Recommendation to adopt resolution authorizing City Manager to execute a contract with Westnet, Inc., of Huntington Beach, CA, for the purchase and installation of equipment to upgrade the fire station alerting system, without advertising for bids, in an amount not to exceed $215,326; and Increase appropriations in the Capital Projects Fund (CP) in the Fire Department (FD) by $215,326. (Citywide)
Item 16. Report from Fire and Financial Management. Recommendation to adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute a contract with Westnet for the purchase and installation of equipment to upgrade the fire station alerting system without advertising for bids in an amount not to exceed $215,326 and increase appropriations in the Capital Projects Fund in the fire department by $215,326 citywide. This item requires two votes. Mr. West. Yes? Administrative Bureau Chief for the fire department, David Honey will give a brief report. Good evening, Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Members of the city council, the first in a learning system, was installed in the fire communication center and all fire stations in 2003. The system is the interface between the fire communication center and the fire stations and gives first responders of the fire department information detailed information about emergency calls in each response. Most stations are still using the original technology from the 2003 installation date, and since then, WESTNET has made available to its clients significant upgrades. And much like using older computer equipment that advances quickly. We're now using 12 year old technology and have the opportunity to upgrade that. The purchase also includes a request to purchase turn out timers, which would give. First responders a visual readout of the time elapsed since the call came in. And what that does is allows the. Firefighters to to meet response time goals. And get out of the station. Quicker and responding to the incident. The cost is. $215,326, and the funding source is a fire facility's impact fee. And that concludes my report, and I'm available for any questions. Thank you, sir. Councilmember, your Urunga. Do we have? A secondary of the motion is up and there we go. Councilmember Granger. I'm glad to see that the fire department is on top of this. It's obviously a big issue for the community when you're talking about response times, and I hope that this new piece of equipment really works for them. Thank you. Councilwoman Mongo. While I appreciate that it's time to upgrade. They haven't been upgraded since 2002 and ten years has gone by. I hope that when we're put into these situations with sole source agreements as councilmember prices motion brought before our Council several weeks ago stated, we really need to do. It would be helpful if there were additional options in terms of knowing had we been with a competitive company and what that upgrade cost would look like, because we obviously don't have any alternatives because we're in this position. But in spending almost a quarter of $1,000,000, it's important to know how far deep into this hole and how many how long it'll be until the next upgrade. So that if we do need to make $1,000,000, multimillion dollar transition out and we'll know what options we have, because I know all this is the premier system and I'm proud to have it here in Long Beach and L.A. County uses the same system. There are alternatives, and I want to make sure that our upgrade costs are not exceeding that of our neighbors. Councilman Andrews. Yes, I also would like to tackle that. But the biggest part about it, I think when we talk about this type of money and public safety, I don't think that there's anything we should ever want to turn around looking back on. We definitely want to upgrade anything we need. When we're talking about public service. And I totally will. Okay. This motion. Thank you. Is there any member of the public that wish to address the Council on item 16? We are only taking one motion on this item. Seeing nonmembers cast your vote. Motion passes nine zero.