Regional Advisory Committee Friday, October 13, 2017 10:00 a.m. St. Cloud Police Department 101 11 th Ave. N., MN City of St. Cloud Members/Alternates Present: 1. Micah Myers, Chair & Brandon Larson City of St. Cloud 2. Kyle Dusing Benton County 3. Tom Egan & Mike Henrion Douglas County 4. Tina Lindquist Grant County 5. Sheriff Dan Hartog Kandiyohi County 6. Randy Celander Meeker County 7. Al Fjerstad Mille Lacs County 8. Victoria Ingram & Jane Holman Morrison County 9. Sheriff Tim Riley, Vice Chair Pope County 10. Kyle Breffle & Derek Baas Sherburne County 11. Kristen Lahr Stearns County 12. Dona Greiner Stevens County 13. Sheriff Holtz Swift County 14. Sarah Booker Todd County 15. Tyler Wheeler Wadena County 16. Sheriff Rick Fiedler Wilkin County 17. Seth Hansen Wright County Members/Alternates Absent: 18. Big Stone County 19. Otter Tail County 20. Traverse County Guests Present: Erin Hausauer Stearns County Paul McIntyre Gold Cross Tom Justin On Target Mike Kahl Granite Electronics Mike Mihelich Motorola Dereck Leyde Northland Business Scott Wosje Northland Business Rey Freeman Sandford/F-M Ambulance Consultant Don Martin F-M Ambulance Michael Schultz Sanford Airmed Melinda Miller ECN Wireless Broadband/FirstNet Program Manager Meeting was called to order by Chair Micah Myers at 10:04 a.m. 17 of the 20 members in attendance with a quorum present. Revisions and Approval of Agenda: Grant County made a motion to approve the RAC Agenda. Wright County seconded, motion carried. - 1 -
Approval of Minutes: Wright County made a motion to approve the RAC minutes from September 8, 2017. Morrison County seconded, motion carried. Communications: a. Governor Dayton Supports Buildout of FirstNet s Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network in Minnesota In the packet is correspondence from Melinda Miller. Letter is on pages #10-12. Governor has opted in. History is in the email from Melinda. Minnesota is opting into FirstNet. b. Full ARMER participation plan for Sanford Health Systems/F-M Ambulance Rey Freeman gave a presentation as the consultant for Sanford Health/F-M Ambulance. Representatives from Sanford Health/F-M Ambulance were in attendance. The plan has impact on the Northwest, Central and the Southwest regions. Impact on Central is minimal. Ray Freeman brought this to the Northwest Region and it was approved by their RAC and ECB. It will be brought to the Southwest region next month. Freeman talked about the details in the plan. Sanford is a large operation in western MN. They have broken it down to 4 ARMER categories. Most are existing ARMER system users. Goal is to bring all the different Sanford users into a single ARMER plan. Agencies include ambulance services, county ambulance, Airmed services, and hospitals. Freeman discussed the ambulance dispatch in Fargo. A diagram for Airmed Dispatch in Sioux Falls was shown. Freeman showed the radio inventory included in the plan, many are existing ARMER users. Net increase to ARMER system is 200. A fleetmap was created. Freeman explained you all know about the recent Fargo/Cass County subnetwork plan that has been brought to your region and that has been approved by SECB. Fargo- Moorhead Ambulance is included in that plan. All existing agencies will retain existing IDs. We would like to add a talkgroup for Bemidji Airmed. Freeman explained the coverage maps for Fargo/Moorhead area in the ARMER plan. Tentative approval schedule was approved by Sanford. We will also be at the O&O next week in Alexandria. A question was asked who will do the radio programming? Sanford representative responded we have combinations of Rogers 2-way in Bemidji and a couple in-house. Is Sanford planning to do their own system admin or are they contracting? Sanford representative responded typically both, they rely heavily on Brian Zastoupil. Do not need to take action as it will be reviewed at O&O. c. c. Minnesota MTUG meeting will be here in St. Cloud on October 24 th at 10:00 a.m. You are welcome to attend. On the MNECB website it is on the Event tab, agenda is there as well. Reports: SRB/ARMER Update; MnDPS/MnDOT: 1. MnDOT/RIC: (Micah Myers) 2. SECB: (Micah Myers) September 25 th meeting re-established the STR committee. Brandon Larson and Douglas County will be the Central Region representatives. They will meet every other month. Membership will be from each region plus ECN, National Guard and DPS (Department of Homeland Security Communication). They will examine STR needs. 3. OTC: (Al Fjerstad) Met this past Tuesday. There were a lot of action items. Majority were standards. DHS-ICE-HSI plan amendment approved. Hennepin County request approved. Nobles County participation plan amendment approved. Murray County participation plan approved. - 2 -
