Dropped Calls in the Dead Zone
ByThere was an issue this last council meeting that sort of eased on by without much fuss. It was one of those issues that is hard to criticize because it deals with public safety, but that does not mean it should go unquestioned.
To the benefit of council members Marin and Trotter, they did ask a few questions. Whether they were satisfied with the answers, I do not know. I did have some issues with the answers, however.
Evidently, the police and fire department both lack adequate communications equipment. This issue seems to have manifested itself after they took residence in their new facility at the Civic Center. The solution will cost approximately $53,000 to implement.
It is unclear why they city did not ensure that everything vital for our fire and police department operation was in place prior to moving our public safety to their new site. You would assume that a communication infrastructure would have been at the top of the list when designing a new public safety facility.
Apparently not so in the city of DuPont. Perhaps they were distracted by wash bays and barbeque pits. What makes this as troubling as it is curious is that our mayor touts her experience in “planning, construction, project delivery” in her biography on the city website; additionally, she is married to a former city fire fighter. You would think both qualifications would make her well suited to understand these needs during the construction of the Civic Center.
But it is unclear exactly who was in charge of overseeing the contractors building our new fire and police facilities. Fire Chief Bob Merritt seemed lost as to why the lead structural engineer would not sign off on tacking on a fifty foot radio tower that was both “stand alone” and had “braces” that attached to the building. Though this is not my area of expertise, I have a pretty good idea why he did not sign off on it, based on the information provided.
Stranger yet, Chief Merritt appeared to be OK with letting construction proceed without a detailed or satisfactory explanation why it would not be approved by the firm contracted by the city to build this facility.
Maybe it is just me, but if I knew that proper communication infrastructure would not go into the facility and that could put both the public and public safety personnel at risk, then I would have called that a showstopper. But here we sit, nearly four months since the site opened, grappling for a solution.
Worse, according to our esteemed leaders this issue has already compromised everyone’s safety with reports of missed calls.
Chief Merritt seemed nonplussed by the miss since we have a paid partner in Lakewood ready to respond to fire and medical emergencies. Chief Goodpaster and the officers in town do not have that luxury.
So much of the cockamamie explanations do not add up; like how a tower on McNeil Island can be too far while another on Anderson Island is more than adequate to serve the community. Also, why we need new equipment if the antenna is what receives the signal and that tower will now be fifty feet in the air and right next to their building.
Does it even matter? They are going to get what they want anyway because it is hard to argue against the need for quality communications. I just wish there was a little more sense of responsibility on making sure things get done right the first time on a multi-million dollar project. And especially when public safety is concerned.
What I find the most troubling, is Mayor Jenkins, and Deputy Mayor Coffey are both matter of fact about the crappy communication system that has never been addressed. They have known about it, so it should have been one of the biggest priorities during the planning of the civic center.
Do you really need a public opinion survey to find out that your leadership sucks and we don’t trust you with your stupid merge with lakewood hidden agenda? Merritt is paid very well to build our fire department, and this is what we get as a result. It is such an incestuous back scratching mess in city hall.
Bravo to Trotter and Marin for asking the right questions, at some point, you need to send a strong message to clean up this mess.
I guess it is hard when you have a majority on council (Coffey, Wilcox, Ehrenriech, and Grayum), who stick together no matter how smelly the issue to rubber stamp approvals for Bill McDonald.
Coffey is like the little kid who wants to pay the cashier because she wants to show everyone she is a big girl. Can someone tell me anything she has been against spending tax dollars on?
There you go again thinking and wishing your city council had a sense of responsibility. How many times must we show and control the issuses with no commom sense or citizen feed back for you to understand we don’t care or know what the heck we are doing. Please stop trying to make us do my job we don’t bug you. VOTE FOR ME, tv land.
Coffee was against spending her money on her husbands D.U.I just KIDDING she loved it.
Wasn’t there a citizen comment recently where he said the city should not wait until we are in crisis to make a decision? It is deja vu all over again.
It looks like we will still get our fix of videos with comments added. Thanks for providing this vital service.
City Council,
Try driving the narrow streets today during the garage sale. I’m glad your thinking about our safety (Been thinking since 2006).
Streets that you cannot pass through, combined with no way to communicate. Nice work Jenkins.
What I find interesting, Marin and Trotter are asking questions about this issue, and Coffey/Jenkins already knew about it. Talk about communication issues.
Information is not power if you choose to do nothing with it.
Disgusting. Merritt says we had good reception when were we stand alone, Coffey and Jenkins say we didn’t. Get your stories straight! The rest of the council is daydreaming when these discrepancies are spoken. Somebody on that council should have grilled the chief over his facts.
Way to go, Brownie. You doing a heluva job.
Actually I recall in a previous discussion on the new facility the chief asked the questions about communicationc and the capability and asked for an antenna on the then training tower to ensure communications and fix the other dead zone on Hoffman Hill. Bill McDonald said that this would be addressed with the subcontractor handling the facility radio system and this was like a year and half ago. They also have rights to the cell tower over near Centex Homes of 50 pounds that has not been used yet. Why would they pay $54,000 when they have had solutions handed to them and suggested and now it is crisis – City Hall is a crisis
Since the PD switched over to 800Mhz due to LESA changing over reception really sucks. The Post Office PD wasn’t on 800Mhz thus the old antenna/repeater worked and so did at the temp PD until the change over.
Citizens and tv land viewers lets not dwell over radio reception you get no say anyway, just be the good little sheeplep we know you can be and go along. Vote for me for more great ideas.
Call the comms issue what you want, it just cost us another $53K and the only people who questioned it were Marin and Trotter.
We continue to pay Merritt over $100K a year and fully pay his per diem to live at the Liberty Inn while he “builds” our fire dept.
Anyone questioning that? How about Merritt’s close relationship with McDonald from their work together in Snohomish?
Who are the sheep in this town? See them on TV once a month leading us into the future. Baaahhh, second that!
The problem is being fixed through fire mitigation funds which are paid by developers, not residential property taxes.