David Michael Miller
Towns throughout Dane County are threatening to stop footing their share of the costs for a new countywide radio network for emergency responders, following the latest in a series of setbacks in bringing the $18 million system, known as DaneCom, online.
“There is a lot of confusion out here and a lot of uncertainty over how DaneCom is going to work, or if it’s going to work,” says Jerry Derr, president of the Dane County Towns Association. “We’re 100% supportive of having an operable system, but right now we don’t have one.”
Nearly two years after DaneCom was slated to be fully operational, the county board on May 20 moved forward with a $6.7 million upgrade. The system was shut down last December after technical issues surfaced during field tests, bumping the completion date to sometime next year.
Although the system is inoperable, many local governments have continued to pay tens of thousands of dollars annually to the county since 2012 for DaneCom’s operating and maintenance costs.
“It’s like we keep making payments on the car without knowing when we’ll be able to drive the car,” says Derr. “It’s been a very convoluted process.”
Under the current analog 911 system, communications are relayed through dispatchers. The new radio system, once fully operational, will integrate 81 public safety agencies and 61 local units of government, allowing emergency responders to seamlessly communicate with one another.
In late 2011 and early 2012, 25 villages and cities and 29 towns agreed to split DaneCom’s annual costs with the county, with the county paying for the capital investment.
In April, participating governments received a new 10-year agreement from County Executive Joe Parisi’s office reflecting the county’s latest $6.7 million capital investment in DaneCom, impressing upon some that the existing agreement would expire at the end of the year. This further confused and angered town officials.
On May 7, Windsor’s town board rejected the new agreement, accusing the county of billing Windsor residents “on an inoperable system.”
“Based on the last three years, why would any municipality enter into an agreement for another 10 years?” asks Windsor board member Bob Wipperfurth. “We want a better contract.”
On May 20, the Towns Association sent county leaders a four-page letter declaring similar concerns about the updated agreement’s lack of hard costs, deadlines and performance clauses to hold the project’s contractor, Harris Corporation, accountable.
The association hasn’t asked the towns to follow Windsor’s lead, but, says Derr, “it’s hard for us as an association to recommend that our members continue with the agreement.”
Parisi’s office eventually withdrew the new proposed agreement, saying the original one is still in effect.
But withdrawing from that original agreement won’t be easy. On May 21, attorneys representing the municipalities – with the exception of Madison, which has its own system – issued a seven-page opinion supporting the county's position that participants are bound to the existing agreement whether DaneCom is or isn’t operational since the county’s $18 million investment was conditional, in large part, on participants’ willingness to share certain costs.
And according to the existing agreement, the earliest any local government could end its partnership with the county is Jan. 1, 2016 — but only with an 18-month notice.
Windsor’s rejection of the proposed agreement may now be moot, but it speaks to the long-simmering frustrations with the county’s 911 emergency system, from its day-to-day management to governance issues. While some towns are threatening to pull out of the system, others are pointing to it as an example of what they say is the county executive's unwillingness to share information or solicit advice on anything related to issues at the 911 Center.
Parisi wasn’t available to comment, but his chief of staff, Josh Wescott, says parts of DaneCom, including a new emergency paging system, have been online for 18 months.
The final communications piece also works, but it isn’t online, he says.
During last year’s field tests, emergency responders reported that coverage was spotty in rural or hillier areas of the county. The system’s signal strength also wasn’t enough to penetrate large buildings, like malls, Wescott says.
“Everything we heard from police, fire and EMS was...let’s just do it all at once, make improvements and get DaneCom done right and online,” says Wescott, a volunteer emergency medical technician himself for the village of Bellville.
There is $6.7 million earmarked in this year’s budget to construct four new radio towers, which may not be needed.
Wescott says the county is exploring the possibility of using existing towers, which not only would save around $900,000 per tower, but also would expedite the project’s completion.
“In the next 90 days we’ll have a clearer sense of a completion date that I think will be a lot quicker than what people think,” he says.
Once DaneCom goes online, countywide emergency coverage will, in theory, jump from 75% to 95%.
But some emergency responders, like Verona Police Chief Bernard Coughlin, worry the radios and other equipment purchased by local governments three years ago will be obsolete by late next year.
Although local governments can pull out of their cost-sharing agreement with the county with 18 months’ notice, none have taken that step. However, four towns and two villages have either stopped paying, or have never paid, their share.
Derr, who also chairs Bristol’s town board, says Bristol withheld its last DaneCom contribution, hoping to press Parisi for answers, but in the end, like the town of Windsor, eventually paid.
“We made an obligation to pay maintenance and operations and I don’t think Bristol should back away from that,” he says. “What we do after that is up in the air.”
In July, the 911 Advisory Commission will meet for the third time since it was formed to replace the 35-year-old 911 Center Board.
That is assuming its members show up.
Verona Police Chief Coughlin is disappointed with the scope of the new commission’s responsibilities, which is to say it has none.
“At least with the old board there was a requirement to meet monthly and share information,” he says.
Last November, the county board approved Parisi’s plan to dissolve the 14-member 911 Center Board, established in 1988 to make policy and procedural decisions regarding the county’s 911 Center. Were it still in place, this board would have had oversight of the new DaneCom system.
“It was part of a governance restructuring to create a clearer chain of command for 911 Center management to have a direct report to the county executive,” says Wescott.
But with the 911 Center Board went the mandate to share vital information with other stakeholders, as well as the public, a move that has incensed some.
“They got rid of the requirement to report to anybody about anything,” says Skidmore, one of four 911 board members not given a spot on the new commission.
“They didn’t like the fact that the users who depend on the 911 system were making complaints, and now they don’t have to address any of that.”
Few emergency responders were willing to speak to Isthmus about the new commission, but Dane County Supv. Mike Willett strikes an ominous tone. “What scares me is that it puts all the authority into one elected official, which I don’t like,” says Willett. “And I’m a less government guy.”
But what’s done is done.
“There’s no fighting [Parisi],” continues Willett, a 911 Center watchdog. “The [county] board supported him, so he got his way. It’s the rules now.”
Chief Coughlin says no one has stepped up to fill the commission’s chair or vice chair seats out of concern they’ll be held accountable for any dust-ups without having had a say in the decision making.
“Those seats seem like a formality,” he says. “We’re not going to accomplish anything if we can’t make decisions.”
But Wescott says the point of an advisory commission is to advise, not decide.
Rattling off the names of a half-dozen emergency personnel groups that meet with the 911 director, he says the commission “was created to give another opportunity for stakeholders to have access to the 911 director and his team and give him input.”
But so far, its 10 members haven’t given any advice. In fact, Coughlin and others say 911 director John Dejung hasn’t asked for any.
“It’s basically just a group of people sitting around listening to him talk,” he says. “He wasn’t seeking input from anyone.”
Editor's note: This article was corrected to reflect that Madison is not part of the DaneCom system.