Reports: (Continued) SRB/ARMER Update; MnDPS/MnDOT: (Continued) 3. OTC: (Continued) Met Council participation plan amendment approved with quite a bit of discussion. St. Cloud participation plan amendment was approved. On standards, only one discussion was on the Emergency Button standard that did not mention tactical emergency. Any tactical setups in portable for emergency button could only be used on agency-owned talkgroups. 4. Interop: (Micah Myers) See SECB Report. COMU and STR were discussed. Old business was letters to organizations represented on SECB committees for vacancies. ECN report was given by SWIC Stromberg. 5. Finance Committee: (Micah Myers) 6. Legislative Committee: (Micah Myers) 7. Steering Committee: (Tina Lindquist) Met on Wednesday. For Standard 8.1.0 there was change in the layout of the standard to be consistent with other standards; was approved. Old business was St. Cloud Pilot Project and an update on Federal agencies was that the contract was signed with Rey Freeman. Federal Reserve Bank inquiry on ARMER, they are only an interop partner currently. Director Mines talked to someone in DC who said to expect more requests from federal agencies to get on the state system. Discussion about event planning and private agencies using ARMER. With the MS150 Tram bike ride not all standards were followed which caused discussion, there are 4 standards. Who is an eligible user of the ARMER system? Sheriff Hartog had brought up sponsorship with other agencies. Steering Committee to vet out who is an eligible user. Kristen Lahr added there was discussion on the role of ARMER use for bike races and marathons where they may need to interop with public safety and that is what it should be used for and not day-to-day operations for running the race. They want documentation that is clear. Lindquist added ECN is looking at updating the Strategic Plan. At the Regional Quarterly there will be reports in the morning, looking at what apps are being used will be afternoon discussion. For Ed & Outreach, Stromberg has sent the GovDelivery logo to a vendor to be cleaned up. 8. State Interop Data Committee (Kristen Lahr) Last month there were two items: 1) Reviewed the scope of authority on what fees FirstNet is allowed to collect; 2) Verizon s ability for FirstNet offering priority and preemption. Meeting next week via conference call. Discussing Governor s decision to opt in and reviewing speed testing. Lahr noticed on Twitter FirstNet has launched an App developer program. The article did not outline what platforms. Chair Myers asked will they open that up for entities that develop their own Apps. Developers can now submit their Apps for inclusion. So they can review existing Apps. Larson added there are direct articles with links on FirstNet s page. Regional Leadership Group (Next Meeting October 23, 2017) Chair Myers read the agenda. After lunch will be Bryan Stephens for US Department of Homeland Security Priority Telecommunications Service Area Representative Regions 3 and 5 reports. Why Regional Leadership meetings are important. Public Safety Application s benefits and challenges. What tools/applications are you using. Group reports. Next meeting is January 22 nd. - 3 -
Reports: (Continued) NG-911 Committee (Judy Diehl s Email Report) We held our in person meeting at the Douglas County Public Works building yesterday, October 12th. We also had several people on the conference bridge, and we did have a quorum. Dana Wahlberg and Dan Craigie were in attendance and gave the ECN reports. Five of the seven regions are now able to receive Texts-to-911, with the Metro going live next week and the SW region the week of October 24th. We will then allow 30 days of testing before public announcements will be made. Verizon is still having some issues with locating the correct PSAP, and some of their text messages have gone to Red River Regional Dispatch Center in Fargo, ND, or to Oakland County MI. They are working on a patch to correct these errors, and it should be resolved after October 17th, Dana mentioned that Verizon has been very proactive and are working well with ECN to resolve these issues. An information sheet was passed out at the meeting, and each county was notified by Dustin Leslie of the update, with instructions that the availability of Text-to-911 is not to be made public at this time, but rather provide the following message to any news media inquiries, We are in the process of testing Minnesota s statewide Text-to- 911 system, but we are not ready to deploy the service at this time. Please continue to call 911 until Text-to 911 services are fully implemented. Dana and Dan also focused their efforts on clarifying the CPE differences and what would be needed for both West s Viper and Airbus Vesta to receive the Texts-to-911 as MSRP vs. RFAI. They will be meeting with West and Century Link today to iron out some of the questions that Viper PSAP's have had. West is planning to have an upgrade in May of 2018. The handout they brought has been emailed to all members of the CM NG911 Committee. They highlighted the history behind the State of Minnesota's decisions, and since this is all new technology, there will be continual improvements. They allowed time for questions, and said that if an agency needed a hard copy of a Text-to-911 and couldn't pull it off of a recording system, the TCC, Text Control Center, could provide it to the