Board members present:

Chairman Olson, Vice Chair Riddle, Bowman, Feithen, Hanson, Leoni, Pettit, Russell, and Suppeland.

Guests Present: Lt. Al Newby, DeKalb County Sheriff's Police, Brent Tillman, DeKalb Police Department; Jim Feyerherm, Starved Rock Communications; Glenna Johnson, Geo-Comm:  & Debbie Lilley, Verizon.

Also Present: Christine Johnson, DeKalb County Treasurer; Charles Kross, Coordinator

Chairman Olson called the meeting to order at 7:30 AM

AGENDA

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

MINUTES

            A motion to approve the minutes of the April 2 meeting was made by Bowman and seconded  by Riddle.  There was no discussion.  The motion passed. 

OLD BUSINESS:

¨      Treasurer’s Report

                Treasurer Johnson presented the report from April.  She noted that there was more than  enough cash in the checking account   to cover bills in the next couple of months, and asked if the Board would want to move some    into the money market account.  Feithen made a  motion to take $100,000 from checking and  put it into the money market.  Riddle seconded

            the motion.  There was no discussion.  A roll call vote was taken: Bowman  Y  Feithen   Y      Hanson Y  Leoni Y  Pettit  Y  Riddle  Y  Russell  Y   Suppeland  Y   Olson Y.                     

A motion to approve the Treasurer’s Report was made by Feithen and seconded by Leoni.   There was no discussion.  The motion passed.

§         Bills Not Previously Approved: There were none presented.

§         Bills:

      Verizon                                                                          112.13

      Verizon                                                                            41.63

      Verizon                                                                           36.10

      Verizon                                                                            29.53

      Verizon                                                                          305.42

      Verizon                                                                             73.32

      AT&T                                                                               25.79

      Sprint                                                                                12.78

      Starved Rock Comm - Somonauk tower                          112.50

      Language Line                                                                   85.70

      Communications 2000 - Leland Pagers                         1,200.00

      Communications 2000 - Waterman Pagers                    1200.00

      Communications 2000 - Somonauk Pagers                    1200.00

      Tri-Star Communications - Lee Pagers                           1200.00

      NiComm - Sycamore Pagers                                          1083.95

      Goerlitz Communications - Shabbona Pagers                  1200.00

      NiComm - Sycamore                                                     1035.00

      Sikich/Gardner - audit                                                      105.00

      Dictaphone - maint. agree. - DeKalb                               4736.88

      DeKalb County IMO - mapping services                         8200.00   

            Total                                                                     $21,995.73          

        Kross noted that there was a bill from Starved Rock Communications for the G/K fire radio Tower equipment and installation of    $49,691.30.  This bill will be paid by the County of  DeKalb, until reimbursement from the State of Illinois is made.                  

            A motion to pay the bills was made by Russell and seconded by Bowman.  There was no  discussion.  A roll call vote was taken:  Bowman Y  Feithen  Y  Hanson Y Leoni Y Pettit             Y             Russell Y  Suppeland  Y  Riddle Y  Olson Y.   The motion passed unanimously.

§         Communications Consolidation -Feyerherm discussed some recent complaints of some of the mobile/portable units being unable to hear all fire radio traffic.  This has become more apparent recently because of the addition of Sycamore and G/K Fire/Rescue on the countywide frequency.  He further explained that it is because whichever tower is originally voted, the response will also go through that tower.  The strength of that signal may be significantly reduced due to physics, weather, and distance, which could affect the ability of listening units to receive a signal.  He went on to explain that the present configuration, minus a couple of towers, was how the Board's engineer originally engineered the system.  Feyerherm voiced concern at that time, however, the ETS Board at the time approved the engineering, since it was only expected to be used to page out departments, and respond to acknowledgements that the paged Fire Department received the page and was responding.  It was not meant to be a normal 2-way communications system.  Riddle asked if a different voter would help.  Feyerherm said it would, but the much better situation would be a transmitter from a single source/location, with enough altitude to reach the entire county, similar to the Sheriff's Police transmitter located on Kesslinger Road.  He was asked if finer tuning/tweaking would do any good.  He said it is a matter of the signal going to one specific transmission point that will make the difference.  Bowman and Riddle both expressed concern of the safety issue, and feel that the Board needs to do something.  A brief discussion of in car repeaters was discussed, but they wouldn't help this problem.  Olson said that issues keep coming up with the current system.  He asked for volunteers for a committee to examine the issue in more depth, and report to the Board.  Feyerherm suggested that a "needs" survey be conducted with the area Fire Departments.  Riddle, Suppeland, Bowman, and Kross will be the committee, with Riddle acting as Chair.

§         Board Composition - Olson distributed a letter from DeKalb County Board Chairman Robert Pritchard, appointing County Board member Robert Rosemier to the ETSB.  He also suggested e a meeting with the Chairman and possibly the rest of the ETSB, with the goal of addressing the structure of the Board, and possible changes.  He would like to have an updated plan approved by the County Board by September.

§         Waterman Water tower – Electricity has now been installed in the new shelter.  Feyerherm will be making the necessary equipment changes from the water tower into the new shelter.

§         Grant Application - Kross said that Brent Tillman has done a lot of work on the Public Safety Foundation of America grant application.  The pre-application has been submitted, and we have until early July to submit the finalized application.  Tillman reported that he has communicated with several agencies that have already received grants for wireline/wireless mapping.  Most only got a portion of what was requested, but the one common thread with successful applicants was having a vendor established, with specific costs enumerated in the application.  Kross asked for authority from the Board to send out RFP requests.  Suppeland moved to authorize the Coordinator to prepare and distribute an RFP request for 911 mapping.  Bowman seconded the motion.  There was no discussion.  The motion passed unanimously.    Olson asked for input from the PSAP Administrators when the time comes to make a decision on a product.
 

NEW BUSINESS

¨      Participating Agency Requests

1.      Lee Fire Department sent a request for $525 for a mobile radio.  Kross pointed out that Shabbona and Lee share the same split, and that Shabbona has put in a similar request, however Lee's was received first.  Suppeland said that he felt that Lee should get the approval, since they haven't gotten anything but pagers in the past.  He moved to approve the Lee Fire Department request up to the amount that in the combined shares.  Riddle seconded.  There was no further discussion.  The motion passed unanimously.   

2.      Somonauk Fire Department submitted a request for $923 for radio equipment.  Riddle moved to allow the purchase up to the amount in their share.  Suppeland seconded.  There was no further discussion.  The motion passed unanimously.   

3.      Shabbona Fire Department requested $550 to purchase equipment.  Johnson reported that after Lee Fire Department's request, there was no more money in the split.

¨      PSAP Administrators' Report - No report.

¨      Persons to be Heard from the Floor - Tillman reported from the NENA meeting, where there was discussion about federal Telecommunication Service Priority (TSP) program by public safety agencies.  TSP provides a higher priority for restoration after sudden service loss for those telecommunications circuits registered under TSP, as compared to the restoration priority Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) have always had through their local telephone companies.  Debbie Lilley of Verizon said that since Verizon has always considered 911 to be amongst the highest priorities of the company, she is not aware of what the TSP costs would be.  She wondered why agencies would want to pay additional fees for service they are already getting free.  Kross will look into this further.

¨      Coordinator’s Report - No Report.

ADJOURNMENT

 Russell moved to adjourn the meeting, and was seconded by Suppeland.  The motion passed.   The meeting adjourned at 8:54 A.M.

Respectfully submitted,

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Charles Kross, Coordinator