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County details radio inventory and repair strategy as parts become scarce
Summary
Emergency Management Coordinator Mark Whalen told commissioners the proposed Motorola contract excludes handheld radios and outlined repair practices: Motorola charges about $800 per radio repair, the county keeps spares and uses private vendors when Motorola parts are unavailable; he listed inventories for sheriffs, fire district and cities.
Mark Whalen provided counts and repair practices for county radio assets, saying the Motorola service agreement covers tower sites, dispatch and IT‑room equipment but not handheld radios. He said Motorola charges a flat fee of about $800 for end repairs and that most routine repairs are handled in-house; for some radios Motorola cannot supply parts and the county has used private vendors to restore units rather than leave them unusable.
Whalen gave inventory figures: the Sheriff’s Office owns about 70 mobile radios and roughly 110–120 portable radios; the county keeps about four spare mobile units and a cache of about a dozen portables for large operations. He said the fire district owns about 120 Kenwood portables and mobiles, volunteers carry portables, and city agencies own various Motorola radios. Whalen cautioned that some portables made in 2021 are already difficult to source parts for and that he is trying to stretch service life toward 2031.
