DuPage County Emergency Telephone System Board Policy Advisory Committee met May 16.
Here are the minutes provided by the committee:
1. CALL TO ORDER
9:00 AM meeting was called to order by Chair Timothy Hayden at 9:00 AM.
2. ROLL CALL
PRESENT: Hayden, Baarman, Dina, Hermes, Herron, Johl
ABSENT:
Attendees:
Director Linda Zerwin, DuPage Emergency Telephone System Board, non-voting Member
Eve Kraus, DuPage Emergency Telephone System Board
Matt Theusch, DuPage Emergency Telephone System Board
David Poetz, Motorola System Manager
Jim Connolly, Village of Addison (Remote)
Kelley Darre, Glendale Heights PD (Remote)
Joe Fiorentino, Oakbrook Terrace PD (Remote)
Bill Holmer, Carol Stream PD
John Lozar, DU-COMM
Bob Murr, College of DuPage (Remote)
John Nebl, OHSEM
Jason Norton, Darien PD (Remote)
Bill Srejma, ACDC (Remote)
Andrea Lieberenz, Addison PD, Secretary
On roll call, Chairman Hayden, Vice Chair Dina, Member Baarman, Member Hermes, Member Herron, and Member Johl were present, which constituted a quorum.
3. CHAIRMAN'S REMARKS - CHAIR HAYDEN
There were no remarks from Chairman Hayden.
4. PUBLIC COMMENT
There was no Public comment.
5. CONSENT ITEMS
A. Approval of Minutes
1. ETSB - Policy Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting - May 2, 2022 9:00 AM
A motion was made by Member Herron, seconded by Member Johl, to forward the minutes from the May 2, 2022 meeting to the ETS Board to receive and place on file. On voice vote, motion carried.
| RESULT: ACCEPTED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Steve Herron, DU-COMM Police Rep SECONDER: Pat Johl, ACDC Fire Rep AYES: Hayden, Baarman, Dina, Hermes, Herron, Johl |
A. Fire Focus Group Update
David Poetz, Motorola System Manager, advised that he will combine Agenda Item 6A and 6B, as many issues overlap. He will address both 6A and 6B independently, as well.
Mr. Poetz shared his screen, showing the Statewide Interoperability Template. He said the Fire Focus Group did not make any changes to the template when they met last; they focused more on the code plug, to see what changes need to be made since the last time any changes were made was approximately 10 years ago. He said there will be another meeting next week to work further on the code plug. Mr. Poetz showed an aggregate of what Member Herron presented at the last PAC meeting, which shows the proposed changes to the template regarding naming changes and encryption. He said no major changes to the template have been made, but they changed the numbering of the suggested PD Ops channels. A brief discussion ensued regarding channel mapping.
Mr. Poetz said they will discuss at the next meeting what information is needed from surrounding agencies that are not in DuPage County - what do they need so channels from their systems can be incorporated into the DuPage template and vice versa.
Mr. Poetz said at the last Police Focus Group meeting, they put a tier system together on usage of the Common Key Reference (CKRs). He said each radio will not need a specific CKR for just one of the channels; it is more of a tier of each channel. He showed a draft for breaking down the encryption of the PD channels.
Chairman Hayden questioned the number of keys, and it was confirmed there are 10 channels. Further discussion ensued regarding the Ops channels. The group also discussed how the Telecommunicators would handle the traffic on the channels.
Member Hermes questioned why there is a dedicated DU-COMM and dedicated ACDC Statewide; why not just a Statewide 1 and Statewide 2. Member Baarman replied the thought was that a PSAP has a place they could schedule without having to check with anyone else, that if DU-COMM knows their agencies are not using it, it is their first place to go if they need a Statewide. The second would be to call ACDC to see if DU-COMM could use theirs. A discussion ensued around LTE and the Statewides in terms of operations and naming conventions. Ms. Zerwin pointed out a Statewide is needed, as everyone does not have an APXNext. Everyone agreed that training is important and necessary. Ms. Zerwin added training should be annual. Chairman Hayden said we should not do something just because that is what has been done in the past; this is a great opportunity for best practice changes for the whole system.
Member Hermes questioned if the radio could show the user what agencies are assigned to the radio channel chosen on the radio. Member Baarman said that would be training. Mr. Poetz confirmed, no, the radio does not show that. Ms. Zerwin discussed training, how options could be configured, but that if a name is changed but still resides in the same position on the console, the TC knows to look in that space. But if the name is changed and the position moved that becomes two gross motor skill changes that become a challenge. They need to look at what will help the TCs with any changes made, things that can be done to make it easier. Member Herron talked about use of colors to assist.
