New network to link first responders

The Board of Supervisors made a down payment Tuesday on an ambitious plan to link all of the region’s police, fire and emergency workers under a single, shared digital communications umbrella.

The Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communication System—LA-RICS for short—aims to become the crucial communications infrastructure that connects more than 34,000 first responders and allied personnel in the Los Angeles region.

LA-RICS is a Joint Powers Authority set up in 2009 by the county and city of Los Angeles and 81 other local cities. The new voice and data radio system, to be linked with fiber optic cable, microwave antennae and other links, would replace the current patchwork that often makes communication between law enforcement and fire agencies difficult.

The new system should also make communication possible between dozens of fire and police agencies that gather to fight large-scale disasters, from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina to Southern California’s large scale fires and earthquakes.

“When we have a disaster in this area, we’ll be able to communicate with anybody,” Scott Poster, a deputy county fire chief who is LA-RICS’ interim director, said in an interview following the meeting.

The system, to be designed and built over the next three to six years, may eventually cost more than $500 million, according to a consultants’ report. Officials hope to obtain federal grants and other funding streams to pay for the system.

The Board’s action unanimously approved a first year’s budget of $17.76 million. Of that, $10 million is slated for early initial spending on the communications infrastructure, from radio gear to software. The remaining $7.76 million is earmarked for staff costs, consultants’ and experts’ fees and office space.

Supervisors’ approval of the down payment came with cost-sharing questions. They had been expecting a similar $7.6 million appropriation for staff costs from the city of Los Angeles, the plan’s other major partner. But city funding hasn’t materialized yet, leaving the county, at the moment, the sole provider.

“We’re being asked to pay the whole sum from our resources, when the city has resources and should be contributing,” Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich noted, to Poster and county Chief Executive Officer William T Fujioka. “How do you plan to ensure that we don’t subsidize the city of Los Angeles?”

Antonovich added an amendment to the measure instructing Fujioka to question Los Angeles officials in the next 30 days whether it plans to contribute funding for staffing and report back to the board.

Posted 8/3/10