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Minutes of the Regular Meeting of Council Monday, January 26, 2015 Page 6 rnake available. CVD has provided documentation to us. We will post this on-line so that it makes it much easier for people to access it. We will also have hard copies as well in the days ahead. I know you had a lot of questions. I am deferring to the Council President. I just want people to start sifting through this. We will be prepared to answer the questions as best we can as we move forward. Everyone can appreciate there is a certain amount of complexity. This is not a black and white. There is a lot of gray. There are a lot of variables between communities, so there are a lot of hurdles that we have to deal with. But at the end of the day, between technology, operations and delivery of services, consolidation is something that has been championed by police and fire. With that, if there are any comments from Chief Edelman and Chief Carcioppolo, what is important for residents to know, I would appreciate that. Chief Edelman stated, sharing services is nothing new. Since the inception of SPAN in 1973, the Chiefs and various city leaders have been talking about consolidating jails, radios, dispatch centers, so it's nothing new. There was a different mindset back then where communities for whatever reason wanted to remain on their own and remain independent. Over the.last 5 to 10 years there has been a paradigm shift. That has happened for a number of reasons, one of which is technological. Technology has increased where voice data information sharing can be done faster and more accurately now than ever before. It enables us to take advantage of regional dispatch centers that will enable us to have interoperability with other police departments, fire departments and emergency management centers. Another part of that paradigm shift was financial obviously. There's far less Federal, state and county money available to sustain individual dispatch centers. In Mayfield Village, we are fortunate to have a very strong financial base. But the fact is it's not just money. We currently operate on a radio system that is rapidly becoming outdated. The FCC is requiring us to narrow band. We have already gone through one series of that in 2013 and we will be doing that again. Each time we narrow band, we are actually taking the frequency we speak on and push it together. What happens then is that other frequencies in that area bleed into ours and we bleed into theirs. It makes for a more inefficient voice and data communication system. Because of that, we are going to eventually need to migrate to the 800, the MARCs system, which is something the Fire Department has been on for a number of years. The bottom line is we recognize we give Mayfield Village residents a service they have come to expect from us. We are not going to leave anyone hanging. Whatever it takes, we are going to make the effort to do that for our residents. If its means having to come up with a way to staff our phones in such a way we can answer those non-emergency lines, we are going to do that. Procedurally, we have a lot to work out. As far as which dispatch center we think is best, we still have to work that out. This is something that's evolved very rapidly since the holidays. Almost daily things change. We are looking at them very detail oriented and are trying to find what's best for our community and our neighboring communities. Chief Carcioppolo agreed with Chief Edelman. I understand the reservations some of you may have. This is a nationally-accepted model for consolidated dispatch efforts and it's something that has been happening for decades. We utilize mutual aid every day due to our staffing. It's something that will help with our response to you on a daily basis. The only way to achieve the operational and economical benefits is from having consolidated services at that level. If there are any other questions, we would be happy to answer them.