DeKalb County Seal
DeKalb County, Illinois

Minutes of the
E911 Board 


September 1, 2004


CALL TO ORDER

Chairman Olson called the meeting to order at 7:32 AM

 

ROLL CALL

Board members present:

Chairman Olson, Feithen, Hanson, Leoni, Riddle, Russell, Rosemier, and Suppeland.

 

Board members absent: Bowman, Pettit

 

Guests Present:

            Lt. Al Newby, DeKalb County Sheriff's Police; Brent Tillman, DeKalb Police Department;

Jim Feyerherm, Starved Rock Communications; Sheila Santos and Joan Berkes-Hanson, DeKalb County IMO.

 

Also Present: Charles Kross, Coordinator

 

AGENDA

The Chairman asked for any amendments to the agenda. There were none. 

A motion to approve the agenda was made by Suppeland and seconded by Russell There was no discussion.  The motion passed. 

 

MINUTES

A motion to approve the minutes of the August 4, 2004 meeting was made by Suppeland and seconded by Leoni. The motion passed. 

 

OLD BUSINESS:

      Treasurer’s Report:

A motion to approve the Treasurer’s Report as presented by Hanson, was made by Russell, and seconded by Leoni.  There was no discussion. The motion passed unanimously.

 

        Bills Not Previously Approved:   None

 

        Bills:

        Language Line                                                                                                         73.70 

Verizon                                                                                                              1,5016.12   

Verizon                                                                                                                    227.50

Verizon                                                                                                                     446.65

Verizon                                                                                                                     304.40

Verizon                                                                                                                     113.19

Verizon                                                                                                                       47.41

Verizon                                                                                                                       34.78

Sprint                                                                                                                          26.54

Sikich/Gardner – accounting                                                                                  631.00

NENA – Kross Conference regist.                                                                           99.00

NENA – Brent Tillman Conference Regist.                                                             99.00

Nelson Systems – logger maintenance contract  NIU                                      3,293.49

Starved Rock Communications – Malta pagers, & misc. repairs                                     2,325.00   

ATT                                                                                                                             30.55

                    Total                                                                     $23,011.96

 

A motion to pay the bills was made by Riddle and seconded by Leoni. A roll call vote was taken: Feithen   Y   Hanson Y   Leoni  Y   Riddle  Y   Rosemier  Y  Russell  Y  Suppeland  Y  Olson Y.   The motion passed.

 

      Mapping Project

Sheila Santos passed out an update of IMO’s report of progress.  Most of the City of DeKalb  data has been entered.  Tower information has still not been submitted from US Cellular. Cell tower face information is not yet logging.  For the time being, Sheila will do updates 2 times a month.

 

      Fire Radio Committee (Tabled motion from 8-4-04)

The Board discussed the tabled motion of August 4. 

Russell moved to approve the new transmitter.  Rosemier seconded.  Discussion followed… Hanson moved to table the motion until the next meeting. Feithen seconded.  The motion passed unanimously.”

            Feyerherm reported that he had done some calculations regarding the use of a microlink from the Sheriff's Office to the tower on Keslinger Road.  The links would have to be at the 200’ level at each site, and would cost roughly $40,000.  The radios will cost about $10,000 each, and requiring two.  Hanson asked about the reliability of the microlink versus phone lines.  Feyerherm  said the Sheriff's Office has had some outages, however the microlinks are usually fixed sooner than a phone line outage.  He added that Verizon has been good about fixing emergency service outages.  There was also some discussion on the effects of weather on microlink.  Sometimes heavy rain or snow can reduce the signal.  Rosemier said that with the speed of technological changes, the Board could more easily migrate to a newer solution by using the present phone lines.  He added that he didn’t believe the additional costs would be worth the expense at this time.

Rosemier made a motion to proceed with the new tower site antenna, using a landline.     Russell seconded.  There was no further discussion.   The motion passed unanimously.

 

      Regional Interoperability Assessment – Kross reported that the assessment was for agencies utilizing communications equipment.  The Board turns the use of the equipment purchased, to the PSAPs and responder agencies.  The individual agencies need to join into the assessment on their own.

 

NEW BUSINESS

      Telecommunicator Hiring Test (CritiCall)

Kross gave a brief overview of an Internet Based Dispatcher Pre-employment Test.  The DeKalb County Sheriff's Police are currently considering the purchase of the program.  The

testing could be done at one site in the county, for all of the PSAPs.  Each department could also use additional testing if they wished.  The cost would be $5000 for five individual licenses (allowing up to 5 people to be tested at one time.)  For two licenses, the cost is $3000.

A motion was made by Riddle to authorize the purchase of  5 licenses for $5000.  Feithen seconded.  The motion passed unanimously.

      Participating Agency Requests

1.      Malta Fire Department requests $425 from their split, to purchase a new handheld radio from Starved Rock Communications.

A motion was made by Riddle and seconded by Rosemier to approve the purchase. .  There was no additional discussion. The motion passed unanimously.

      PSAP Administrators' Report – No report.

        Persons to be Heard from the Floor – Feyerherm  reported that all of the water tower antenna work had been completed in Somonauk.  He said that Miller Automotive of Somonauk donated a radio shack to the Village.  Village workers had done the work to move and hook up the shack.  He suggested it would be nice if the Board could send a thank you letter to the Somonauk Board.  A suggestion was also made to provide Miller Automotive with a letter of donation, which they could utilize, for tax purposes.  Feyerherm will determine costs and give them to Kross to write the letters.

      Coordinator’s Report – No report

 

ADJOURNMENT

Rosemier moved to adjourn the meeting, and was seconded by Leoni.  The motion passed.   The meeting adjourned at 8:31 A.M.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

- - - -  - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - -

Charles Kross, Coordinator


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