Hermiston Herald
May 27, 2003

Umatilla County resumes lead role

By Frank Lockwood
Staff writer

HERMISTON - Umatilla County Wednesday resumed the lead role in purchasing a $8.6-million, bi-county tactical radio system, but with caveats.

CSEPP Governing Board decided to discuss some issues secretly, in small meetings, rather than in full view of the public with a quorum present. And a disagreement between the counties concerning funding for a Computer Assisted Dispatch system remains unresolved.

Earlier this spring, Morrow County representatives had blamed Umatilla County Commissioner Dennis Doherty for dragging his feet on the 450-Megahertz tactical radio system project, and then Doherty, after a year of work on the project, left April's meeting of the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Planning Governing Board at half time, before his letter was read into the minutes. The letter said he would no longer head up the $9-million project.

Afterward, Citizens Advisory Commission member Bob Flournoy went so far as to say he believed that Doherty may have been using delays on the radio system as "a tool to gain something else," and others involved with the project made similar remarks. One of Doherty's complaints involved administrative fees, including a $500,000 "contingency fee," which the Federal Emergency Management Agency had apparently not agreed to release. Doherty had said there were other "issues," but would not air them in public.

Doherty went into seclusion concerning the 450 System contract, saying he would be unavailable for comment for two weeks. The 450 Mhz radio system project sat on ice. Equipment for Motorola Radio Systems, valued at perhaps $6 million or more, had sat in warehouses in Pendleton while Doherty reconsidered continuing his role as the project leader.

Requests for proposals that were due a month ago went untended. Morrow County commissioners fretted and CSEPP and Oregon Emergency Management tried to speculate on what might happen next or what solutions to seek if Doherty followed through on his threat to back out of the negotiations and planning.

Although state and local entities had touted the radios as essential to emergency preparedness, and a necessity prior to burning chemical agent, one member of the CAC went so far as to broach abandoning the 450-Mhz project and turning the money back over to the feds. But that would not work. It was too late to give the money back, emergency managers said.

On the other hand, with Doherty in seclusion concerning the matter, no amount of tugging and pulling by Morrow County would have been able to budge the project forward, either. Perhaps that is why there was standing room only at Wednesday's CSEPP Governing Board meeting, held at the PMCD Outreach Office on Main Street.

Morrow County CSEPP had explored options that could be pursued if Umatilla County actually withdrew from the project. "The preferred option has always been that Umatilla County complete the project," Morrow County's CSEPP representative Casey Beard said. Morrow County had done everything it could to facilitate getting the project done, Beard said, agreeing to give up floor space to house equipment, facilitating things, getting access to a fiber optic system to carry the 450-Mhz signal from Boardman to Heppner and providing access after hours and on weekends to facilitate moving the project forward as quickly as possible.

"Additionally, we have provided staff personnel and first responders at all meetings where there attendance was required to further the project," Beard told us.

On Umatilla County's end, the usual delegation of Umatilla County representatives at public meetings concerning the project had been somewhat curtailed during the lapse in Umatilla leadership, and a meeting, scheduled for April 25, apparently had not taken place.

Doherty briefed CSEPP managers from both counties Wednesday, and gave a more in depth presentation during the CSEPP Governing Board meeting, from 3 to 5 p.m. Doherty spoke of five problems associated with the construction of 12 microwave sites, all of which should be resolved, he said, before awarding the contract for the 450-Mhz radio system: (1) RFPs for site constructions, (2) leases for sites that still have not been funded. (3) issues with the

Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, (4) unnamed issues with Boardman and Heppner fire departments yet to be worked out (5) a new issue, the new computer system, IRIS, which could be related to the other four, he said. In addition, he mentioned a needs assessment which may be done, and evacuation planning, both of which have yet to be completed.

Also of concern to Doherty, some $300,000 a day in federal money is being used up over an unspecified issue involving Alabama, and first responders are unhappy because "they don't know what is going on" and what the problems were. Doherty also said there are unresolved warranty issues, and there is the administrative fee issue.

The issue that generated the most discussion, however, was not the administration fees which had been denied Umatilla County. That issues goes away if FEMA accepts a proposal which Doherty has introduced. What fired discussion was the mention of re-allocating some $450,000 money that has been identified for the 450 Megahertz system.

At one point, Doherty said, "On the 450 project side, Umatilla County would be happy to finish what it started. We would not condition our willingness to do that on getting our funding for CAD (Computer Assisted Dispatch)."

But Doherty also said he wanted to shift $200,000 of the $450,000 450 Mhz tactical radio money over to Computer Assisted Dispatch, a system that, among other things, would allow emergency responders to carry in their vehicles a hand-held computer that could give them visual modeling of a plume, identify locations of victims of accidents and so-on. The system would be useful both in an accident involving chemical weapons and also in more mundane types of incidents, and is a favored project of Doherty.

Morrow County representatives, with the continual tightening of resources, said they were concerned about re-channeling any of the 450 money; that might stop them from completing the 450 Megahertz system, they said.

And despite Doherty's promise not to link the 450 system to CAD, Morrow County Commissioner John Wenholz was apparently concerned about whether Doherty's wording left loopholes.

"Are you willing to move forward with the 450 right today? and then have our discussion between us" he asked several times in a variety of ways. "The CAD system, if we have to wait ... we can do that, but the 450 is what's in the fire right now. We need to get that out." Finally, members of the group asked Doherty to commit himself unequivocally to moving the 450 project ahead as quickly as possible, and without linking the 450 System to the CAD system. But Doherty indicated he had reservations pending decisions by other people.

Although the above items were brought up, Doherty still refused to discuss in a public forum how to resolve some of the issues, and there may be other issues which were not mentioned. "A few questions have come up that I think we could deal with in private," he said and likened the situation to raising children: "There are some questions you just don't want to ask them. ... I would rather some of those questions not be asked of me because I've had enough trouble keeping my comfort level up there. I don't know of anything that is really of a nature that should concern anybody.

It was suggested that a conference be held in about a week to discuss unspecified "unresolved issues." Doherty said he did not want to have that discussion out in public and an executive session was suggested.

The group discussed that and concluded that there were no legal grounds for an executive session either. They then decided to limited the size of the group to less than a quorum of the board, which whittles the group down to including just three of the seven board members.

Some non-board participants, including first responders, would be present for those discussions, it was decided.

The lone dissenter was Citizens Advisory Commission Chairman Bob Flournoy. "I don't understand why we have to have a special meeting with that limited number of members," he said.

There was silence for a few seconds. Then, "I disagree," Doherty said.
"I'd like to see us do (the discussion) in wide open meetings and we all participate," Flournoy replied. "We'd all have our say."

In the end, though, over Flournoy's objections, the group decided it will have those discussions in private