FLORIDA E9-1-1
MINUTES
FROM
STUART, FLORIDA 9-1-1 CONFERENCE
MAY 3-7, 1999
Board Members Present: Joe Reavy, President
Pat Welte, Past President, Nominating Committee
Treasurer, John Schroeder
Secretary, Cheryl Fields
VP, Southern Region, Linda Draughn
VP, Northern Region, Nelson Green
Condensed version: Meeting was called to order by Joe Reavy, Treasurer report given byJohn Schroeder – $9,313.99 is the current balance. Steve Latza of Brevard County will beasked to chair a committee to explore ideas of fund raising for the Chapter.
Discussed recommendations from the nominating committee. Since no other interested partieshave come forward the existing board of officers will be up for re-election at the NENAmeeting 5/7/99.
Barbara Howard is retiring — will have award plaque for service to be given tomorrow.
Discussed proposed PSC rules. Nelson Green to come up with verbiage to bring beforemeeting tomorrow for vote NENA?s endorsement.
Statewide Database – after much discussion agreed for Nelson Green to come up withverbiage to bring before tomorrow?s meeting for the Florida Chapter of NENA toendorse a Feasibility Study to be made by the Division of Management Services.
Discussed Y2K importance to go over tomorrow ?s meeting.
Minutes: Florida Chapter NENA 5/7/99
Meeting called to order by Joe Reavy, President.
Jerry Brock awarded plaque in appreciation for his design and implementation of theFlorida Chapter NENA/911 Coordinator Web Site. Go Jerry!!! Everyone be sure and use thisweb site.
Plaque given to Barbara Howard in appreciation of service and congratulations on yourretirement! YEAH Barbara!!!!
Remember everyone communicate through the Internet — it?s great. We have had sometechnical difficulties with the Newsletter would should have been out before thisconference. It should be out within the next 2 weeks.
Please, everyone, attend your regional meetings. This is your opportunity to discuss andkeep abreast of important issues. Joe will attend when at all possible. If he can?tattend, he will at least try to sit in via conference call. Joe does receive a list of allnew members as they join. He sends a welcome letter to each new member & advises themof their regional vice president and copies that president.
Certificates of appreciation given to:
Jerry Brock ? Northwest Florida Regional VP 98/99
Linda Draughn ? Southern Regional VP 98/99
Barbara Howard ? Central VP 98/99
Nelson Green ? Northern VP 98/99
John Schroeder ? Treasurer 98/99
Cheryl Fields ? Secretary 98/99
Wireless legislation discussed. Is currently on Governor?s desk. He has promised notto veto. Will become law ? be prepared ? unsure when monies will begin influxinto counties.
Wireless checklist ? how to handle ? is on the Internet. Everyone is encouragedto check out GIS in preparation for phase I/phase II wireless. Hillsborough County doeshave software available they are willing to share. Contact Joe Reavy for information.
Per Judy Graham representative of NENA?s local number portability committee,concentrating of how this affects Law Enforcement. Advises there is a Law enforcementsolution out there that will help 911. IVR ? Interactive Voice Response System. Tooperate, you dial the IVR telephone number ? enter your assigned pin and you may getany ported telephone number information. To register for this service and receive pin youmay contact via the internet @www.numberpool.com or via phone 312-382-0565. There areapproximately 146,000 ported numbers on file right now.
ALEC checklist is on the Internet. Please check out.
Proposed by Joe Reavy as recommended by the executive board:
The Florida Chapter of NENA endorses the proposed rules before the Public Servicecommission regarding ALEC?s. The chapter further supports the requirement that anyALEC operating within a county must contact that county?s 9-1-1 coordinator prior toinitiating service to insure proper testing and operations of 9-1-1 services. All were infavor without a second. There is a PSC hearing on May 18, 1999 at 10:00 in Tallahassee.All coordinators are encouraged to attend if possible.
Joe Reavy proposed the following as recommended by the executive board:
The Florida chapter of NENA endorses a Feasibility Study for a Statewide 9-1-1 databasemanaged and maintained by the state 9-1-1 coordinator?s office. The chapter requeststhat its members be involved in the study and the results be reported to the membershipand 9-1-1 coordinators at the earliest possible time.
After much discussion (pros & cons) this motion died for lack of a second. It wasagreed by all members that a letter from Joe Reavy, President, Florida Chapter Nena wouldbe sent to Jim Martin, State 911 Coordinator advising that should this feasibility studyprogress, the 911 Coordinators would like to be a part of the study.
Joe Reavy advised Y2K basically equates to hurricane preparedness, therefore HillsboroughCounty approached Y2K as an Emergency Management event. It has gone will and resulted in apro-active 2000 contingency plan. He advises more public education is needed. If anyonewould like samples or examples from Hillsborough County, contact Joe Reavy. If anyone hasexamples or samples they would like to share with the rest of us; they may be forwarded toJerry Brock, Washington County and he will add them to our web page.
Pat Welte advised the ADA would like us to attend their conference in November. They wouldlike our input prior to November as to what we would like to see on the agenda. If anyonehas any question or would like information on this conference, contact Pat Welte. She didhave information available at our meeting and should still have additional packagesavailable. (Thank you Pat)
Last order of business ? Pat Welte, Nominating Committee recommends existing Board bere-nominated. Asked for additional nominations from the floor — none offered. BarryMogul seconded motion for nomination of existing board. All were in favor.
