ITEM 1.          Roll Call

David Warren absent. 

ITEM 2.          Recognize Guests

Ricky Curtis, Virginia Smelser, Mike Callahan

ITEM 3.          Minutes of Previous Meeting  -  November 17, 2010

ITEM 4.          Treasurer's Report

A.                 Receipts & Expenditures

In the absence of the Treasurer, Mrs. Smelser presented all receipts for review and signature of the Board

B.                 Current Balance

Frank Blanton asked what a weather subscription license was as referred to in the receipts.  Mrs. Smelser explained this is the subscription to the weather update service that enables dispatch to track weather, storms, etc.  This replaced the previous Meteorlogix system.

Chief Wade asked about the $20 per month fee for hosting our webpage.  Mrs. Smelser replied that this will eventually be moved and the charge will go away once Dean Whitlock has the City’s hosting software up and available.  He asked if we had communicated in writing about switching this over.  Mrs. Smelser replied that she had but it had been awhile.  She stated she would contact him again.  Chief Wade asked her to do this and copy him and Major Eads.  He stated that it may still be awhile since IT was backed up.

Mrs. Smelser presented the Treasurer’s Report.  Shelton Hillman made a motion, seconded by Frank Blanton, to approve the Treasurer’s Report as presented.  Roll call vote:  Blanton – yes, Eads – yes, Hillman – yes, Honaker, - yes, Messimer – yes, Wade – yes, Warren – absent.  Motion passed.

Chief Wade asked if we had previously placed the balance sheet as a cover sheet for the bank balances.  Mrs. Smelser replied yes.

Dwayne Honaker asked if the $16,000 in the training account had to go back to the State if we did not spend the full amount.  Mrs. Smelser replied that we do not have to return any unused portion back to the State but we are strongly encouraged to use the full amount for training

Shelton Hillman asked if there were any guidelines as to how much money we should have in savings accounts.  Mrs. Smelser said the last recommendation from the State was a minimum of one year operating budget in savings.  They strongly encourage the Districts have three years but will accept one year.  Mrs. Smelser stated that part of our savings will be used this coming year for the Next Generation 911 expenses, although, we do not know yet what those expenses will be.

Chief Wade stated it was on the radio that the next generation would be in the next month but that is not the truth.  Ricky Curtis said there was an article in the newspaper recently about texting 911.  Mrs. Smelser said there was a lot of discussion in the state asking the 911 Districts to discourage talk about texting 911.  Major Eads said that Lynn Questell sent the Districts two public service announcements to use to discourage the texting of 911 and to educate the public.  He stated we may need to use these announcements to make sure the public is aware they cannot text their emergency information to 911.    

ITEM 5.          Old Business

Mrs. Smelser said things were going very smoothly. There are a couple of issues that are ongoing that the Board is aware of.  One is the low volume issue on the radio system.  They thought they had tracked the problem to an issue on the microwave system.  However, that issue has been fixed and we are still having the intermittent low volume issue.  Motorola is continuing to work on the issue.  Chief Wade asked if that is what caused the outage today.  Mrs. Smelser stated that the technicians working on the system caused that issue which only lasted for a few minutes.  They called ahead and told us it would be down for a few minutes. We will talk about the Reverse 911 issue later in the agenda.

B.                 Statistics

Mrs. Smelser reviewed the statistical report.

She advised that we are still having some problems with the quality assurance software.  We are also training Mandy Hall to do the monthly quality assurance reviews.  The reviews are significantly behind but we hope to start making some major progress on this project within the next few weeks.

Chief Wade asked if the maximum que time from May of this year was a typo.  Mrs. Smelser explained this was caused by the suspicious package incident at the courthouse, wherein communications had to evacuate the building for a short time. 

C.                 Emergency Notifications Systems Report

1.         System Comparison – (Updated with additional pricing)

2.                  Attorney’s report on existing Reverse 911 contract

Mr. Curtis stated he reviewed the contracts as they relate to Reverse 911.  Virginia emailed the contract to him and he stated the provision (automatic renewal) is not there.  The Board is free to do whatever they feel is in the best interest of the Board.

3.                  Report on Reverse 911 Status and Response

Mrs. Smelser stated she had kept notes on all the actions we have taken and all the things staff has done to try and mitigate the problems with the Reverse 911 system issues.  She reviewed these notes with the Board.  A copy of the notes is attached to these minutes.  In addition to the notes, Mrs. Smelser shared the following information.

Mrs. Smelser stated that she and Major Eads had discussed this issue and that the general feeling is that Plant/CML is pushing their new notification product through their parent company.  The Reverse 911 system has been sold twice since its original company and is now part of Plant/CML who already had a notification product.  It was their consensus that the company does not want to fix, maintain, or sell the Reverse 911 product but rather would like to  switch everyone to their existing web product.