PSAP. Dana also stressed the essentiality of an accurate GIS database for each county, so that MN will have a seamless map for the entire state to locate the calls or texts using latitude and longitude versus the old MSAG. Dan said the RFP for the firewalls is waiting for a final signature, and the vendor is Element Technologies. Installations will begin within the next week or two. Dan also spoke about shared CPE, and mentioned they are moving away from that terminology and toward CPE as a service. Right now Dan has been working with Airbus, and they have indicated they can keep a PSAP up to date via cloud technology for around $12,000 per seat per year, including mapping and a service agreement. Northwest Minnesota had asked him to work on this, and although there will be upfront costs for each position, after that, the service would be less expensive overall. Holly from Mille Lacs County told the group that they received one Text-to-911 that said the "Texter sent no text." Mille Lacs County forwarded the information to Dana Wahlberg, and they haven't heard back from her yet. Al the very first real text to 911. It said no text. After talking to Dana they believe someone tried to send an emoji. That first text the call taker immediately called the number back. An elderly female or male said they never really showed me how to use this phone. Plot moved up and down a row like in a field. We have had two real calls. One in county yesterday. Shots fired in Wright County. Live for a week and two 911 calls. Three in a week. Dana has said there have been people testing. Domestic, call takers had just got done doing a test with Dana. The next one came in and the call taker. So this is a test, right? Tom Justin were any of them not appropriate to be a text? Al thought they could be a voice call. One with shots fired in Wright County. They asked if he could make a call to 911. Tom asked is there anyone collecting that data? That is part of the PSA when they go live this is for if you have no other means. Tom asked if there was any way to followup further on why they texted. Micah it s a matrix to help better understand training going down the road. - 4 -
Reports: (Continued) NG-911 Committee (Judy Diehl s Email Report) (Continued) Al found out yesterday that OEC under technical assistance plan has a drive test tool. We can use that for free. We have to request through Melinda. If you want to keep it for a month you can do a drive test. Al plans to make a formal request to test his county. You have to send them a file and they will send the information back to you. Will be available in about a week. EMAC Update: (Erin Hausauer) Currently we have the RFP posted for the 2018 Regional Planning Services due by October 27 th. Next meeting is October 25 th. Owners & Operators Committee: (Kristen Lahr) Last meeting we approved the participation plan amendment for St. Cloud that was approved by OTC. Request for remote speaker mics was approved at ESB. Next week we meet at Douglas County Public Works. User Committee: (Paul McIntyre) No major business discussed at the last meeting. Will discuss the membership of the User Committee. Suggestion by Otter Tail County to add Dispatchers to discipline. EMS/Hospital Sub-Committee: Executive Committee: (Micah Myers) Met on the 27 th before ESB. Gave an update on committee attendance and discussed alternate forms of representation. Update on website. Next Gen 911 MOU update. Next Gen Best Practices. It has been one of the most trying years to get conference reimbursement. We will do a 101 on grants. Regional quarterly update, named board members, need someone from operation side for representative on state s strategic planning. Looking for someone from operation side. STR workgroup appointments from O&O. Next meeting is November 1 st. Emergency Services Board: (Next meeting December 20, 2017) Approved STR workgroup appointees. Approved grant application for 2018: GIS for Stevens, Mille Lacs, Traverse and Wilkin counties. Funding request for cache radios approved. Sending out Best Practices memo was approved by board. Approved Logger Committee plan amendment issue for creating a pool of resources available if someone needs more than their pool of resources. Updates from Partners on Current Projects: Website Project Update Shari gave an overview of the website. Motorola IV&D (Integrated Voice & Data) City of St. Cloud Pilot Project Established network connectivity. Brief test. Router was set up. Legacy radio testing for XTS line will require flash kits. Received replacement radios. Deployed for testing. Big component for us to go full fleet-wide for testing. Law enforcement does a big reorganization at the beginning of the year, plan to do a go live test there. Developing tests. We have opened it up for the region here. If anyone out of the other regions want to as well. Lahr asked are you documenting installation procedures, roadblocks you are looking at. Make sure you watch for this, or have to have this installed (if IV&D is installed elsewhere). We are willing to do testing with others in the area. One consideration Brandon has found is that the radio has to be homezoned in Zone 4. Larson has heard of interest, but no one has contacted him. He would be interested in testing a non-motorola as well. Hear back in the next week from the mapping vendor. - 5 -
