from www.wweek.com (The Williamette Weekly) - (?06) October 2000
MORE STATIC FOR THE FUZZLast Tuesday at about 9:30 am, police officers across the city could not communicate with one another, because for 10 long minutes, their radios went dead. The blackout came as no great surprise to cops. Police radio "dead zones" are sprinkled all over the city, particularly in East Portland. Inside the zones, police cannot call for backup--a situation that endangers cops and delays 911 response, officers say.
The problem is so acute that the state Occupational Safety and Health Division stepped in this summer and fined the city $3,600.
Now, based on last week's blackout, Portland Police Association Secretary-Treasurer Tom Mack has filed another OSHD complaint against the city's system. "Some days it doesn't work too bad--but those days are rare," says Officer Gary Manougian, who tracks radio problems for the bureau's safety committee. "We've had five or six times that people just through sheer luck haven't been injured because their radio didn't work. That's just the ones I know about."
City communications czar Nancy Jesuale defends the system, saying that despite the blackout, "the backup systems functioned perfectly." The city is appealing the penalty, and "I don't expect us to be paying any fines."
What really frustrates cops is that the city could improve the system with an antenna that has been gathering dust in a warehouse for years. In 1994, the city installed the $8.5 million system but failed to build a planned east Portland radio tower to save money. Today, Jesuale says the system actually needs two towers for a long-term fix, but City Council continues to flinch at the $7 million price tag.
Jesuale says there is some good news on the horizon. The city is negotiating with Vancouver to build a tower on Prune Hill. It has spent $300,000 on more advanced antennas, which should be installed in a few months. And it's also expanding from 24 channels to 28--which should cut down on the number of busy signals. "It should be a huge improvement," says Jesuale.
--Nick Budnick