief week or two in order for us to get that shipped, squared away and have a formal approval by the board. I'm also open to the option of going ahead and approving it now. Sir, before you hear from your board members, we will accept whatever is appropriate time for the board to do what it's appropriate actions are. So if our payment is delayed for a few more weeks or a month or whatever, we can manage that. And so it's up to you or however you wanna do it is gonna work for us. Well, I sincerely and deeply apologize for this. I'm not an individual who likes to hold people off personally or professionally. You've earned it, you've done it. I mean, you've heard that outstanding appreciation. I can think of no reason why you should not have this approved. Doug, there is an alternative. We could approve the payment tonight and ratify it in two weeks. It would take about that much time to process the payment. So we approve the payment subject to ratification our next meeting. Now, I can buy into that and if that be the case, then I'd like to see a motion to accept the report and to approve the payment. That's my motion. So just to be clear, are we have a motion on the table for payments to myself, Donna and Paco? You're right. I guess we need to take that one up first. Oh, I thought that was approved. I'm not so sure. Let's double it and make sure that it is approved. I mean, it's approved. Everybody recalling the original motion for Paco, Donna and Brent say, yeah, yay or nay. Yay. Yay. All right. That motion carries. Now we'll go back to the one we were just talking about and that's to approve and accept the Televate Report and approve final payment. And we have a motion and I think we're waiting for a second on that. Again, I'm hearing a motion. I'm not hearing a second. No, Sally, you second. I'm sorry. That's all right, no problem. Who made the motion? Tim. Tim made the motion. Sally made the second. So any discussion? Any discussion at the next meeting? Right. Any discussion? Hearing nothing, all those in favor say aye. Aye. And opposed. Hearing none, motion carries. Next item is other business. Has anybody got something that was not on the agenda or something that has come up during the evening that we'd like to bring up? Again, not hearing any, I guess we're ready to move on. And I would just like to encourage everybody that's participating. One of the things that came up in our discussions as a group with Dom and other people on the report was the urgent need to prioritize the things that are in the report. There is certainly a lot of information in there and more than enough to make Steve McKenzie look to retire sooner. But most of us that have been involved in this process over the years recognize that $6 million does not grow on the apple tree and there's a need to prioritize, convince our constituents what the priorities are and to have a big project in mind and put it in phases. So there's a lot of work to do. I wish us all the best of luck. Not hearing anything else. I guess I'm ready to close the meeting. So just before we close, I'll forward out a copy of this presentation so that you could distribute to your membership. So I'll make sure we get that first thing in the morning. Thank you very much. Rick, would you correct the slide that says central fire mutilate to capital fire mutilate? Yes. Sorry about that. Thanks for that. Thanks for picking that up. Thank you everybody. Thank you all. Have a great day. Thanks again. Thanks, take care. Hope to see you soon. Thank you.