Chief Wade asked how much money we have invested in this product.  Mrs. Smelser stated the original product was bought by a grant through a Homeland Security. After the meeting, Mrs. Smelser researched the original price and found the total cost of the Bristol System was $31,629.32.  We have paid an additional service agreement of $7,925.33.  The $7,925.33 was an 18 month maintenance agreement.  The original purchase price included five years maintenance.  We received another bill in July for maintenance for this year for about $6,800.  This bill has not been paid since the system has not been fixed.  Mrs. Smelser advised the vendor that this bill would not be paid until such time as the system was fixed and fully operational.  When we bought the system, we bought the base system with the Guardian, mobilization and haz mat modules. 

Chief Wade asked if the system they are pushing now is the one quoted in the summary for about $5,523 and stated the company is not willing to take care of anything because they are not standing behind their product.  Mrs. Smelser stated that is the price quote but advised that the quote is somewhat deceiving.  She stated the $5,500 is less than what we would have to pay for our annual maintenance, however, the second and third year prices go up considerably and only includes 25,000 minutes.  If we do quarterly updates to our data and or maps, you have to add $4,500 to that annual fee.  If we decided to use the commercial maps rather than our maps you have to add an additional $600 per year.  The second year, the base price goes to $8,000 and the third year the base price is $10,500.  None of these figures take the data update and map update charges into consideration.  Additional minutes are priced at ten cents a minute.  If we have one major activation in the City, 25,000 minutes will be gone immediately.

Mr. Hillman stated he didn’t think we would want to deal with this company anymore anyway.  Chief Wade agreed.  Mr. Hillman said there is no sense in buying another product they have.  Chief Wade asked if this was the same company doing the next generation 911 equipment with texting, etc.  Mrs. Smelser stated it is a different division but the same parent company. 

Dr. Blanton stated Kingsport uses this same service and it works fine.  Mrs. Smelser advised the Board that Kingsport actually has two services; Code Red and this one.  Her understanding is that the City uses Code Red and the 911 entity uses Reverse 911 but they have not had any activations in over a year and no map updates in the last seven years.

Mr. Hillman asked if there are any competitors.  Mrs. Smelser provided the Board with a system comparison document that compares five different systems sold by five different vendors.   One big issue that she felt the Board needed to be aware of is that none of the vendors provide a similar product to the Guardian module we are currently using.  Chief Wade asked if the Guardian would operate independently regardless of what we do with the Reverse 911 and Mrs. Smelser stated it was a component of the Reverse 911 and would only operate through the Reverse 911 software.  Chief Wade asked if we went with another company if we would take the Reverse 911 product offline completely.  Mrs. Smelser replied yes.

Mrs. Smelser stated that she had discussed an alternative suggestion with Major Eads for continuing these calls. As long as we remain in low numbers, we could manage doing these calls manually through our CAD system. 

Major Eads stated that on the comparison it looked like they all had this service except Deltalert.  Mrs. Smelser said when she went back and did additional research, what these vendors were comparing to the Guardian is very different and does not provide the same service.  Chief Wade asked what they were offering.  Mrs. Smelser said their products require manual intervention to do the calls and you can’t do them for just one or two individuals.  Chief Wade stated we could manage four if we had to do it manually or the long way.

Chief Wade asked which of these recommendations is the best choice.  There are a lot of numbers here and options.  He stated he doesn’t understand the minutes and why it requires so many minutes and banks of minutes.  Mrs. Smelser stated that the minutes start from the time the system starts dialing until the call is disconnected.  Most of calls we sent in the past were less than 30 seconds.  Chief Wade asked how many minutes we had in the past.  Mrs. Smelser stated we did not have minutes in the past because it was an onsite system managed with our phone lines.  The new system is offsite, through the internet using vendor provided phone lines.  The vendors charge usage based on the minutes. 

Mrs. Smelser stated that 25,000 minutes would give us several activations if we stayed on our 30 second per call average.  We try very hard to keep our messages short because people aren’t going to listen to a long message.

Mrs. Smelser said she had looked at these systems and in her opinion; Code Red, Ever Bridge, Plant/CML upgrade and City Watch are expensive.

Deltalert has a three year option.  If you go to the three options, the first year is $7,400 for 50,000 minutes.  The second year is $1,500 and you carry over any unused minutes from the first year.  The third year on the three year option is zero cost and all the minutes carry over.  If you need additional minutes, they are available in banks of 5,000 for $500.  Chief Wade said the cost would be about $8,900 unless you buy additional minutes.  We probably would have to buy some additional minutes.  If you don’t buy minutes in advance before you run out, they cost you five cents a minute.

Chief Wade said it looked like Deltalert has the cost and minute advantage.  Mr. Hillman asked if we had any intelligence to see if their product was worth buying.  Mrs. Smelser stated she had talked to a user that had Code Red previously and had switched to Deltalert because the other was so expensive.  She had also talked to four people who were users of the City Watch system and two of the four stated they would never buy the product again. The other two stated they liked it pretty good.  She only found two users close enough that we could visit their site if we wished.  They both liked the system but there are some limitations like it does not offer a similar product to the Guardian.

The price for Deltalert includes any updates or upgrades that they issue during the time of our contract.

Major Eads asked how it would affect us by their using maps from Google.  She stated it would have some impact but most of the maps on Google are updated regularly and you have the option to view the satellite overviews.  They would update the maps regularly whereas we would only update our maps once per year.

