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Emergency management recommends switching radio maintenance contract; town can choose when to join state system
Summary
Emergency Management Director Russ Kimmes recommended replacing the town's Motorola maintenance agreement with a $78,660 Northeastern Communications sustainment contract and discussed voluntary migration to the state public-safety radio system in the early 2030s.
Russ Kimmes, New Canaan's emergency management director, recommended that the town move its public-safety radio sustainment work from a Motorola support contract to a direct service agreement with Northeastern Communications at an annual cost of $78,660.
Kimmes told the council that Motorola initially proposed a roughly 31% increase at contract renewal (he said that later discussions reduced that to about 21%), a rise he described as unacceptable for the town. He recommended the Northeastern arrangement to provide preventive maintenance and site inspections for the town's seven-site radio system and said the agreement covers 24/7 on-call support provided by technicians who already maintain the hardware.
Kimmes also described a longer-term option: migrating New Canaan's public-safety operations to the statewide radio backbone. He estimated that joining and adding infrastructure to the state system would be a substantive capital project in the multi-million-dollar range ("in the neighbor of five or six million") and said core components of New Canaan's system are likely to start sunsetting in the 2030—12 2034 timeframe, giving the town discretion about when to shift.
Council members asked technical and operational questions: Kimmes said the town's system supports roughly 300 subscriber radios across police, fire, EMS, public works and the search team, and that the town has been buying "all-band" radios to ensure interoperability with neighboring agencies on other systems. He also noted a pending state bill (not likely this year) that, if enacted, could help fund sustainment costs for added state-infrastructure sites.
The council did not take a formal vote on Kimmes' recommendation during the session; the matter will move through budget and procurement review as part of the FY27 process.
