Letter to the Editor from Bonney Lake: Proposed South Sound 911 System Issues

Note: This is a direct statement from Bonney Lake City Administrator Don Morrison on behalf of the city. Read more about the regional plan .

The City of Bonney Lake would like to convey to you our interests and concerns with the proposed South Sound 911 communications system.  We support communications interoperability and enhanced public safety.  This is an important venture and it is critical that we get it right. Such a significant investment requires good advance planning and commitment from all affected parties.

The City of Bonney Lake has expended nearly $3 million dollars over the past few years to develop the communications infrastructure to install a 800MHz state-of-the-art radio and tower system.  We incurred substantial debt service for that system, and have debt service payments on that system for many years to come.  We did this in cooperation with Puyallup and Edgewood.  Sumner has now joined the cooperative system. Those cities that had the foresight to get ahead of the curve should not be coerced into paying for a second system which may not be able to match (using LESA as a benchmark) the same level of service we enjoy now.

Here is a list of the concerns that should be addressed before this proposal moves forward:

1.      Cities would be more likely to support the South Sound 911 proposal if the County would agree in advance to use a portion of the proceeds of the new fees and taxes to reimburse the investments Bonney Lake, Puyallup, and other communities have already made to upgrade their systems.  

2.      It would not make sense for the County to purchase duplicate communications towers and ancillary equipment to cover East Pierce County or Fife when this infrastructure is already available. 

3.      While we understand the political compromise that was required between the police and fire unions to get their support for the project, it does not make sense to operate two separate dispatch centers simply to keep police in one, and fire in the other. While both functions require somewhat different approaches to communications, there are dozens of successful examples of dispatch centers which serve both functions.  Each dispatch center should be able to serve as a backup for the other in case of emergency, such as fire, flood, etc. Having each center capable of dispatching both police and fire calls facilitates redundancy and allows for more efficient deployment of resources.

4.      Before any proposal is put on the ballot, voters will want to know how much revenue South Sound 911 expects to collect from the proposed funding sources: a new county-wide 911 excise tax (20 cents per month on every cell phone line); 1/10 of 1 % sales tax levy; and fees and assessments paid by member and non-member agencies and jurisdictions.

5.      The proposed Governance structure of South Sound 911 needs to be improved in two respects. One, the policy board should be made up of the chief executives of the county and participating cities.  Executives are better equipped to deal with the administrative policy issues associated with a communications center. The county and city council members will be best involved in approving the budgets for the system that are recommended by their executives (much as how the budget approval process works now). Secondly, each participating agency should have a seat on the board. While we would not expect Bonney Lake to have an equal vote with Pierce County, we should nonetheless have a proportionally weighted vote.

6.      We have frequently heard that the Law Enforcement Support Agency (LESA) is “broken” and needs to be fixed and modernized.  The data suggests that is true.  Yet there is nothing in the proposal that assures tax payers that the underlying issues related to LESA will be addressed by the new system.  Would this simply be a case of “rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic”? More detailed explanations need to be made as to just how the new agency will correct LESA’s shortcomings.

7.      Finally, this proposal should be postponed at least a year in order for the County to do the advance planning necessary to come up with a sound business plan, including the cost and location of communication towers and infrastructure, Public Safety Answering Points (dispatch centers), staffing plan and projected and ongoing operating costs, etc. Also, the study needs to evaluate the need to construct two new dispatch centers. With all the current buildings available in the County, it may make much more sense to retrofit and utilize existing facilities rather than building brand new ones.

Like Puyallup and other cities, Bonney Lake believes that timely, dependable access to emergency services is of critical importance to our citizens. The ideal system for all Pierce County residents will be one that ensures mutual aid for emergency services, regional interoperability, redundancy, and (last but not least) fiscal responsibility. If we can achieve this, our citizens and first responders will be made safer. They will also benefit from the peace of mind of knowing that a county-wide, cooperative and wholly inclusive system is in place for them whenever they should need it. It is our desire to work with the County and other cities to develop a system proposal that we can all get behind and support.