Okay, we're gonna go ahead and call this meeting to order.

This is the River Valley Communications Center 911 Governing Board, the March 26th regular meeting.

Go ahead and call roll Chief Danny Baker.

Dan Dennis is proxy.

Chief Darrell Clark.

Mark Allen for Proxy.

Mark Allen for proxy.

Fort Smith City Administrator Jeff Dingman is on his way.

He'll be coming in late.

Fort Smith EMS Director Tim Hearn.

Here.

Sebastian County Judge Steve Hopes?

Here.

Mayor Greenwood Dougins Doug Kinslow?

Here.

Sebastian County Sheriff Mike Conger.

Yes.

Rule fire president.

Tom Sizemore.

Chief Tom Sizemore.

Okay.

We have a quorum.

You've had uh an opportunity to review the minutes.

I'll entertain a motion to approve the the minutes of the last meeting.

Tim Hearn motion.

Doug Kinslow second.

Any discussion?

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay.

Next on the agenda is the financial report.

We are doing uh very well as you can go through as we are now uh in almost to the end of the first quarter.

We are on track.

Some of these uh line items that you see that show critical, that's because the uh annual costs have come out, for instance, within the outside um outside services line item, the $75,000 is the uh Western Arkansas Planning Development District annual fees.

Um then we also have uh the other current expenses uh Fort Smith EMS and then some the uh we're getting the ATT bills coming in, we're getting all of the the monthly bills coming in, so we are looking good.

Um that said, um entertain a motion to accept the financial report Chief Darrell Clark second, second and then a second any discussion, any questions?

All in favor of approval of the financial report, say aye.

Any opposed?

All right, so let's go to the first item of business.

As you are aware, the state of Arkansas 911 board has 400,000 in funds available for the consolidation of PSAPs in Arkansas.

Sebastian County uh is one of those, and the the funds are there for us in the 2026 budget.

Uh I left that out in order for us in December to get a good picture of what another operating costs are gonna be.

Um that said, now that we are moving forward in the consolidation, the consolidation is still on track for July 2026.

I have some consolidation expenses uh that I need to prepare for it.

Okay, to do that, we have to account for that reimbursement.

So uh the amendment that I put before you today uh provides a revenue line item in our overall budget that shows the four hundred thousand dollar uh revenue and then also uh um offsetting expense account in the budget.

Now I don't have the purchases in there for that.

This just changes that line item in that budget so that we uh when we do have the purchases uh we can we can work them through that and that'll be next.

So that said, um is there a motion to approve the resolution amending the 2026 budget?

Sheriff Conger Second Okay, Tim Hearn, okay.

Any discussion?

So you're just a for you're not appropriate for a thousand yet.

That's correct.

It's just an appropriation until we have the purpose uh the the purchases, which is the next item.

Any further questions?

All right.

For this, we'll go to a roll call vote.

Sheriff Conger.

Yes.

Chief Sizemore?

Yes.

Chief Dennis?

Yes.

Chief Clark?

Yes.

Mark Allen?

Yes.

Administrator Dingman?

Yes.

Director Hearn.

Here.

Yes.

Judge Holtz?

Yes.

Mayor Kinslow.

Yes.

Motion passes.

Nine in favor, zero opposed.

Moving to the next one is the consolidation update.

We are still on track for the July 2026 consolidation.

We have had a little bit of a setback with our CAD system that we are working through.

That being said, I do not believe that this will affect our consolidation in July.

We have taken full inventory of everything that we have, everything that we need.

And then what all is going to start happening is I'm going to start working on the infrastructure to prepare the Fort Smith PSAP for the Sebastian County dispatchers in July.

Once this starts going, we will the week of July 6th, we will then consolidate.

We'll point all 911 calls to that.

And then we will begin to finalize the equipment upgrades.

Okay.

That said, I have before you three purchases.

The most important of which is the moving of the radios from the Sebastian County PSAP to the Fort Smith PSAP.

At this time in the Fort Smith Peace app, I have six console radios and one radio that is specifically for fire paging.

This move will bring three radio consoles from Sebastian County over to Fort Smith.

It will also have the requisite backup infrastructure reprogramming of the radios to be a unified countywide system.

It's going to bring over the tornado siren activation and it's going to also bring over the fire paging system from Sebastian County.

