Everyone, the time is 2 03 PM.

And I call the September meeting of the Technology and Innovation Committee to order.

My name is Mario Castillo, City Council Member of District H.

I have the privilege of serving as chair of this committee, and I want to welcome council members Amy Peck, Councilmember Julian Ramirez, staff from Councilmember Panzarella's office, Councilmember Jackson's office, Councilmember Carter's office, Councilmember Salinas' office, Councilmember Alcorn's office, and um Councilmember or Vice Chair Martinez's office.

This committee, uh, as we continue developing to develop and have meetings, uh, we've had the opportunity to explore technology and innovation from several different perspectives from AI and the entrepreneurial ecosystem to workforce modernization, digital accessibility, and technology procurement.

One of the goals of the committee is to look beyond just technology itself, but also to understand how it improves the way city government operates and serves Houstonians.

And today's agenda will do that in two parts.

So we're going to look at technology supporting our public safety operations and the systems we use to communicate and also how we engage and respond to our constituents.

Our first agenda item will be the digital modernization of public safety communication and support, Motorola, with our chief information officer, uh Director Barry, and also Deputy CIO for public safety, Nicholas Carran.

Y'all welcome, join us, and uh the floor is yours.

Good afternoon.

Thank you, committee.

Committee

chair.

Uh just wanted to talk on uh some modernization efforts that we have going on with uh public safety, primarily public safety.

I will say that the communication systems that we use for public safety also provide services to organizations like Solid Waste and Public Works, among others.

Uh but this is a critical juncture where we have uh some end of life systems out there.

Uh we have some regular planned maintenance and upgrades uh to go on.

And in line with the Ernest and Young uh type of assessment, we have had multitude of disparate contracts and purchasing vehicles over the years.

Uh so this is an opportunity to consolidate those into one vehicle to improve our logistics and uh provide substantial savings for the city.

So uh with that, I'm gonna turn to our radio expert here, who's also our deputy CIO for public safety communications current.

Go

over.

Thank you.

Uh good afternoon, all uh, but before I get started, I did bring some toys to pass around.

So this these are representative, they are on one of the interoperability, sorry, they're on one of the interoperable channels that we use for all special events or uh specific incidents that may happen in the city of Houston.

Thanks.

We appreciate you bringing the interactive component to the committee.

It's

always fun to play.

Uh so uh good afternoon, all uh council members.

My name is Nick Kern.

I am the deputy CIO for the public safety uh the Hits Public Safety Communications Division, more commonly called radio when you hear when you hear about us.

Uh next slide, please.

So during this presentation, I will provide a brief summary of each of the listed amounts that you see here and the benefits that hits us negotiated into these contracts.

The contract is built for a 10-year period with five additional one-year renewals.

The one-year renewals provide the city the opportunity to renegotiate each of the listed services at that time.

In 10 years, we expect the cost and technology will have evolved significantly, and we will need to address to ensure providing the best possible value to the city.

The city's radio system has 46 physical RF sites.

Uh, but it we've actually uh there's some tower and building top sharing.

So there's actually 57 RF sites that we use.

Or

57 RF repeaters.

Uh there are over 22,000 active users on the city of Houston's radio system, and we actually see over 50,000 radios touch the radio system at any given time uh through interoperability.

The

city's radio system is actually part of a 75 plus county radio system that covers most of southeastern and eastern Texas.

And this contract will provide a vehicle for all city motorola purchases moving forward.

Next slide, please.

All

right, so why are we doing this, right?

Two terms leverage and high availability.

This contract will allow us to better leverage the city's scale when negotiating new services and equipment while continuing to provide high availability to the radio system for not just the city's first responders, but we actually provide that same service for about 40 other agencies across the metro area, including uh NASA, HISD, HCC, Bel Air, Pearlands, uh, just to name a few.

Shhh.

Uh

the easiest way to think about it is we're actually like the ATT of public safety radio, us in Harris County.

So currently many components of the radio system have either entered their end of life.

So if you look at the second section, you'll see the samulcast controllers and dispatch consoles.

Those are both the the second and third bullet.

And then, or will soon, and that's your tower site radio repeaters.

We actually have 608 licensed frequencies with the FCC across the radio system itself.