New Board: Joe Reavy, President
Bob Nibarger, Vice President
John Schroeder, Treasurer
Cheryl Fields, Secretary
Regional Vice Presidents:
Meryl Ladd, West
Nelson Green, North
Linda Draughn, South
Chuck Freeman, Central
New Board sworn in.
Meeting Adjourned.
Barry Mogul welcomed all to Pinellas County EMS Building.
First item on the agenda was a report on the wireless legislation. Bruce Thorburn gavethe report in place of Dick Nelson who was not able to attend.
Bruce gave a summary of the activities of the Senate Committee on Community Affairs andreported that as of November 14 the members of the committee unanimously supported thelegislation, and although committee membership has changed, we should still have supportin the Senate. The House is another matter. Speaker Thrasher is anti-tax of any kind andmay prove a stumbling block in getting it through the House of Representatives.
Several suggestions have been made as to how to convince the more conservative Housemembership and the new governor that this is a Public Safety Issue. Jim Martin will bespeaking with telco lobbyists for support and it was also suggested that letters be sentto Sheriff and Police agencies asking for help in convincing Governor Bush, who promisedsupport of law enforcement issues, that this legislation is needed. Barry Mogul suggestedthat it be approached as an extension of the wireline fee already in effect and is nowbeing applied to the wireless end. Ken Takacs of AT&T wireless suggested that a voteagainst the legislation would be a vote against public safety.
In summary, our work is not yet done and we must make a concentrated effort to reachour counties’ legislative delegations for support of the bill.
Joe Reavy presented a plaque to Barry Mogul from the Florida Chapter of NENA in honorof his fifty years of service in Public Safety.
Joe also made a presentation on the ALEC issue. He mentioned that a check list for bothwireless and ALECs can be found on the Florida NENA page on the net. He emphasized gettingahead and staying ahead of the game when it comes to new agencies providing phone servicein your counties. This includes knowing who is in your area and contacting them, settingup standards for discussion with them in the presence of the local LEC, what documentationis required from them, and what documents you will provide for them.
The question was raised about what to do about overflow conditions of ALEC trunks. Itseems this occurred in an area code split involving Polk and Hardee counties and Sprintand GTE.
Joe also directed us to Y2K issues on the web. Per Joe, Bruce, and Barry, this not onlyincludes the LECs, it also should include the utility companies. We should be sending outletters to all agencies on whom 9-1-1 depends, asking for Y2K compliance. Bruce will beglad to share a copy of the report on utility companies when it becomes available.
Dennis LeMonde of Hillsborough County EMS spoke to us about Quality Assurance for EMD.As part of their program, members of the various agencies involved, including respondersand dispatchers took part in setting standard SOPs, protocol of compliance and a trainingprogram. All dispatchers, law enforcement, fire, and EMS are trained in all topics ofdispatch. It is their goal that a person be fully qualified in these areas beforeanswering 9-1-1 phones. Academy approved courses in EMD are offered on a regular basis byHillsborough County EMS. Please contact Dennis for further information.
Bruce Thorburn spoke on the issue of resellers. The main question is Who collects thefee? LECs was the common consensus. However, Sprint and GTE had announced in Septemberthat it was a corporate decision not to collect the fee from resellers. At this time,BellSouth is still collecting the fee from resellers and sending it on to the counties.The PSC agrees with Bruce and Jim Martin, informally, that if the LECs will not collectthe fee from resellers, then the counties need to know who is operating in their countyand how many customers they have. Some kind of declaratory statement is needed. CindyRolland of Sprint advised that Sprint would not collect, but will provide a list ofresellers and the number of customers to each county.
Lori Collins, Public Education Coordinator for Pinellas County 9-1-1 gave a veryinformative presentation on her job responsibilities. The main goal was to reduce thenumber of non-emergency calls to 9-1-1. She has developed a very comprehensive program ofresearch and implementation in finding a market for her program. Lori is a featured writerin APCO Communications and has branched out into video production and publishing books andguidelines for teachers of 9-1-1, agencies, and the general public. She will be happy towork with anyone in setting up a program and has material readily available on all aspectsof the program. Bottom line—the number of non-emergency calls to 9-1-1 has been reducedconsiderably since she started her program.
Several members of the group took advantage of the opportunity to tour thecommunications center in the EMS building.
The 9-1-1 Coordinators meeting with BellSouth, Sprint, and SCC did not take place sincethere were only three counties represented. It was recommended that this meeting be heldon the same day and at the same location as the next CEFA meeting. Perhaps this groupscould meet at 9:30 or 10:00 and then the CEFA group begin at 10:30 or 11:00. Sandy Mercerhas invited us to hold the next meeting in Polk county at a site to be determined on a dayduring the last week in March. I am now suggesting Wednesday, March 31, 1999.
At that time, you will be electing a new vice president of CEFA and Frank Kirk ofSeminole County has indicated his willingness to take the position. Nominations are stillin order. If you know of anyone else who would be willing to serve, please let me know inwriting and I will have the ballot ready for the next meeting.
Thanks to Barry Mogul for being a very gracious host, and thanks to Ron Hatton forproviding delicious refreshments.
Any questions, corrections or additions to these minutes, please let me know.
Peace, Joy, and Contentment to all this Christmas Season and the very best in the NewYear.
BJH
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