This will give us an additional backup console or a tactical dispatch console should we need it in a situation that we can bring somebody off the main floor into a closed office and dispatch specifically for tactical situations or emergency management situations?

That would be a dedicated dispatcher situation.

Finally, we sent out quotes for dispatcher chairs.

These chairs are specifically purposely built for 24-hour use for long periods of time.

These are heavyware, these are designed to be ergonomic because of long hours of sitting at these consoles.

We're anywhere between $18,610 to $30,479.

Therefore, I'm putting before you uh request we go with the low bid of body built for $18,610 and 15 cents.

That is going to be for 10 chairs.

That will replace eight console chairs and two supervisor chairs for the for the dispatch center.

So that is the update that I have at this time.

When we reconvene in June, I'll have an even better update for you.

While this does not exhaust that 400,000, I recognize that, and I I am leaving that open until after we consolidate for any unforeseen expenses we may have.

Should have a better idea with that once we get started with Motorola, and I'll have that for you for the June meeting.

So that said, uh, is there a motion to approve the purchase request as outlined in the agenda packet?

Yes.

The Motorola purchase was 272,043 and 23 cents.

The network equipment upgrades is 12,773 and 37 cents.

And the chairs are $18,610 and 15 cents to be taken out of the consolidation expense account.

How many quotes did you get with all of these?

Okay, Motorola is a source well purchasing coordinate, and because we are required with AWIN, and the equipment is currently Motorola under contract.

We we went with Motorola.

That's why we went with that type of equipment.

And then the bodybuilt, we had three quotes or the chairs, we had three quotes.

Bodybuilt was the one that I'm proposing.

Concept seating is 21,16411, and iron horse seating was 30,4750.

You have those bids.

I mean we just bought concept seating.

Yeah.

They were 1600 a chair.

Yeah, that's I do have that quote if you would like them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's what uh they gave it to me in February, Mark, January, February.

Right after right after that meeting.

The cross home quote is $1,648 per chair.

On bodybuilt?

Oh, yeah, no, he's talking about concept seating.

We've our current chairs are concept seating, and they haven't been quite as resilient as we were needing.

And then the I I've said I need 10 more of what they have, and that's what they sent me.

We've been using concept seating for what 20 years.

And we've been really good out of them.

The benefit that I did, the benefit with bodybuild is because they're it's modular, whereas concept seating it was all one.

Um if an arm breaks or a back baits or a seat breaks, I can get those those components.

Now there's a warranty.

We do something like that with parks.

They they wanted all of our parts, I don't know that.

But I mean if there I was just wondering why they put 21,000, we just pay 1600 chairs at 16,000 from you.

Uh half in there.

Yeah, I mean I can stick up some time.

I could provide that question.

I have another question too.

So if here it shows us nine radios, and here both are all the showing 10.

That's the that's the fire.

That's the fire radio.

It's for locution paging.

One other question I had on the uh on their bid is see what's with the comprehensive removal of all the micro equipment on the Sebastian County site on the because once we move to Fort Smith, we'll decommission the Sebastian County PSAP once we're consolidated.

And Sebastian County has a microwave connection to the police department in order to then that's the spur that comes into the Sebastian County Simulcast, where you've got the four radios within the Sebastian County Simulcast.

The Fort Smith Police Department is the jump spot for Sebastian County.

So for Sebastian County to be connected to the simulcast, they have a microwave link from Sebastian County Sheriff to Fort Smith PD.

And then there's another second microwave link that goes from the police department to Crow Hill, and that's how it's set up in the assignment.

I actually physically taking the stuff off the roof.

As far as I'm aware, yeah, that's just decommissioning and work with music.

Well, and those microwaves are those microwaves are specifically designed and built for the location that there is.

If you look at the two microwaves within the city of Fort Smith PSAP, you've got the smaller microwave that handles the short distance across the street from the sheriff's department to the police department, but then you've got a much, much bigger transceiver because you've got an additional distance that goes to Crow Hill.

So that I just didn't understand that part.

I thought we were charging, I don't know how much you just tear the equipment down or something.

No, that's it's it's decommissioning, reprogramming and things.

Yes, the consolette.

So those were the consolettes are the backup component of the radios.

Okay.

If you figure the simulcast, in sunny days, everything's going great.

We use the core site in uh Crow Hill that then connects with the Little Rock core.

Okay.

All right.

That's how when you talk, we know you're talking, sheriff's offices talking, police departments talking that way.