Chairman Hayden asked if the Members could make a decision about Statewide today. Member Baarman explained that DU-COMM has 40+ years of agencies being assigned to a specific talk group and equipment and lines would now need to be relabeled. He said changing dispatch channels names affects many things. There would be a large effort on DU-COMM’s staff that was not planned. Ms. Zerwin stated that the customer premise equipment, radios consoles and logger are all scheduled to be upgraded which means that vendors will be involved to help with the workload and configuration and it may be a good time to make changes.
Member Johl said this would require a lot of staff hours, and when Fire was thinking about doing this, they wondered who would pick up the cost, as it is not included in this project or in either budget. Member Herron said the PAC would not be being a good steward of our resources this was not looked into. He said major decisions might not be able to be made today.
Member Baarman clarified this does not affect the Statewides, he has nothing labeled as Statewide, it is the Fire Ops/VHF channels. Member Herron said the only difference in the Statewides would be relinquishing the ACDC/DU-COMM names. Chairman Hayden was in agreement with relinquishing the names. Member Herron added the Ops are going to plain English names and moving to a 1 and 2 is not a bad idea, but he needs time to make a decision. Member Hermes said she would need time to digest the potential change and clarified with Member Baarman how many would be changing and what that would entail. Member Baarman said this would affect all the labels and the tower sites, which at the beginning of the year was over 100.
Ms. Zerwin said both PSAPs and ETSB would need an in-depth task list to determine how involved the project is. Further discussion ensued around training and where agencies fall within the Ops channels and circled back to the Statewides and availability in case of an emergency incident.
Ms. Zerwin said the takeaway is that the ETSB and PSAPs would be coming up with a list of things that would be touched or impacted and questioned if that information would go to the Focus Groups next Monday or be ready for the next PAC meeting. Chairman Hayden felt it should go the Focus Groups first. Member Herron feared this might be an insurmountable task, that putting staff through days and days of identifying circuits for them to come back and decide it would be too much. Member Johl said that Fire did this already, informally and determined it was insurmountable cost and too much time. That it could not be justified at this point.
Ms. Zerwin said that when changes are made that are operationally the best practice, it is our job. There are many projects the CAD Administrator has to do, or the network guys have to do, and that is just part of what we do. She said as for who is paying for it, we are already paying for it because it is our job to do those things if it is decided it is in the best interest of the system. As a boss, she does not like to hear that is a lot of work to do. It is, but if it will be worth it, the amount of work it takes does not matter. We can stay with something that has been done for 40 years, if that is the best way to do it. Is the change you are proposing going to make this better? If it will be better for the community and operationally, we should do it. The question is, is the return on investment of the project worth it? Chairman Hayden and Member Herron agreed. Chairman Hayden said from the ACDC perspective if it is the right thing to do his concern is not about the money or manpower. Ms. Zerwin reiterated that charts and labels can be updated during site visits. The consoles are due for an upgrade during which the vendor can update systems. She does not want to not do something because someone says it's a lot of work, if it's beneficial.
There was discussion around a naming convention brought up by Member Johl. He suggested the talk groups be named with DuPage across the board, including within outside agency radios. It allows for consistency in naming and allowing outside agencies to find DuPage channels. If he is working with an outside agency and he is trying to tell them to go to a talk group and what it is called within their radio, to them it's DU FD OPS1. Ms. Zerwin said an outside agency can label a DEDIRS talkgroup whatever they want on their side, so unless that is specified within an access agreement, that the policy states they have to use the naming convention that we have, then we won't know what they call it. That hasn't been as ask but is something to think about in the policy.
Mr. Poetz continued with his presentation. He said the fire and police focus groups went through the questions that came up at a previous PAC meeting regarding the smart apps. They discussed what is desired out of the box regarding standardized configuration. Mr. Poetz showed his spreadsheet and discussed each question that the groups went over and what police and fire preferred, respectively.
B. Police Focus Group Update
See the above discussion.
C. Stubby Antennas
Ms. Zerwin suggested that at the next Ops meetings to let the agencies that are known to have low spots, like West Chicago, the demo radios can be exchanged for testing in such areas. Member Herron asked if the radios provided to the PAC would be utilized for testing the problem areas and Ms. Zerwin replied yes, that would be the preference since it is known they work. She said this could be announced in the Ops meetings to see if someone has a concern.
7. OLD BUSINESS
There was no old business.
8. NEW BUSINESS
Vice Chair Dina advised that for those who are working on policies, ETSB is going to terminate the help desk ticket email address and replace it with Zendesk in July.
9. NEXT MEETING:
A. Monday, June 6 at 9:00am in Room 3-500B
10. ADJOURNMENT
Member Baarman made a motion to adjourn the meeting at 10:15am, seconded by Member Hermes. On voice vote, motion carried.
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