Richmond council approves $82,451 upgrade to 911 call-handling system

The Richmond City Council voted to buy new customer premises equipment (CPE) for the city's Public Safety Answering Point, approving a contract price of $82,451.25 and a two-year financing option that would require roughly $41,225.63 in year-one payments.

City Manager (speaker 4) told the council that the current VIPER system, purchased in 2014, is based on copper-wire technology and that the state had issued a short compliance window. "The state just notified us that, we need to switch over, gave us 90 days to, come up with a plan to do so," the city manager said. He reported that the "low quote is from Majicom in the amount of $82,451.25" and recommended moving forward with Moducom using the two-year financing plan to spread the cost.

Council member (speaker 6) made the motion to approve the purchase and the financing option; the motion passed by voice vote. The city manager also asked the council to request that the Tax Increment Finance Authority (TIFA) pay half of the cost to reduce the city's near-term outlay. The council later approved a related amendment to appropriate $41,226 to the general fund communications equipment acquisition line item to reflect the financing arrangement.

Officials said the upgrade is driven by telecommunications companies phasing out copper networks and that without the change Richmond's dispatch could lose the ability to handle emergency calls. "If we don't switch to this, our system would not handle new calls," the city manager said. The council did not record a roll-call tally for the purchase vote; the motion carried by voice vote.