Rock Island County P25 Policy Working Group met Feb. 9.
Here are the minutes provided by the group:
Project Manager Sheriff Darren Hart Presiding
Attendees: Mark VanKlaveren, John Winters, Jeff Ramsey, Doug Maxeiner, Darren Gault, Jamie Morris, Matt Franks, Chris Johnson, Steve Seiver, Darren Hart, and Ron Erickson.
Absent: Steve Regenwether and Bob Vitas
Public: Derek Radosevich and Jason Kratt
1. Approval of the Minutes from the January 12th, 2023 meeting:
Motion made by Matt Franks, seconded by Doug Maxeiner: Roll call voice vote taken, motion carried.
11- Yes and 0 No
2. Approval of the February 9th, 2023 Financial Report as Presented:
Motion made by Steve Seiver, seconded by Doug Maxeiner: Roll call vote by municipality taken, motion carried.
6- Yes and 0 No
3. OLD BUSINESS:
A) Agency Migration Update: We have just shy of 200 paying customers coming on to the system. The Quad City International Airport Police and Fire will be coming on soon, which will constitute all Illinois side law enforcement. Hillsdale and Illinois City volunteer fire departments have both put in orders for 15 portables. Billing will be quarterly.
B) Fire Paging Update: Coal Valley Fire Department will hopefully go live next week. We are still waiting on some information regarding this topic and will address this at a later time.
C) BDA Updates (RIPD and RICSO): Rock Island P.D. has been trying to get Communications Engineering Corporation (CEC) to finalize the fire paging. They have not been able to coordinate this yet. The Rock Island County Sheriff’s Office BDA is functional less the cellular portion. The issue is with the FirstNet functionality, it may have to be just a standard AT&T band coverage (cellular is a RICO cost only, not P25).
D) QCICC Fiber: RACOM was preparing to finish some work at the Silvis tower site. This required them to temporarily sever the network on one link, which should have only effected the redundancy of the system for a short time. As they were going to do this, they noticed that there was a link down between QCOMM and RICOMM. If they severed the link at Silvis, it would have “orphaned” QCOMM. Apparently the section of fiber between QComm and RICOMM has been down since November. We were not aware of this. Tim Bain (Rock Island) was able to move the connectivity between the two agencies and it is functional again. The bigger issue being, there is no monitoring of the QCICC fiber network. Knowledge of the issues is one thing, having a resource to fix the issue is another matter. A managed network with Geneseo Communications was previously discussed but cost was a concern. The I 74 connection was also an issue that needed to be addressed. There is no current solution to this problem. RACOM has mentioned connectivity via PSAPs through microwave. Another possibility is revisiting a managed network service (Mediacom, Metronet, and Geneseo Communications). Other options like InDigital or Motorola LTE were discussed as well. This is an ongoing topic of conversation.
4. NEW BUSINESS:
A. Volunteer Fire Department Meeting (February 27th, 2023): A meeting has been scheduled at the Coal Valley Fire Department at 5:30p to discuss interoperability with the volunteer fire departments. Assistant Director Scott Ryckeghem of QCOMM was invited as well. The County Board Chairman was invited as some of the volunteer fire departments have reached out to Senator Halpin regarding help with costs through potential grants for equipment at the state level.
B. Back-up Generator Purchase: The Rock Island County Sheriff’s Office will be taking delivery of a trailer mounted Generac backup generator today to support our tower sites in event of a failure of the tower site backup generators. Each site has UPS battery backup, so this will give us time to get the portable generator to a site in the event of an onsite generator failure. We are looking at a service agreement with Lakewood Electric in Milan for all tower sites less Silvis.
5. IA/IL Advisory Group Meeting: February 22nd, 2023.
6. Public Comment:
Rock Island Arsenal Interoperability Encryption Request: The Rock Island Arsenal requested our encryption code for agency interoperability. It was determined that the Arsenal is not a signatory on a mutual aid agreement with any surrounding agency so this will not be provided to them until we have a signed agreement.
Scanner Apps Used to Scan Encrypted Talk Groups: Moline PD had an issue where suspects in a vehicle pursuit had a scanner showing P25 Sara Network. In a video recording the suspects made, you could hear a Moline PD unit on the app. This will be brought to the attention of RACOM today during the conference call.
State Police Starcom Communications: Motorola will not allow access to ISP via a gateway. It was discussed to possibly use a national interoperability channel if the situation dictates.
Pursuits or Critical Incidents: Agencies will stay on their primary talk group and assisting agencies will communicate on that talk group. General agency operations not involved in that critical incident will switch to their secondary talk group for routine communications.
7. NEXT MEETING:
The next regularly scheduled meeting will be held on Thursday, March 9th, 2023 starting at 9:30 a.m.
8. ADJOURNMENT:
Motion made by Mark VanKlaveren, seconded by Chris Johnson: A voice vote was taken and the motion carried for adjournment.
11- Yes and 0 No
https://www.rockislandcountyil.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_02092023-53
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