A rift between Niagara County first responders and their colleagues in local departments is brewing over the future of communications equipment.

Some local police departments want to join a new statewide network now in development, which will allow them to communicate fully with other departments and state agencies. Meanwhile, the county is taking a wait-and-see approach and is buying equipment to build its own network.

The new Statewide Wireless Network is the state’s answer to a system that has been widely criticized for at least 10 years and whose flaws were exposed during the emergency response to the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. The new state network is under construction in Erie County, which is fully committed to it. The entire network is expected to be fully operational in 2010.

Some local police and fire agencies say the statewide system is the best bet for providing interoperability, or the ability to communicate with other departments, while county officials say the state’s plan is unproven and costly.

Validation for county officials

A new audit from State Comptroller Alan Hevesi’s Office estimates that it will cost state and local agencies about $790 million to join the new Statewide Wireless Network, or SWN (pronounced “swin”), which is being developed by M/A-COM, a Massachusetts communications company. Not including costs to connect to the system, New York taxpayers are already committed to paying $2 billion to M/A-COM for the towers and preliminary infrastructure.

M/A-COM’s contract does not require the state to make payments to the vendor until a regional portion of the network is completed, tested and accepted. Erie and Chautauqua counties are the first counties to be tested.

Hevesi’s office, which approved the contract years ago, called into question the vendor’s business practices, saying in other state contracts M/A-COM had charged for “maintenance services it has no evidence were provided, continued to receive monthly fees from State Police and DOT after leases expired and the equipment was fully paid for, and charged varying and excessive financing rates for equipment leases.”

Hevesi also said M/A-COM hasn’t lived up to its current state contract, which requires the company to license its technology to at least three other companies to create an opportunity for competitive pricing for local governments seeking to purchase equipment.

So far, no other vendor has produced radios and other equipment, but M/A-COM Sales Manager Joseph Stein said the company has made the technology available.

The system is made stronger when more users are on board. The state and M/A-COM is on a mission to make presentations to departments across the state to get them involved.

In a sales pitch to the City of Lockport Common Council last week, Stein explained that the state pays for the towers and their maintenance for the next 20 years and guarantees 97 percent of the state’s roadways and 95 percent of the geographic area will be covered by the new system.

“All you have to do is get the mobiles and portables upgraded,” Stein said.

That statement was contradicted by county officials, who said there’s much more to connecting to the system than just buying portable radios.

Costs raise concern

The expense and the uncertainty of the new system concern county Emergency Services Coordinator James Volkosh the most.

“We just can’t afford to put up that kind of architecture,” he said. “There’s way too many questions than there are answers.”

Joining the state system as a full partner will cost millions, Volkosh said, adding that the county would be willing to join 10 years down the road, once the system is more established.

Instead the county is building its own system, which has been endorsed by the county’s fire advisory board, Volkosh said.

While Jonathan Schultz, chief of Upper Mountain Fire Company in Lewiston, doesn’t sit on the fire advisory board, his company bought 15 pagers at $300 a piece to communicate with the new county system.

“They say it’s going to work,” he said.

For local governments, the attraction to the statewide system is interoperability as well as the state’s commitment to build and maintain the system.

However, Volkosh said he cannot ask the county Legislature to fund the new system because he doesn’t know how much it will cost. He doesn’t even know where the state will put its tower in Niagara County.

Only counties that commit to becoming a full partner with the statewide system, a move that would require new all new equipment, receive that information, Volkosh said.

A spokesman for the state’s Office For Technology, which oversees the statewide network, did not return a call for comment on Monday.

A gateway to new technology

Niagara County has chosen not to become a full partner but a “gateway partner,” which has some lesser capabilities and is much cheaper.

A gateway to the state system can be installed with existing radios.

Lockport Police Chief Neil Merritt plans to ask that city’s Common Council to join the statewide network. No estimates to join the system are available.

Town of Niagara Police Chief H. James Suitor would also like his 25-member department to join the system.

“As the chiefs, we think we should consider SWN,” Suitor said. “We didn’t take care of the core problem and the core problem is interoperability.”

On his town’s system, Suitor can talk to the Sheriff’s Department, State Police, State Park Police, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Town of Lewiston.

Suitor can’t talk to officers in the city of Niagara Falls or firefighters with Niagara Active Hose, the town’s fire company, which can be problematic on incidents when the departments work together.

And once the state agencies move over to the new statewide system, Suitor doubts he’ll be able to communicate with them either. The Town of Niagara cannot join the statewide network on its own because the Niagara County Sheriff’s Department dispatches its emergency calls, so the town and the county must be on the same system.

Suitor says he understands the financial burden joining the statewide system will present.

“The police chiefs are just saying, we have a problem with talking to each other,” he said.

The county is also building a new emergency dispatch center inside its Public Safety Training Facility that is expandable and is capable of fully joining the state network if county authorities decide to go in that direction.

Niagara County’s dispatch center, expected to open early next year, was built with state funds meant for emergency activities. The building was fenced in and made bullet-proof with about $300,000 in federal homeland security funds. The total project cost about $3 million.

In addition to a new dispatch center, the county is also building a new communications system for volunteer fire departments that could be expanded to include other departments. A price tag on that project isn’t final yet, Volkosh said.

The new county system will allow Niagara County access to the new statewide system but not all of its benefits, and not all of its potential problems.

“We’ve chosen to be very cautious,” Volkosh said. “I have a little trepidation being the lab rat.”