Mrs. Smelser and the two supervisors did a conference call with Deltalert and had them demo the system.  It is very user friendly and it is quick.  They have three different centers across the nation so that if one gets hit with an outage or disaster, we don’t lose service.  We can activate the system from anywhere we have internet access.  Mr. Hillman said that it looks like Deltalert is the clear choice. 

Mrs. Smelser stated her recommendation would be for the Board to consider the Deltalert system.

Chief Wade asked if there was any options that we currently have with the Reverse 911 system, besides the Guardian, that we would not have with a new system.  Mrs. Smelser stated we have the mobilization and haz mat modules, but those are features of the base system for Deltalert and are not identified as extra modules.  She said that the staff recall lists could be built in the system as well as plumes for haz mat.  Major Eads asked if it allowed inbound calls or if that was extra.  Mrs. Smelser stated it would not do polling or surveying.

Chief Wade stated the State is getting ready to use Plant/CML for their next generation solution.  He said we are getting ready to get that shoved back on us.

Chief Wade said that the State is not getting ready to use Plant/CML as a whole, just this area, the eight Districts looking at a regional solution.  Mrs. Smelser stated there are numerous Districts across the State that use and are planning to use the Plant/CML 911 solution.  Chief Wade asked if the State was aware of the problems this company has right now. Mrs. Smelser stated she knew the State was aware that Greene County threw their Reverse 911 system away without it ever being operational.  She had spoken to Rex Holloway to generally explain our problems.  Chief Wade stated they are clearly not going to stand behind this (Reverse 911) product.  They (Plant/CML) are going to avoid us.   Mrs. Smelser explained that there is a difference.  She felt they wanted to sell you the 911 product but they do not want to sell the Reverse 911 product.  This was not their product.  Major Eads said the State is well aware of what is going on with the next generation equipment.  We have requested and they sent a representative (Rex Holloway) to the last regional meeting.  Rex Holloway is planning on attending future meetings as well.

Chief Wade asked if the Board had any more questions on this Deltalert.  He asked if this is what the Board was leaning toward.  He stated we needed to be able to do a reverse notification.  He stated we needed our attorney to look at a contract before we sign it.  Mr. Hillman asked if Major Eads agreed because he felt we really didn’t have a choice.  Major Eads said there wasn’t unless we were going to pay a whole lot more money and we’re talking double or quadruple in some instances.  He said from what he had heard and what staff had told him the Deltalert, on paper, sounds like it will do what we need it to do for the community.  Mr. Hillman made a motion to have the Deltalert send us a formal proposal in the form of a contract.  Motion was seconded by Tim Eads.  Roll call vote:   Blanton – yes, Eads – yes, Hillman – yes, Honaker, - yes, Messimer – yes, Wade – yes, Warren – absent.  Motion passed.

Mrs. Smelser said that Century Link was pushing hard for our District to make an immediate decision on the next generation 911.    The meetings were a push to get this done and Century Link kept pushing January for a decision.  We advised the group that the State was not ready and they don’t want us to do this until late next year.  Every meeting is geared around this push.  They are trying to re-word the proposal from Plant/CML to read as an upgrade rather than a new purchase so it would not go through the bid process.  At the last meeting, they proposed that since the State was not ready with the network we should go ahead and do this but they would put us on the Century Link network until the State’s was operational.  This is not a good solution.  We talked about putting this out to bid so they reworded the proposal to be an upgrade with sole source.  Major Eads and I have raised objections in these meeting that this is using public funds and with that kind of money, having to bid it is not the issue; it should be bid.  Major Eads stated that this is not a sole source. He said there are other vendors that sell this product and there are vendors that sell other brands of  911 equipment.

Mr. Hillman asked what we could do to keep that from happening.  Mrs. Smelser said she and Major Eads have been addressing these issues at every meeting and they have gotten the State involved.  We have an email to the TECB Director, Lynn Questell, and told her about the situation.  Major Eads suggested that if anyone could attend the next meeting, they should try to attend. 

Chief Wade stated that we needed to articulate for the minutes the contacts that have been made with Plant/CML and there responses.  It should be in a format so that anyone can see it and see the attempts that we made and that we went beyond. 

Ricky Curtis suggested Mrs. Smelser’s notes be an exhibit to the minutes.  Mrs. Smelser stated she had tried to keep good notes with contacts, dates and times.   Dr. Blanton stated it looked like she had spent a great deal of time on this matter. 

Chief Wade stated we will attach Mrs. Smelser notes and Mr. Curtis’ letter to the minutes.  Chief Wade said if the opportunity presents itself to present these minutes to the State Board and show them what we are dealing with through this particular company. 

ITEM 6.          New Business

ITEM 7.          Discussion Items

Mr. Curtis wanted to bring one item to the attention of the Board and it touches on the next generation regional 911 solution.   The Kingsport 911 Board attorney has sent him a couple emails about the proposed agreement. Mr. Curtis  stated it was his understanding that our Board was of the position that until such time as the State provides us some standards that we know what we are working with that we are not going to commit to anything.  If the Board wants him to start reviewing proposals and contracts then he can but he thought it was premature at this time.  Chief Wade concurred.