Interest renewed in statewide emergency net
Capitol Report for dailies for week of May 14, 2006
By Jim Campbell
OPA Capitol News Bureau
Lingering interest in a statewide emergency communication system peaked twice, after a fatal 2000 crash between an Oklahoma City police cruiser and a Highway Patrol car, and during the frenzy of first responder planning after Sept. 11, 2001.
Urgency waned in the lean years that followed. Plunging revenues brought cutbacks in most agencies in 2002 and 2003. Some are still playing catch-up.
A packed hearing room last week heard proposals for expanding the 800 megahertz system as advocated by the Department of Public Safety -- estimated to cost $56 million, plus $70 million or so for individual radios -- along with alternatives priced at half as much or less.
With little time left in the 2006 legislative session, funding the system appeared problematic despite the extra money available to make a move this year.
Rep. John Trebilcock, R-Broken Arrow, author of Senate Bill 1030 along with Sen. Kenneth Corn, D-Poteau, said "it's all part of the larger budget picture."
The emergency system goes on the table with a host of other requests for spending and tax cutting. A standoff between the House and Senate threatens a special session.
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Legislators asked whether Homeland Security could help pay for radios in rural areas with federal dollars.
"We certainly hope there'll be more federal funds," said state Homeland Security's Melissa Houston. "We're worried we could be cut."
She said the state office had asked for $40 million and hoped for an answer next month, explaining that $20 million could be used for communications, "but if we get $5 million" it would be tough to help much.
Should state funding materialize, Public Safety Commissioner Kevin Ward said it would take three to five years to have the 800 megahertz system fully operational so responders statewide could communicate over the same radio channel.  Now used in Oklahoma City, Norman, Edmond and pats of Muskogee and Tulsa, 800 megahertz expansion would require construction of more towers to relay the signals. 
Kittur Nagesh, Cisco Systems director of marketing for public safety and security systems, said Cisco could put an Internet-based system together in about 18 months. He made a similar presentation to Homeland Security officials in Washington two weeks earlier.
Senate Bill 1030, now being heard in conference, is named for Oklahoma City officer Jeff Rominger and trooper Matthew Scott Evans, who were unable to talk to each other during a chase and died when their vehicles collided.
John Ross of InfraComm Diagnostics and John Mays of Motorola also made proposals, with varying timetables depending on the level of service.  
Rep. Gus Blackwell, R-Goodwell, envisioned an official using a cell phone and Internet system to direct an emergency operation from a beach in Hawaii, where he was on vacation with his family.
"Could he do that?"
"The answer is yes," said Nagesh.
Representatives with law enforcement backgrounds, Glen Bud Smithson, D-Sallisaw, and Lucky Lamons, D-Tulsa, worried about congestion when too many people are plugged in to the system. Other problems were loss of ability to communicate under some systems once an officer is out of his home area.
"I don't want to get a system where we lose by taking the cheapest way out," Lamons said.
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As historic days go it won't rank up there with statehood, but Nov. 1, 2006, will be a big deal of sorts.
That's the day the governor's signature officially removes Oklahoma's status as the only state outlawing tattooing.
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Her son's T-shirt was not torn, nor were there scratches below his head as he lay in her arms.
"There was nothing I could do," said Tamra Weimer of Weatherford, a critical care nurse.
She came to the Capitol with seven doctors to denounce the House's failure to give floor consideration to a bill requiring youths under 18 to wear a helmet on all-terrain vehicles.   
His head hit a rock and he was killed instantly, she said.
Dr. Mark Brandenburg, associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine in Tulsa, said "helmets are the single most important product" to protect people on ATVs.
House leaders said parents should require their children to wear helmets. The bill could not be enforced on private property.
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As the House-Senate standoff over tax cuts and budgeting solidified, an alliance of educators, business people and health advocates wrote a letter to all lawmakers asking adequate funding to meet "critical unmet needs."
The Alliance for Oklahoma's Future wrote, "Continuing to cut our revenue base in response to current good times would be short-sighted and irresponsible."
The letter was sent the day after the Senate sent a record income tax cut to conference.
Tax cut advocates say the action actually would produce more revenue to meet unmet needs by attracting more business, industry and jobs.