The consolettes are the backup systems.

If we lose that connection with Little Rock, we then have to revert to our own steering of the radio channels within dispatch.

So we know if we're talking to you, if we're talking to fire, we're talking to police, we're talking to county.

All of that is designed around the backup systems in the event that we lose this power, right?

These are 20-year-old consulates.

They were installed in 2008.

And there was a possibility of 15% possibility that because of the age of these that they may not turn on at all.

So they've replaced them, and I have added the uh I've added two more consulates to this because these are going to be the updated APX consulates that increases our backup footprint because of the unified center.

Because we're going to have much more multi-agencies within that center.

I wanted to be sure that if they go down that we are able to communicate effectively, and this puts us in a better footprint for that.

So these three uh HDL5000s, that's how many concepts we have currently for back.

Yes.

And you said there's a 15% chance they won't have the trip, which I don't know where that number comes from.

That's what the that's what uh Jeremy Ransom was telling me.

Yeah, we said 15% seems obviously specific.

But if it's a 15% chance that they won't settle the trip, that means there's an 85% chance they will.

Sure.

So why would we be replacing them if there's an 85% chance that they'll work just fine if you because I wanted to increase that that footprint?

I wanted to be able to incur to ensure that we have the ability.

Well you're increasing it by one.

By two, okay, because this is going to increase the steering capabilities of that backup for multiple agencies, not just Sebastian County.

This is going to bring in Fort Smith Police.

Yes.

Well, we're relocating, yeah, three because buying four, so it means you're adding one to the capacity.

Correct.

And so my question, I guess, just from a physical perspective would be why we just buying one to increase our capacity, moving the three that are working now.

And if they don't make the trip, then you report.

Because we are currently we have one consulate that does not work currently in Fort Smith.

Right.

And because of the amount of um the increase of traffic that is going to be coming through Fort Smith, I felt it prudent to replace the dead console within the Fort Smith Peace app.

And this was the ability to do that.

That's what we're replacing that one.

Yes.

The three that are currently working at the county, why are we not just using them if they have an 85% chance of working just fine?

And it turns out they don't work just by this.

Well, because um AWN notified me three weeks ago that the systems that we are currently on has got to be T at DMA or phase two compliant, and we must do so before 2031.

Okay.

And so we have four to five years with which to replace all of the systems whatsoever.

We needed that backup capability because we don't know how it would operate under the load of a unified system.

Okay.

So we brought over this, we have uh the funds available to replace them, and I increased that uh ability because we have that consolidation expense available to that.

Uh I've met with CJ Ingle and verified that this indeed was a consolidation expense.

Uh and so then I took the opportunity to go ahead and replace them now rather than wait.

Because what's inevitably going to happen is in two or three years when we go back and replace the remainder of that, this will then won't need to be replaced in three or five years, so that's going to reduce the costs in three to five years when I come back before the board uh for the replacement of all of it.

This was an opportunity since we're going to have it tore down, we're going to have it rewired, we're going to have it reprogrammed.

I took this opportunity in order to improve our standing for future systems.

And funded.

And funded, and it was funded too.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

So we have a motion to approve the purchase request.

So moved.

Okay.

Second.

I'll second.

Okay.

Any more discussion?

Okay.

Uh, Chief Sizemore.

Yes.

Chief Dennis.

Yes.

Chief Clark?

Yes.

Mark Allen?

Yes.

Jeff Dingman?

Yes.

Tim Hearn?

Yes.

Steve Hopes?

Yes.

Doug Kinsler.

Yes.

Mike Conger.

Yes.

Okay.

Motion passes.

The next item on the agenda is simply the presentation.

I sent you all a draft.

At the January meeting, we talked about the possibility of having bylaws.

When the plan was submitted to the state of Arkansas in 2022, I believe, the original plan was the creation of a set of bylaws governing the policies and procedures of this body.

While the interlocal agreement establishes this body, it establishes the agreement between the city of Fort Smith and Sebastian County.

The bylaws are designed to solidify the procedures in which this operates.

Such things as what's a quorum, when we meet, that and it's it was based upon the information that was in the interlocal agreement.

This obviously I do not want this to be up for a vote today.

I just am placing this before you to review to suggest edits.

Perhaps you guys could do the same just to make sure that it all is in accordance with state law and with the interlocal agreement.

