Council discussion highlights tower upgrades, frequency changes and installation logistics for radio grant

During the July 3 special meeting, councilors pressed staff on the technical readiness and logistics tied to a potential radio grant. Josette said CECOM and emergency management have a prioritized list of upgrades, including tower connectivity work and potential final towers on county-owned land toward Baker Point to close existing dead zones between jurisdictions. She framed the project as a multi-step transition and said some parts of the infrastructure are planned by county-level emergency communications staff.

Councilors asked whether moving to the larger regional system would require changing frequencies or installing new docking hardware in vehicles. Josette said that many radios are Motorola-type and may be similar, but she would check with Sean about whether docks would need replacement. She also explained that programming requires vendors with the specific encryption keys; Communications Northwest or Raycom were named as companies that would perform programming. Speakers said larger agencies are already implementing system upgrades and that the statewide conversion was being phased, with speakers informally citing a full conversion cost on the order of $33,000,000 as a planning-scale figure.

Council discussion emphasized that even if the radios were awarded by grant, installation might wait until infrastructure is ready: "we'll have the radios. We won't install them until we're capable," one participant said. Staff and council framed the grant as a chance to obtain equipment now and manage the longer-term infrastructure costs separately.