Montgomery Council Committees to Discuss Update of Public Safety Communications

ROCKVILLE, Md., March 12, 2010—The Management and Fiscal Policy (MFP) Committee and the Public Safety Committee of the Montgomery County Council will meet jointly on Monday, March 15, at a worksession on the planned modernization of the County’s Public Safety communications system.

The meeting will begin at 2 p.m. in the Seventh Floor Hearing Room of the Council Office Building at 100 Maryland Ave. in Rockville.The MFP Committee, which is chaired by Duchy Trachtenberg and includes Councilmembers Valerie Ervin and Nancy Navarro, and the Public Safety Committee, which is chaired by Phil Andrews and includes Councilmembers Roger Berliner and Marc Elrich, will review County Executive Isiah Leggett’s proposal in his Fiscal Years 2011-16 Capital Improvements Program for a $53.7 million modernization.

The Executive’s recommendation would fund three elements of the plan: replacement of the Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system; replacement of the Fire Station Alerting system; and acquisition of P-25 standard radio devices.

Replacing the current radio devices used by Montgomery public safety employees is necessary because current radios will not be compatible with other jurisdictions that are upgrading to the more advance P-25 radios. In addition, the current radios will not work once the County replaces its communications infrastructure.

The County’s public safety system includes 6,372 radios. About 900 have been upgraded to date

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