Updates from Partners on Current Projects: (Continued) Motorola IV&D (Integrated Voice & Data) City of St. Cloud Pilot Project (Continued) Al Fjerstad requested a cost on an XTS upgrade. Granite Electronics will get a number on it. Cost to go IV&D. Larson has a spreadsheet which summarizes the licensing that is required. Chair Myers said there are limitations by zone. Once we get the system up and going we have to put feelers out there for other entities to do it and how do we manage it? Lahr said flash upgrades for XTS model radios are afforded firmware, but this is a feature set. Myers asked Larson to reach out to other vendors in the region. Granite Electronics asked was there any capacity issues that Motorola brought up? Larson responded there are a lot of questions to ask. Recognize that voice is important and data will not trump voice. Data will get kicked off the system first. If operating off a MnDOT tower, will MnDOT expect those entities to add resources? Myers responded a lot of members in the region added to MnDOT sites. Larson added from a statewide. Myers said we took grant monies and added to state resources. Maybe this will be a proverbial carrot for them to add capacity. Granite Electronics asked if you are trying to GPS track your fleet are you going to go through GENESIS? How much data is going through the system? Larson replied XTS/XTL line will be complete code plug. It can take up to an hour to send and receive. General Discussion and New Business: Regional Project Priority List for 2016 SHSP & SECB Grant: 1. 2018 SHSP Grant Application Finishing up training. One more training left this year funded on SECB. 2018 SHSP grant application with ESB report the 4 entities putting into the grant request. On page #21 you will see the GIS mapping numbers in the grant application. At last RAC, included in the packet was a survey completed in July 2015 an Assessment of MSAG and ALI datasets. With that ECN came up with a needs base. Here are the PSAPs needing updates. Swift County being one and they are already addressing it. These 4 entities reported accuracy in 2015, ran through testing and came up with a deficiency score. Mille Lacs was 26% accuracy on one. Work that ProWest will do to clean-up data sets. Myers would like a full report from Adam for the region so you can see your scores. In the last RAC packet was a letter from Wilkin County identifying their needs and request to apply for grant. In discussion with Director Mines, why are we looking for applying for GIS through grant work, will not have the resources in house, what funding you have, these need to be included. Received 3 of 4 letters, waiting for Mille Lacs County. PSAP Manager in 2015 should have been the one to complete the assessment. 2. Regional Coverage Issues (See Table) This is the one we have been waiting for. Once that is put in we will get paperwork for Wilkin County & Stearns County. Attendance Standard Compliance Process Letter went out if you were not in compliance with grant reimbursement checks that went out. Showed attendance, standard, and process if you need to replace an individual. 2018 Draft Meeting Schedule This schedule does not change. The meeting that comes into question is our November meeting. We can set the schedule at November meeting. Current Representative List On pages #26-27 you will see current RAC representation. If not correct please let us know. - 6 -
General Discussion and New Business: (Continued) Other Melinda Miller reported for NG911 we still have a couple of regions we are going out to for Text to 911 with a planned campaign for December. ARMER definition for what it means to be a non-911 participant. Continue to work on COMU workgroup. Planning for Super Bowl 52. Quite a few regions will bring an STR. Thank you for doing that. For FirstNet, on October 4 th the state opted into the FirstNet plan you can view Firstnet.com and.gov sites. Open a developing portal, how to become a developer. Starting to get a look of what products will look like and interaction with tribes. IPAWS is continuing. Tasks just happened. Al Fjerstad mentioned the drive test tool he had learned yesterday from Patrick. Equipment is new he had not been trained in on it yet. Fjerstad said he will ask to use it for about a month. Melinda Miller responded AT&T does a ton of research and they understand their coverage, but what they share with the public could be different. Talked about encouraging to do it for the Super Bowl area. Old Business: a. Policy on CMNESB Contracts Upcoming Meeting Date and Location: November 17 th Benton County December 8 th Big Stone County Adjournment: Douglas County made a motion to adjourn the meeting. Wadena County seconded, and the motion was carried unanimously to adjourn at 11:34 a.m. Minutes recorded by Shari Gieseke - 7 -