I met with uh our attorney Kobe Rowe last week, uh week before, and went over this with him to kind of understand the procedures uh that we need to implement with regard to budgeting and and procurement.

Kind of gives us a framework that would be um how the meetings and the board operates as a whole.

What are you looking at pass by laws?

When am I looking?

Yeah, just as soon as everybody is the the very next meeting that everybody thinks it's right.

I mean I've got how much a while a week.

And so uh mark it up for me.

Uh I didn't know if we're gonna mark it up, but at least we're gonna discuss it.

There just seems like you know that's uh because nonprofits operate so that files, right?

Sure.

I'll stay up on those and things like you know the secretary should usually call into the executive director.

Right.

And it automatically puts you on the board ex officio you don't have to name it yourself.

So it it got it's kind of go around on the bylaws, it's the kind of thing we that's pretty common now.

Uh and you can still leave your exhibit by three participation or even for other line.

Okay, and stuff like that.

I would love that insight then.

Um most of what I have done was based on our civil service commission.

It was based on uh other nonprofit.

I think I looked at the airport commission as well to kind of get the framework uh to build all of this.

And like I said, this is the first draft.

I would love your your feedback on that.

Would you maybe be willing to set this for discussion in June?

Or do you think the September meeting?

I could I mean while I think what would be healthy is that everything you know Carolina got it, put it in Word and add comments and then share it with the experts and keep on it, you know, with your name, I like your name word on the comments you made on it.

Okay, and then we can maybe get all those together and like legal, revisit it.

But I do think that when you call for a bylaw change, sure.

Okay.

And the and the list is in the nonprofit model.

It had a 10-day notice.

I think it's just a little housekeeping items over there.

That would be fantastic.

In fact, if you want to, if you want to start, uh, and then email me your red line copy.

Uh and what I'll do is I'll just send it in turn to the rest of you to go through, check, make your amendments, and so off and so forth.

That's why we're everyone can scrap the same thing.

Sure.

That'd be that would be fantastic.

Thank you.

No, no, no, no.

This would just be, you know, uh, to the discussion and to do exactly what you're talking about.

You know, I'm I'm presenting it to you guys as that first draft that that I was able to do uh based on my research, but your your experience with that would be of tremendous help uh to that and to this board.

So the last thing you do is pass bylaws are hard to work with.

Oh screw them.

And the way I uh understand this as well is once these bylaws are passed, I also have to have them approved by both the city board of directors and the quorum court.

So this will be coming time, Les.

Always always a good time.

All right.

So that's um all I have as far as the agenda is concerned.

I do have uh a little bit of announcement.

Um we are working on the trying to locate grants and funding uh for these radio projects.

I'm also uh still looking on uh possibilities on uh the new purpose-built facility.

Um I've said before that in this board when we voted that it was it was a temporary facility within the Fort Smith uh police department.

The ultimate goal obviously is to try to find us a standalone facility, and I've been researching ways about that.

While doing that, uh I was actually uh I reached out to Congressman Walmack uh and he will be in town on Tuesday, April the 7th from 10 30 to 11 30 and is going to be touring the facility.

So if you were around and would like to come talk to him about it, we would love to have you.

Um please let me know if you do plan to attend so I can make sure that we have some the room available.

Can you send us a I'll send you the details uh at for the end of the day today.

But put that on your calendar.

Uh we're gonna talk um the the policies that we're gonna look at right now.

Uh I'm sure you are all aware of the push on the federal level to change the um to change the status of our nine one one telecommunicators from that of clerical workers to first responders, public safety workers.

Uh that's uh has been uh approved in the Senate earlier this year um and I am going to be discussing this uh as well to back up the cause of APCO and Nina uh with that change.

I'm also going to uh discuss with him um our our needs as far as the new center, what this board is looking for and what we're trying to accomplish to uh use his insight with any type of resources that may have he may have available for us.

And so uh love to have you guys there uh if y'all would be able to be there.

Okay.

Uh also I will be before the City Board of Directors on Tuesday, March thirty first, giving them an update on the consolidation.

Um the very same thing that I'm gonna be talking to Congressman Womack, where we're at, where we need to be, uh so that we can start looking at at ways in which to get there.

Okay.

Uh does anybody have anything else they'd like to share?

Hearing none, do I have a motion to adjourn?

All right.

Thank you.

See you.

I will send last Thursday in June.