GREENFIELD — If the City Council approves money for new radios for the fire and police departments, Greenfield should be able to connect to the statewide radio system sometime early next year.
The council will do a first reading of the request from fire and police at its meeting Wednesday and will vote on the issue in January.
Greenfield Fire Chief Robert Strahan said if all goes well, $163,000 will be provided from the city’s free cash account to fund the capital project, which has been discussed by the two departments for more than a year.
“We have an outdated system, that if we don’t do this, will most likely cost us a lot more in the long run,” he said.
The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA is providing a $322,000 grant for the city to purchase lower-level radios, but Strahan said the city needs higher-level radios, so it is responsible for covering the costs of the upgrades — $163,000 more than what the state provides. The state money for the project has to be spent by the end of fiscal year 2021, so the radios and accessories must be purchased before June 30.
“This will allow us to merge with the rest of Franklin County to a statewide 800-megahertz radio system, also know as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Interoperable Radio System or CoMIRS,” Strahan explained. “The current radio system is regionally owned, and it is failing. Its design and equipment don’t meet the city’s needs any longer. Getting this help from the state is fortunate.”
Strahan said public safety officials across Franklin County have been discussing the problem for a while, and other towns, like Erving and Turners Falls, are joining the CoMIRS system, too. The state has already made the infrastructure upgrades to accommodate Franklin County users and will cover the initial costs for its towns to join.
“These radios will replace the radios we all carry, as well as the ones that are in all of our fire trucks and cruisers,” Strahan said.
Greenfield Police Chief Robert Haigh Jr. said the radios will not only allow Greenfield and other Franklin County departments to communicate with each other, but with the rest of the state, if they need to do so.
“Our system is failing and it’s going to be costly to replace,” Haigh said. “These new ones will last 20 or more years, be more robust and be easier to maintain.”
Strahan explained the city will exchange its 400-megahertz radio system for the new digital one. The biggest cost for the Fire Department will be the vehicle repeaters that are necessary to allow transmissions from deep in a building to be boosted substantially enough to allow communication outside of a building.
“That cost (for repeaters) is around $63,000 for five vehicles in the fire fleet,” he said. “If the city did this on its own, it could cost between $700,000 and $1 million just for the infrastructure and another $500,000 for the radios and equipment.”
Not only would the $163,000 from the city’s free cash account, along with the state grant funding, cover the cost of the radios for every officer, firefighter, cruiser and fire truck, but mics, batteries, repeaters, chargers and more.
“This will dramatically improve our radio capabilities,” Strahan said. “We’ll have more clarity and a much larger coverage area. It just makes sense to do this.”
Reach Anita Fritz at 413-772-9591 or afritz@recorder.com.