Dodge County committee advances radio RFP, sets April 1 release and May 5 site visits

The Dodge County Safety Radio Committee reviewed a draft request for proposals intended to replace and optimize the county's public-safety radio network and confirmed a procurement schedule tied to an April 1 RFP release.

The committee's chair opened discussion on interoperability and planning, noting the agenda aimed to ensure the RFP captured needs across county partners. Dean, who participated as the project lead in the meeting, said the consulting team needs the city's shapefile and two additional site locations for the RFP and recommended in-person visits as part of vendor evaluation.

"We need the shape file for the city, and we would need those two site locations we did not visit those in the needs assessment," Dean said, identifying materials consultants need to finalize options. He told the committee he had circulated most RFP sections and was finishing terms and conditions with purchasing and legal, and reiterated a goal to release the RFP on April 1, subject to county review.

The consultants laid out key dates tied to that release: mandatory site visits beginning May 5, vendor questions due May 12, county responses due May 19, and final proposals due June 30 at 3:00 p.m. The consultants said the May 5 site visits would be multi-day vendor walks and recommended purchasing staff attend the kickoff meeting.

The committee also discussed coverage issues and towers. One member reported receiving legacy tower files and highlighted coverage concerns on the county's west-side industrial area; consultants agreed to re-send tower inventories and append candidate tower lists to the RFP for vendor consideration.

The meeting addressed a public claim that the RFP was unnecessary and that system noise was "self-inflicted" by too many transmitters. Dean responded that, while some problems could be self-inflicted, many components of the current radio network are at or beyond end of life. "A lot of your components are end of life," Dean said, adding that consoles and simulcast components would become harder to support and that delays likely would increase replacement costs.

The chair framed interoperability as urgent: "That's one of the urgent things I feel we need to do," the chair said, stressing the need to plan for partner connectivity across the county and neighboring jurisdictions.

There was also a procedural discussion about the vendor-question deadline. Trista, speaking from procurement experience, advised that allowing questions only a few days before proposals is typical and that leaving an extended open window can generate too many last-minute submissions; consultants said they limit questions to avoid piecemeal addenda for large, multi-hundred-page submissions.

Votes at a glance

- Approve minutes of previous meeting: Motion made and seconded; chair called for a vote and members responded "Aye." (Outcome: approved; mover/second not specified in the transcript.)

Next steps: consultants said they will finish outstanding RFP sections and re-send tower and GIS files, aim to publish the RFP on April 1 (subject to legal/purchasing review), host mandatory vendor site visits starting May 5, and return to the committee to review vendor questions between May 12 and May 19. The committee scheduled follow-up meetings to review questions and to consider optimization recommendations for referral to the Executive Committee.

(Reporting note: Meeting date and location were not specified in the transcript. All quotes and attributions are taken from the provided meeting transcript and mapped to named or functionally labeled speakers.)