Every 4 minutes and 16 seconds there is a call for help.
In all, Will County police and fire officials fielded more than 122,000 frantic calls last year with an enhanced 911 system that has been in place since 1992.
Next week, the county’s 911 Emergency Telephone System Board will seek a 50-cent increase in the 75-cent a month surcharge that has been collected from Will County telephone users since the emergency system was approved by the voters in 1989.
Despite the national popularity of 911 systems, which have triggered their own television dramas, the request for additional 911 funding has not been without its controversies in Will County.
The increase, which would be added to 155,000 phone bills if approved Tuesday, is sought to finance a $5.9 million countywide emergency radio system.
The countywide system would replace a patchwork of emergency frequencies that make it difficult for police, fire and ambulance workers to communicate with each other.
Despite some wrangling over 911 costs, the proposed 800 MHz radio network is coming one way or another, according to representatives of the 911 governing board, made up of police and fire officials appointed by the County Board.
It’s only a question of paying now or paying later, said 911 administrator John Karubus, who explains the future of emergency radio this way:
Sometime this spring the Federal Communications Commission will be changing its method of dealing with radio frequencies below 512 MHz.
It is the lower frequencies that have become a playpen of sorts for radio’s recent crop of grandchildren-the cellular phones, cordless phones, pagers, garage door openers, baby monitors and the like.
The FCC plans to expand the use of these lower frequencies in an effort to accommodate all the new technology. And even before the first crowding of the frequencies is carried out, a second is on the drawing board.
All emergency radios will be moved to the 800 MHz frequencies, where they are expected to have plenty of elbow room for many years to come.
Trouble is that the change will make obsolete most police and fire radios and their transmitting towers, which are on the lower frequencies.
After a two-year grace period, all new emergency radio equipment must fit the new rules and existing systems must fall in line by 2007.
“What that means is all agencies should start planning now,” said Tony Tricoci, chairman of the a Chicago area review committee named by the FCC. “The year 2007 is not as far away as it seems.”
With the additional 911 money, Will County would create an 800-MHz system with 10 to 16 channels that would be available to the 50 police and fire agencies in the county. The agencies would be provided with matching funds to purchase hand-held radios to tie in to the new system.
“We are proposing a solution to a problem that is going to unfold over the next 10 years,” Karubus said. “Independent solutions to the same problem would cost municipalities many times the $5.9 million.’
The tax increase would cover 10 transmitters around the county as well as finance the replacement of departmental radios. It has been endorsed by municipal officials in Joliet, Plainfield, Channahon, New Lenox, University Park and Wilmington as well as the Will County Fire Chiefs Association and the Will County Chiefs of Police.
Custer Park Fire Chief Kelly Cavanaugh said much of the emergency radio equipment currently in use in Will County is “antiquated” and the frequencies crowded.
“The situation is just going to get worse,” he said. “Sooner or later something has to be done. We (Custer Park) would never be able to do it on our own.”
If approved, Will would have the first countywide 800 MHz system in Illinois.
But there are skeptics as well. While the value of the radio system is not at issue, questions have been raised about whether the 75 cents already in place has been well-spent.
The board of directors of the 10,000-member Will County Farm Bureau has opposed the tax increase, saying current funds could have financed the radio system if the program had been managed efficiently.
The Mokena Village Board has raised similar concerns in opposing the tax increase and the Will County Board, which agreed to put the measure on the ballot, has refused to endorse it.
Board member Walter Adamic (D-Joliet) seemed to voice the sentiments of a majority of board members when he said the 911 board had failed to make good on a 1989 promise to cut the surcharge once the system was installed and running.
Instead, it decided to take on new projects.
“I just don’t feel we are being forthright with the voters . . . by tacking another 50 cents on the bill,” Adamic said.
Karubus said the original 911 law limited spending to equipment intended to receive emergency calls but was expanded in 1993 to include facilities for delivering services, presenting an opportunity 911 officials felt they could not pass up.
No such promise is being made this time, Karubus said.
