By Ryan Jockers
Staff Writer

February 1, 2005

NORWALK -- The city is seeking to improve public safety by creating a radio system that enables communication between city departments and emergency responders.

To meet that goal, it is recommending an engineering firm to study the current systems -- city departments, police, fire and Norwalk EMS use four radio systems -- and recommend changes, Mayor Alex Knopp said yesterday.

"The basic lesson of 9/11 for municipalities is that emergency radio communications must be modernized and upgraded to handle the complex new tasks of homeland security to improve the effectiveness of public safety responses and to protect the lives of emergency personnel," Knopp said.

The city would pay RCC Consultants, a New Jersey engineering firm that recently helped Stamford upgrade its emergency communications system, $40,000 that is expected to come from a federal homeland security grant. The city was promised $534,000 in federal homeland security funding but has not received any of it, officials said. The proposal requires Common Council approval.

The consultants would recommend, design and help the city carry out short- and long-term improvements. The changes would be part of the city's effort to modernize its emergency communications system, which includes constructing a new emergency dispatch center -- combining police, fire and EMS dispatch systems -- in the unfinished new police headquarters.

The four radio systems used by city departments, police, fire and EMS do not allow the agencies to communicate directly with each other -- or with the Rowayton Volunteer Fire Department, Norwalk Transit District and surrounding municipalities.

Currently, a public works truck operator out on a route who sees a downed power line or an accident calls his dispatch center, which would then call the city's first responder, the police department, because the Department of Public Works and police can't talk on the same radio system.

"And in a real emergency, the phone has the possibility of not working," said Ed Schmidt, the mayor's assistant who will join several officials on a new Mayor's Emergency Communications Planning Committee, which would work with RCC Consultants.

The consultants also would look at the six repeaters -- devices, such as towers, that receive, strengthen and redirect radio signals -- used in the four radio systems. The consultants and the new committee would work with Norwalk Hospital, "a logical centralized site for any radio system serving the area," Knopp said.

The city has proposed using $85,000 in expected homeland security funding to strengthen some repeaters to reduce existing dead zones, areas where the radio signal cannot penetrate.

The city plans to use the federal funding to purchase a "multiband communicator," for $32,000, to improve communication among emergency responders; such a device converts different radio bands to a universal radio band, Knopp said.

Also, $65,000 in federal funding would be used to buy 11 additional radios for the Norwalk Fire Department. All proposals to spend federal grants would require Common Council approval.

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